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Deaths of the Poets
From Chatterton’s Pre-Raphaelite demise to Keats’ death warrant in a smudge of arterial blood; from Dylan Thomas’s eighteen straight whiskies to Sylvia Plath’s desperate suicide in the gas oven of her Primrose Hill kitchen or John Berryman’s leap from a bridge onto the frozen Mississippi, the deaths of poets have often cast a backward shadow on their work. The post-Romantic myth of the dissolute drunken poet – exemplified by Thomas and made iconic by his death in New York – has fatally skewed the image of poets in our culture. Novelists can be stable, savvy, politically adept and in control, but poets should be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive. Is this just a myth, or is there some essential truth behind that great poems only come when a poet's life is pushed right to an emotional knife-edge of acceptability, safety, security? What is the price of poetry? In this book, two contemporary poets undertake a series of journeys – across Britain, America and Europe – to the death places of poets of the past, in part as pilgrims, honouring inspirational writers, but also as investigators, interrogating the myth. The result is a book that is, in turn, enlightening and provocative, eye-wateringly funny and powerfully moving.
432 pages, Paperback
Published March 27, 2018
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About the author
Michael Symmons Roberts
27 books21 followersMichael was born in 1963 and spent his childhood in Lancashire, England before moving south with his family to Newbury in Berkshire in the early ‘70’s. He went to comprehensive school in Newbury, then to Oxford University to read Philosophy & Theology.
After graduating, he trained as a newspaper journalist before joining the BBC in Cardiff as a radio producer in 1989. He moved with the BBC to London, then to Manchester, initially in radio, then as a documentary filmmaker. His last job at the corporation was as Executive Producer and Head of Development for BBC Religion & Ethics, before he left the BBC to focus on writing.
His 4th book of poetry – Corpus – was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize for best collection, and the Griffin International Prize. His 6th collection - Drysalter - was the winner of the 2013 Forward Prize and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
He has previously received the Society of Authors’ Gregory Award for British poets under 30, the K Blundell Trust Award, and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize for his 2001 collection Burning Babylon. In 2007 he received a major Arts Council Writers Award.
His continuing collaboration with composer James MacMillan has led to two BBC Proms choral commissions, song cycles, music theatre works and operas for the Royal Opera House, Scottish Opera, Boston Lyric Opera and Welsh National Opera. Their WNO commission - The Sacrifice - won the RPS Award for Opera in 2008, and their Royal Opera House / Scottish Opera commission - Clemency - was nominated for an Olivier Award.
His work for radio includes A Fearful Symmetry - for Radio 4 - which won the Sandford St Martin Prize, and Last Words commissioned by Radio 4 to mark the first anniversary of 9/11. His first novel – Patrick’s Alphabet – was published by Jonathan Cape in 2006, and his second – Breath – in 2008. He is a trustee of the Arvon Foundation, and Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. In 2012 he was made a Fellow of the English Association, for services to the language arts.
He is married with three sons, and lives near Manchester. (source: http://www.symmonsroberts.com/about_l...)
After graduating, he trained as a newspaper journalist before joining the BBC in Cardiff as a radio producer in 1989. He moved with the BBC to London, then to Manchester, initially in radio, then as a documentary filmmaker. His last job at the corporation was as Executive Producer and Head of Development for BBC Religion & Ethics, before he left the BBC to focus on writing.
His 4th book of poetry – Corpus – was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize for best collection, and the Griffin International Prize. His 6th collection - Drysalter - was the winner of the 2013 Forward Prize and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
He has previously received the Society of Authors’ Gregory Award for British poets under 30, the K Blundell Trust Award, and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize for his 2001 collection Burning Babylon. In 2007 he received a major Arts Council Writers Award.
His continuing collaboration with composer James MacMillan has led to two BBC Proms choral commissions, song cycles, music theatre works and operas for the Royal Opera House, Scottish Opera, Boston Lyric Opera and Welsh National Opera. Their WNO commission - The Sacrifice - won the RPS Award for Opera in 2008, and their Royal Opera House / Scottish Opera commission - Clemency - was nominated for an Olivier Award.
His work for radio includes A Fearful Symmetry - for Radio 4 - which won the Sandford St Martin Prize, and Last Words commissioned by Radio 4 to mark the first anniversary of 9/11. His first novel – Patrick’s Alphabet – was published by Jonathan Cape in 2006, and his second – Breath – in 2008. He is a trustee of the Arvon Foundation, and Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. In 2012 he was made a Fellow of the English Association, for services to the language arts.
He is married with three sons, and lives near Manchester. (source: http://www.symmonsroberts.com/about_l...)
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March 3, 2017
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08dn2gj
Description: What is the cost of poetry? Must poets be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive? Or is this just a myth? In our new Book of the Week, Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley - both award winning poets themselves - explore that very question through a series of journeys across Britain, America and Europe.
From Sylvia Plath's desperate suicide in the gas oven of her Primrose Hill kitchen to John Berryman's leap from a bridge onto the frozen Mississippi, the deaths of poets have often cast a backward shadow on their work.
The post-Romantic myth of the dissolute drunken poet has fatally skewed the image of poets in our culture. Novelists can be stable, savvy, politically adept and in control, but poets should be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive. Is this just a myth, or is there some essential truth behind it: that great poems only come when a poet's life is pushed right to an emotional knife-edge of acceptability, safety, security?
A Portable Shrine: Today the poets explore the lives - and tragic deaths - of Thomas Chatterton and Dylan Thomas.
The Names of the Bridges: the lives - and suicides - of John Berryman and Sylvia Plath.
Poet Interrupted: the lives - and deaths - of Stevie Smith and Louis MacNeice.
The Burning of Some Idols: he lives - and reclusive deaths - of Emily Dickinson and Rosemary Tonks.
The life - and death - of eccentric poet W H Auden.
Description: What is the cost of poetry? Must poets be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive? Or is this just a myth? In our new Book of the Week, Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley - both award winning poets themselves - explore that very question through a series of journeys across Britain, America and Europe.
From Sylvia Plath's desperate suicide in the gas oven of her Primrose Hill kitchen to John Berryman's leap from a bridge onto the frozen Mississippi, the deaths of poets have often cast a backward shadow on their work.
The post-Romantic myth of the dissolute drunken poet has fatally skewed the image of poets in our culture. Novelists can be stable, savvy, politically adept and in control, but poets should be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive. Is this just a myth, or is there some essential truth behind it: that great poems only come when a poet's life is pushed right to an emotional knife-edge of acceptability, safety, security?
A Portable Shrine: Today the poets explore the lives - and tragic deaths - of Thomas Chatterton and Dylan Thomas.
The Names of the Bridges: the lives - and suicides - of John Berryman and Sylvia Plath.
Poet Interrupted: the lives - and deaths - of Stevie Smith and Louis MacNeice.
The Burning of Some Idols: he lives - and reclusive deaths - of Emily Dickinson and Rosemary Tonks.
The life - and death - of eccentric poet W H Auden.
June 7, 2018
"Some poets are so dead that it's hard to believe they ever lived"
Du britų poetai - Paul Farley ir Michael Symmons Roberts nusprendė patyrinėti poeto kulto, poeto mirties, jo šlovės, poeto gyvenimo ir mirties įtaką ir ryšį su poezija. Šioje knygoje jie leidžiasi į literatūrinę ir geografinę kelionę po poetų gyvenimo ir mirties vietas. Pradeda nuo Chattertono ir Keatso, o baigia W H Audenu ir Robertu Frostu.
Jie rašo ir apie poetus, kurie "live fast, die young", apie depresijos kamuojamus poetus, apie savižudžius, mirusius nuo alkoholizmo ir kt. (čia minimas ir Dylanas Thomas, ir Anne Sexton, ir Sylvia Plath), tačiau jie taip pa užkabina ir kitą spektro galą - poetus, kurie visą gyvenimą ramiai dirbo savo darbus ir mirė lovoje (na, arba ligoninėje) - pvz. Williamas Carlosas Williamsas, Marianne Moore ar Philipas Larkinas.
Knyga parašyta kandžiai, gyvai, joje daug įdomių faktų, citatų ir "pletkų" (pletkų mėgėjams tikrai patiks). Parašyta ji, tiesa, keistokai - daugiskaitos pirmuoju asmeniu, tas šiek tiek rzina. Erzina ir tas nuolatinis lakstymas iš vienos vietos į kitą - vienoje pastraipoje jie Anglijoje, kitoje - jau JAV, trečioje - Prancūzijoje. Knygoje nemažai pasikartojimų ir kartais ji ima nusibosti, tačiau vertinga kaip būdas susipažinti su kokiu 20 britų ir JAV autorių, susidaryti, kad ir nelygų, bet gana įdomų poezijos paveikslą. Aišku iš tos, nirūiosios, "morbid" pusės.
Autoriai stengiasi įminti mįslę - kas verčia poetus rašyti, kiek savo gyvenimo jie aukoja savo kūrybai, kaip kūryba iškreipia ar paveikia yvenimą, kas iš poeto tekstų ir šlovės lieka po mirties. Jokių aiškių atsakymų knygoje negausite, bet gausite daug klausimų ir medžiagos apmąstymams. to lyg ir pakanka.
Tiks visiems besidomintiems kūrybos ir rašymo psichologija, rašytojų biografijomis ir pan.
Du britų poetai - Paul Farley ir Michael Symmons Roberts nusprendė patyrinėti poeto kulto, poeto mirties, jo šlovės, poeto gyvenimo ir mirties įtaką ir ryšį su poezija. Šioje knygoje jie leidžiasi į literatūrinę ir geografinę kelionę po poetų gyvenimo ir mirties vietas. Pradeda nuo Chattertono ir Keatso, o baigia W H Audenu ir Robertu Frostu.
Jie rašo ir apie poetus, kurie "live fast, die young", apie depresijos kamuojamus poetus, apie savižudžius, mirusius nuo alkoholizmo ir kt. (čia minimas ir Dylanas Thomas, ir Anne Sexton, ir Sylvia Plath), tačiau jie taip pa užkabina ir kitą spektro galą - poetus, kurie visą gyvenimą ramiai dirbo savo darbus ir mirė lovoje (na, arba ligoninėje) - pvz. Williamas Carlosas Williamsas, Marianne Moore ar Philipas Larkinas.
Knyga parašyta kandžiai, gyvai, joje daug įdomių faktų, citatų ir "pletkų" (pletkų mėgėjams tikrai patiks). Parašyta ji, tiesa, keistokai - daugiskaitos pirmuoju asmeniu, tas šiek tiek rzina. Erzina ir tas nuolatinis lakstymas iš vienos vietos į kitą - vienoje pastraipoje jie Anglijoje, kitoje - jau JAV, trečioje - Prancūzijoje. Knygoje nemažai pasikartojimų ir kartais ji ima nusibosti, tačiau vertinga kaip būdas susipažinti su kokiu 20 britų ir JAV autorių, susidaryti, kad ir nelygų, bet gana įdomų poezijos paveikslą. Aišku iš tos, nirūiosios, "morbid" pusės.
Autoriai stengiasi įminti mįslę - kas verčia poetus rašyti, kiek savo gyvenimo jie aukoja savo kūrybai, kaip kūryba iškreipia ar paveikia yvenimą, kas iš poeto tekstų ir šlovės lieka po mirties. Jokių aiškių atsakymų knygoje negausite, bet gausite daug klausimų ir medžiagos apmąstymams. to lyg ir pakanka.
Tiks visiems besidomintiems kūrybos ir rašymo psichologija, rašytojų biografijomis ir pan.
August 12, 2017
A little repetitive in places and slightly uneven, but intriguing for the most part and an introduction to some poets I have yet to check out.
February 24, 2017
FRom BBC Radio 4 - Book of the week:
What is the cost of poetry? Must poets be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive? Or is this just a myth? In our new Book of the Week, Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley - both award winning poets themselves - explore that very question through a series of journeys across Britain, America and Europe.
From Sylvia Plath's desperate suicide in the gas oven of her Primrose Hill kitchen to John Berryman's leap from a bridge onto the frozen Mississippi, the deaths of poets have often cast a backward shadow on their work.
The post-Romantic myth of the dissolute drunken poet has fatally skewed the image of poets in our culture. Novelists can be stable, savvy, politically adept and in control, but poets should be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive. Is this just a myth, or is there some essential truth behind it: that great poems only come when a poet's life is pushed right to an emotional knife-edge of acceptability, safety, security?
Today the poets explore the lives - and tragic deaths - of Thomas Chatterton and Dylan Thomas.
Written and read by the authors
Abridged for radio by Lauris Morgan Griffiths
Produced by Simon Richardson.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08dn2gj
What is the cost of poetry? Must poets be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive? Or is this just a myth? In our new Book of the Week, Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley - both award winning poets themselves - explore that very question through a series of journeys across Britain, America and Europe.
From Sylvia Plath's desperate suicide in the gas oven of her Primrose Hill kitchen to John Berryman's leap from a bridge onto the frozen Mississippi, the deaths of poets have often cast a backward shadow on their work.
The post-Romantic myth of the dissolute drunken poet has fatally skewed the image of poets in our culture. Novelists can be stable, savvy, politically adept and in control, but poets should be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive. Is this just a myth, or is there some essential truth behind it: that great poems only come when a poet's life is pushed right to an emotional knife-edge of acceptability, safety, security?
Today the poets explore the lives - and tragic deaths - of Thomas Chatterton and Dylan Thomas.
Written and read by the authors
Abridged for radio by Lauris Morgan Griffiths
Produced by Simon Richardson.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08dn2gj
February 19, 2018
In Deaths of the Poets, Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts travel through the deaths of poets to consider the image of the poet as a dangerous vocation, where mortality seems to be the price paid for creation. They literally travel, indeed, around the death places of many major poets from Chatterton in the late eighteenth century to some who have died in the twenty-first, making the book part-travelogue, part literary history, and part-musing on being a poet.
It is a morbid whistle-stop tour in many ways, with the chapters organised by theme (and ‘theme’ is mostly related to their deaths) and thus jumping across time and place, particularly across the Atlantic. They concentrate on famous British and American poets writing in English, so their travelling features more than its fair share of New York (and a strange trip to my hometown thanks to John Clare). The book is, almost as a side effect, a useful way of gaining some knowledge of a lot of famous poets from the past two hundred years in a concise way.
More than that, the authors are trying to examine the image of the dying poet, the post-Chatterton post-Romantic of a poet going out in an often troubled, possibly drunken blaze. They cover poets who famously died young—John Keats being high on the list, also war poets and others—and those who actually lived out a fairly long life. The answer to the question ‘is it a myth?’ is inconclusive by the end, but it was never really a scientific endeavour.
As with many books that cover a lot of different bits of literary history, this one works well as a primer on the stories of a lot of big name poets, with the opportunity for those who know more about a writer to get frustrated at elements of their presentation. It is a reminder of our fascination with the lives of these notable few and the almost mythical position they can hold in cultural consciousness, without consideration of greater depth. However, maybe it needs to demythologise the figure of the poet a little more. As it points out, they’re just people who lived and died like anyone else.
It is a morbid whistle-stop tour in many ways, with the chapters organised by theme (and ‘theme’ is mostly related to their deaths) and thus jumping across time and place, particularly across the Atlantic. They concentrate on famous British and American poets writing in English, so their travelling features more than its fair share of New York (and a strange trip to my hometown thanks to John Clare). The book is, almost as a side effect, a useful way of gaining some knowledge of a lot of famous poets from the past two hundred years in a concise way.
More than that, the authors are trying to examine the image of the dying poet, the post-Chatterton post-Romantic of a poet going out in an often troubled, possibly drunken blaze. They cover poets who famously died young—John Keats being high on the list, also war poets and others—and those who actually lived out a fairly long life. The answer to the question ‘is it a myth?’ is inconclusive by the end, but it was never really a scientific endeavour.
As with many books that cover a lot of different bits of literary history, this one works well as a primer on the stories of a lot of big name poets, with the opportunity for those who know more about a writer to get frustrated at elements of their presentation. It is a reminder of our fascination with the lives of these notable few and the almost mythical position they can hold in cultural consciousness, without consideration of greater depth. However, maybe it needs to demythologise the figure of the poet a little more. As it points out, they’re just people who lived and died like anyone else.
October 19, 2019
Some of it was alright and some of it not so much. I think, for myself, that the authors were looking for the poets in all the wrong places. I mean I see that they wanted to find the last vestiges of great men (and a few women) and they seemed to be in the final places they lived or drew breath. But I think the best place to see and know where these fellow poets dwell is in the books that light up the imaginations of the reader. Even if not too many young readers now turn to these poets, and more than some I hadn't even heard of and wouldn't consider as fantastic as these men think, the poet remains with the reader. I don't think they did justice to the lingering memory of Dylan Thomas. Biographies are uneven territory, I get that, but even from his poems they were not fair to Dylan. There were a few truly inspired writing in this book, mostly spotty, but a fairly descent read.
June 2, 2018
actual: 3.5
i read this on holiday and overall liked it a lot!! the subject matter is really interesting and the writers are good at picking quotes and anecdotes to highlight their points while also not completely undoing the poet’s legacy - so i really appreciated that! and ofc there were a couple lines that made me laugh-exhale so kudos to them
BUT heres the stuff that bothered me:
- midway through i felt like they kinda just..lost steam? there wasn’t a lot of direction to it
- they started to jump poets in each chapter without actually going in-depth/giving any kind of background so if you dont know anything about some of these poets you will feel a little lost
overall though good read i enjoyed it given that it was my first literary non-fiction and maybe i’ll pick up more stuff in this genre?
i read this on holiday and overall liked it a lot!! the subject matter is really interesting and the writers are good at picking quotes and anecdotes to highlight their points while also not completely undoing the poet’s legacy - so i really appreciated that! and ofc there were a couple lines that made me laugh-exhale so kudos to them
BUT heres the stuff that bothered me:
- midway through i felt like they kinda just..lost steam? there wasn’t a lot of direction to it
- they started to jump poets in each chapter without actually going in-depth/giving any kind of background so if you dont know anything about some of these poets you will feel a little lost
overall though good read i enjoyed it given that it was my first literary non-fiction and maybe i’ll pick up more stuff in this genre?
February 9, 2020
An extremely well written, well worded and atmospheric account of these two poets' journey. I don't have much prior knowledge about the poets they selectively wrote about but it was really easy for me to collateral research the poets as I read about them through the book while discovering their respective poems/works along the way. This is why it has taken me close to two months to read this book. You will want to savour it slowly.
Farley and Roberts know their stuff and the immense respect they have for the poets they explore is evident. The writing reflects this.
And what is it they are writing about? They have a 'central question'; why does being a Poet carry that heavy stigma of depression and untimely or tragic death?
OK, so this is quite a morbid subject to research but the writers have a clear plan and they deliver their discoveries in the form of a travel diary, biography, and memoir format all in one. Lots of anecdotes and meeting people related to the poets they research, interview excerpts and 'walks down memory lane'. There is nothing morbid about their research other than perhaps the finer details of how each of the poets die, well yes they have to talk about that too.
There are very interesting concepts which they reveal, for example regarding the idea that poets are already 'framed posthumously' while they are alive, archiving their work as they go along for the inevitability that will one day take place.
The idea of 'latent inhibition' that describes a filter the brain possesses to keep you from being overwhelmed by a massive amount of sensory information, and how this filter is lifted in states of mental fragility allowing for new associations to be made. Thus raising the question about whether poets tend to be more mental fragile?
You will be introduced to poets from Keats, Plath and Berryman to Carlos Williams, Byron, Philip Larkin, Elizabeth Bishop and others. Their lifestyles, their fascination with subjects like death in their poetry, how they died and how that may have cast a shadow on the work they left behind.
The authors conclude by saying that whether or not being a great poet is synonymous with being jinxed, it seems that great poems need to be associated with dramatic themes like love, death and raw nature. For this, the poet needs to have a heightened sensitivity to these subjects and that this may come to them with risks. How else would they be able to reach those heights of emotions to write those 'great poems'?
Immensely interesting book!
Farley and Roberts know their stuff and the immense respect they have for the poets they explore is evident. The writing reflects this.
And what is it they are writing about? They have a 'central question'; why does being a Poet carry that heavy stigma of depression and untimely or tragic death?
OK, so this is quite a morbid subject to research but the writers have a clear plan and they deliver their discoveries in the form of a travel diary, biography, and memoir format all in one. Lots of anecdotes and meeting people related to the poets they research, interview excerpts and 'walks down memory lane'. There is nothing morbid about their research other than perhaps the finer details of how each of the poets die, well yes they have to talk about that too.
There are very interesting concepts which they reveal, for example regarding the idea that poets are already 'framed posthumously' while they are alive, archiving their work as they go along for the inevitability that will one day take place.
The idea of 'latent inhibition' that describes a filter the brain possesses to keep you from being overwhelmed by a massive amount of sensory information, and how this filter is lifted in states of mental fragility allowing for new associations to be made. Thus raising the question about whether poets tend to be more mental fragile?
You will be introduced to poets from Keats, Plath and Berryman to Carlos Williams, Byron, Philip Larkin, Elizabeth Bishop and others. Their lifestyles, their fascination with subjects like death in their poetry, how they died and how that may have cast a shadow on the work they left behind.
The authors conclude by saying that whether or not being a great poet is synonymous with being jinxed, it seems that great poems need to be associated with dramatic themes like love, death and raw nature. For this, the poet needs to have a heightened sensitivity to these subjects and that this may come to them with risks. How else would they be able to reach those heights of emotions to write those 'great poems'?
Immensely interesting book!
December 23, 2024
This book, its title riffing on Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, is all about how various 19th- and 20th-century poets dear to the authors died. It kicks off from Thomas Chatterton, the 18th-century wunderkin who poisoned himself with arsenic and inspired the classic painting that adorns the book’s cover. Deaths of the Poets is not just a list of biographical facts but a travelogue: Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts traveled to the places that these poets spent their last years and expired.
All of their poets selected here wrote in English and, with the exception of two who died on the European continent, met their end in the UK or the USA. The poets range from highly canonical (Byron, Dylan Thomas) to somewhat obscure even for modern poetry lovers (Peter Riley, John Clare). Their deaths range from quick and tragic (suicide John Berryman, Robert Lowell who died from a heart attack in a cab) to long illness or simple old age (Rosemary Tonks after decades of reclusion, Wallace Stevens).
This was an entertaining enough read, but the authors’ meditations on the tragic lot of the poet start to become repetitive. Much of the book called for tighter editing. At the same time, some accounts are very brief and leave out details that many readers would want to know, and it feels like one is whisked on to yet another poet just as the story gets interesting.
All of their poets selected here wrote in English and, with the exception of two who died on the European continent, met their end in the UK or the USA. The poets range from highly canonical (Byron, Dylan Thomas) to somewhat obscure even for modern poetry lovers (Peter Riley, John Clare). Their deaths range from quick and tragic (suicide John Berryman, Robert Lowell who died from a heart attack in a cab) to long illness or simple old age (Rosemary Tonks after decades of reclusion, Wallace Stevens).
This was an entertaining enough read, but the authors’ meditations on the tragic lot of the poet start to become repetitive. Much of the book called for tighter editing. At the same time, some accounts are very brief and leave out details that many readers would want to know, and it feels like one is whisked on to yet another poet just as the story gets interesting.
July 4, 2019
What a long and enjoyable read.
Not only am I a little more familiar with a few poets' names, I'm also a little more learned on the lives and deaths of some of those poets. I didn't take notes while I was reading, and my memory is atrocious, so I can't say any chapter or comment particularly sticks out more than any of the others, but I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book and will probably reread it in the future when I've read some more of the poets they referred to. Already an avid Micheal Symmons Roberts fan, in excited to read some of Paul Farley, and would love to read their other collaborative work.
Not only am I a little more familiar with a few poets' names, I'm also a little more learned on the lives and deaths of some of those poets. I didn't take notes while I was reading, and my memory is atrocious, so I can't say any chapter or comment particularly sticks out more than any of the others, but I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book and will probably reread it in the future when I've read some more of the poets they referred to. Already an avid Micheal Symmons Roberts fan, in excited to read some of Paul Farley, and would love to read their other collaborative work.
January 2, 2025
What is it about poetry that invites us to think of death so synonymously? It’s true that poets always seem closer to the fact of their own mortality than most, but perhaps that is just because they are more likely to give voice to it. I’m not sure either of these poets settle the matter whilst on their pilgrimage, but it made for an interesting and thought provoking journey
May 29, 2021
Amazing book. You need to be able to deal with it though. Trigger warnings include suicide, alcoholism, abuse.... the greatest hits of tortured souls. I'd you can do that, this book has major rewards.
November 13, 2022
For hardcore poetry fans, great stories of auden, rosemary tonks, lowell, stevie smith. My only complaint is the way it jumps around (which is to be expected), but worth reading alongside your usual novel/poetry reads.
January 3, 2020
The best book I read in 2019. Beautifully written by two poets and I learned a lot about my favourite dead poets. Highly recommended. I think I'll read it again
December 30, 2023
Good read detailing the life’s and deaths of some of the world’s greatest poets. Proves the point that for some the manner of their deaths is as well remembered as their lives.
March 7, 2017
I enjoyed this. I like the idea of tortured genius. I even didn't mind it was about poets. I still can't 'get' poetry.
February 28, 2025
This was an inspiring read!
Afterwards (or actually while still reading it), I picked up maaaany poetry collections. I had known most of the poets mentioned by name, but I had not read their poetry.
Even though I like poetry, I hadn't dared to pick up the collections. This book motivated me and just because of that, it deserves a good rating!
After a bit, it felt a bit schematic. Always 2 main poets per chapter.
I was also wondering, how much of it was the real story of their travelling and how much self-creation of the authors.
I recommend it.
Afterwards (or actually while still reading it), I picked up maaaany poetry collections. I had known most of the poets mentioned by name, but I had not read their poetry.
Even though I like poetry, I hadn't dared to pick up the collections. This book motivated me and just because of that, it deserves a good rating!
After a bit, it felt a bit schematic. Always 2 main poets per chapter.
I was also wondering, how much of it was the real story of their travelling and how much self-creation of the authors.
I recommend it.
March 31, 2017
Another fascinating non fiction read and with poets I've both known of and been introduced to for the first time. The mix of travel book and history albeit around death is a wonderful thing.
Read
May 16, 2017Just really boring
Read
August 15, 2017Well, this book is mainly about the wasted lives of poets (only joking).
Besides the decay of poets and writers the book reveals an abundance of information about the lives of popular poets like Keats, Shelley and Byron as well as as john Berryman and Thom Gunn or Frank O'Hara. It shows how poets struggle with their lives and how the way of their lives became the source of their poems. Great book for all who are interested in english poetry.
Besides the decay of poets and writers the book reveals an abundance of information about the lives of popular poets like Keats, Shelley and Byron as well as as john Berryman and Thom Gunn or Frank O'Hara. It shows how poets struggle with their lives and how the way of their lives became the source of their poems. Great book for all who are interested in english poetry.
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