Harm

by Alan Jenkins

The poems in this, Alan Jenkin's third collection, speak of the harm done and suffered - most frequently in the name of love - in the course of lives gone adrift among lost causes, chance meetings and missed chances. A new directness and simplicity, and throughout, a raw urgency of personal feeling, inform a voice that is as resourceful as in Jenkin's earlier volumes, and continues to salvage a 'fugitive lyricism' (as one reviewer put it) from harsh and dissonant realities. 'By turns jocular, disquieting, sexy and inventive'-PETER READING, SUNDAY TIMES 'Jenkins' poetry is exhilarating. . . It is charged with erotic energy, rage, sorrow and confusion'-TLS 'Stylish, Savage, unforgiving'-HUGO WILLIAMS, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Jenkins has a restless following his poetry gives his readers a rocky ride, but also a rewarding one. '-PETER PORTER, OBSERVER.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published March 27, 1994

Reviews

[Mark Papa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forward Prize winner though it is, this collection left me cold. Caravaggio: Self-Portrait with Severed Head was a standout highlight for me.