Strange Meetings

by Harold Monro

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Paperback

First published October 2, 2003

About the author

Harold Edward Monro was a British poet, the proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London which helped many famous poets bring their work before the public.

Monro was born in Brussels, but his parents were Scottish. He was educated at Radley and at Caius College, Cambridge. His first collection of poetry was published in 1906. He founded a poetry magazine, The Poetry Review, which was to be very influential. In 1912, he founded the Poetry Bookshop in Bloomsbury, London, publishing new collections at his own expense and rarely making a profit, as well as providing a welcoming environment for readers and poets alike. Several poets, including Wilfred Owen, actually lodged in the rooms above the bookshop. Monro was also closely involved with Edward Marsh in the publication of Georgian Poetry.

Although homosexual, he married before World War I, but he and his wife separated and were divorced in 1916. In 1917, he was called up for military service, a very unhappy experience for him. His health soon gave way, and he returned to run the Poetry Bookshop in 1919. He was not a mainstream war poet, but did occasionally write about the subject. In 1920, he married his long-standing assistant, Alida Klementaski. Their relationship seems to have been an intellectual rather than a physical one. Monro continued to suffer from alcoholism, which contributed to his early death.

Reviews

[rogue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad poems, but somehow short of greatness. You can hear in these poems the rhythms that you can hear in T.S. Eliot. Here and there there is work that is just short of being really really good. Some lines are transcendent, and yet as a whole the work falls apart. Why is that? Harold Monro in his locked room is too much of a prude and too ashamed of himself to really say what he means. Unable to communicate and unable to adequately capture the failure of communicating. Unable to connect with us, and unable to make us truly care about his loneliness. Despite his lack of success as a poet, Harold Monro was still a great man, and should be credited for his hard work championing the work of others.

[LeeAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a connoisseur of poetry, so I can't speak to the quality of the poems in this book. What I can say is that Harold Monro is a poet that speaks to something very deep in me. His animistic sense of his surroundings is charming, but more than that, profound. I love these poems.