David Wevill's work slowly fell from view in Britain, and indeed the USA, after the publication of 1973's Where the Arrow Falls, although a number of collections appeared in his native Canada: Other Names for the Heart (1985), Figure of Eight (1987), Child Eating Snow (1994), Solo With Grazing Deer (2001) and Asterisks (2007) were all published in Toronto. The newly-published work in those volumes is all gathered here, together with some uncollected poems.
"Wevill has attempted to bring to his work the best of many different poetries: the terseness of Spanish language poets such as Lorca, Neruda, Machado and Paz; the meditative depth and strength of spirit found in Central and East European verse; the violent, often surreal perceptions of his British contemporaries; and the sharp, vibrant images that span the gap between life and death that link him to the essential canon of Canadian poetry." -from the cover of Other Names for the Heart
"Among the poets of Atlantis - those who belong to both the Old World and the New, I have always thought of David Wevill as one of the finest in our time." - Nathaniel Tarn
David Wevill's work slowly fell from view in Britain, and indeed the USA, after the publication of 1973's Where the Arrow Falls, although a number of collections appeared in his native Canada: Other Names for the Heart (1985), Figure of Eight (1987), Child Eating Snow (1994), Solo With Grazing Deer (2001) and Asterisks (2007) were all published in Toronto. The newly-published work in those volumes is all gathered here, together with some uncollected poems.
"Wevill has attempted to bring to his work the best of many different poetries: the terseness of Spanish language poets such as Lorca, Neruda, Machado and Paz; the meditative depth and strength of spirit found in Central and East European verse; the violent, often surreal perceptions of his British contemporaries; and the sharp, vibrant images that span the gap between life and death that link him to the essential canon of Canadian poetry." -from the cover of Other Names for the Heart
"Among the poets of Atlantis - those who belong to both the Old World and the New, I have always thought of David Wevill as one of the finest in our time." - Nathaniel Tarn
David Wevill was born a Canadian in Japan in 1935, and was educated
in both Canada and England. He has lived in Burma and in Spain but
has made his home in Austin, Texas for the past forty years. While
resident in England in the 1960s and 1970s, he established a
substantial reputation as a poet, publishing four volumes between
1964 and 1974. He won prizes, was represented in all the major
anthologies, and was included in the renowned Penguin Modern Poets
series before his first full collection appeared. With his move
across the Atlantic, he fell from view in Britain, although his
work continued to be published in his native Canada. His main
publications are: Birth of a Shark (1964), A Christ of the
Ice-floes (1966), Firebreak(1971), Where the Arrow Falls (1973),
Other Names for the Heart (1985), Figure of Eight (1987), Child
Eating Snow (1994), Solo With Grazing Deer (2001). He has also
published translations of Fernando Pessoa and Ferenc Juhasz.
Associated in his early career with The Group, his work appeared in
A Group Anthology before being selected for the Penguin Modern
Poets series-where he shared a volume with David Holbrook and
Christopher Middleton. Important for the development of his early
work were Jungian theory and mid-century Spanish poetry, above all
Garcia Lorca, Neruda and Paz. As Martin Seymour-Smith observed,
"The Jungian 'search', an admittedly circular one, is Wevill's main
theme, and so his poetry needs to be read in its entirety to be
fully appreciated".
Shearsman Books issues the author's Selected Poems, Departures, in
2003, and again in 2013.
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