To the War Poets

Greening John

"In To the War Poets" John Greening sends dispatches across the decades. In a sequence of verse letters he addresses the poets of the First World War directly, making connections yet always aware of distance: "No larks, / just the passing of traffic". Greening explores "Englishness", but also, in his translations from German poets, goes beyond it. From the discovery of the Sutton Hoo burial in 1939 to the security forces' shut-down of Heathrow airport in 2006, the presence or threat of conflict underlies Greening's precise, unsentimental writing.

About the Author

John Greening was born in 1954 and studied at the universities of Swansea, Mannheim and Exeter. He reviews for the "TLS" and has won several major honours including an Arvon Prize, the Bridport Prize, a Cholmondeley Award, a Hawthornden Fellowship and a Scottish Arts Council Award. He has written twelve poetry collections, studies of British and Irish poets, and the recent "Poetry Masterclass" (2011).

Reviews

"So to conclude calamity in rest'. In his powerful new collection, John Greening opens lines of communication with poets of the Great War, bridging a century with heart-work of immediacy, economy and humanity" – Penelope Shuttle

"Delightfully alert to connections and intersections, to historical ironies... [Greening is] a serious (but never excessively solemn) poet, who cares about both 'facts' and ideas and makes his poetry out of the interpenetration of the two" – Glyn Pursglove

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