The Gifts of Fortune
eBook - ePub

The Gifts of Fortune

  1. 98 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Gifts of Fortune

About this book

The poems in The Gifts of Fortune, Peter McDonald's seventh book of poems, cover a spectrum of personal history. They go to Belfast, Oxford, and further afield; in time they visit the poet's pasts, his now, his possible futures. Autobiographical detail abounds: McDonald's experiences (as a working class boy in Belfast, who dreams of leaving, and a middle-aged Oxford don, who dreams of going back) are filtered through a deep instinct for poetic tradition. At the heart of the book are two sequences: one, 'Mud, ' in which family, professional, and literary histories are combined in strictly formal, but personally unguarded, reflections on poetry, class, and privilege; and another, 'Blindness, ' where a series of ten line units test poetic form to (and beyond) breaking-point, in a meditation on family and suffering, disappointment and hope. Other poems return to themes of wealth and poverty, love and loss, and the alienation and puzzlement of age. Throughout the book, form is ghosted by the formless, hovering just beyond the frame; and Fortune vies with Fate, quite another force.

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Yes, you can access The Gifts of Fortune by Peter McDonald in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & European Poetry. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Contents
  5. Weaveley Furze (1)
  6. The drovers’ road
  7. The gifts of fortune
  8. Cinematic
  9. Aventine
  10. At the end of the world
  11. Lessons
  12. Anatomy
  13. Mystery
  14. Success
  15. Ambition
  16. Career
  17. Conundra
  18. Cashless
  19. Double name
  20. A prospect
  21. Silent
  22. Crab-apples
  23. Myth
  24. At Newcastle Island
  25. The seals
  26. To fall into the hands
  27. Mud
  28. Club Bar
  29. Sooth
  30. Muse
  31. The other side
  32. Unpacking the Michelangelo
  33. In billions
  34. The party
  35. The rooms
  36. Guinea
  37. Gilnahirk Road
  38. Crossing the line
  39. Finity
  40. Blindness
  41. Woodstock
  42. Breakage
  43. Finis amorum
  44. The stork
  45. Weaveley Furze (2)
  46. Notes and acknowledgements
  47. About the Author
  48. Also by Peter McDonald
  49. Copyright