- 92 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- 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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Information
Table of contents
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Weaveley Furze (1)
- The drovers’ road
- The gifts of fortune
- Cinematic
- Aventine
- At the end of the world
- Lessons
- Anatomy
- Mystery
- Success
- Ambition
- Career
- Conundra
- Cashless
- Double name
- A prospect
- Silent
- Crab-apples
- Myth
- At Newcastle Island
- The seals
- To fall into the hands
- Mud
- Club Bar
- Sooth
- Muse
- The other side
- Unpacking the Michelangelo
- In billions
- The party
- The rooms
- Guinea
- Gilnahirk Road
- Crossing the line
- Finity
- Blindness
- Woodstock
- Breakage
- Finis amorum
- The stork
- Weaveley Furze (2)
- Notes and acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Also by Peter McDonald
- Copyright
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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 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.