A Shorter Life by Alan Jenkins
In his most eloquent and formally satisfying collection to date, Alan Jenkins plays a series of powerful and haunting variations on love and loss. The themes that run through our lives are relatively few, for all that they sound subtly different to each of us, with their own rich freight of places and faces. In poems that pay homage to what is unique to his own past experience - a suburban fifties upbringing, a heady youth of rebellion and exploration - Jenkins reminds us vividly of what is experienced by us all. The search for love (or failing that, sex), the passing of time and the inevitability of pain and grief, the struggle for transcendence against our awareness of limitation: these are the things that can suddenly seem to compose a life - a life not so much reduced to essentials as seen in its passionate essence, a 'shorter' life. Though not in any formal sense a sequel, this poignant book recapitulates some of the motifs of The Drift (2000) and earlier volumes, to offer an extended meditation on memory and recurrence, and a statement - compelling, candid, sorrowful and subtle - of life's beauty and brevity.
Alan Jenkins is Deputy Editor of the Times Literary Supplement and a prize-winning poet. His 1994 collection, Harm, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection and, in 2000, The Drift was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was short-listed for the T. S. Eliot Prize. He lives in West London
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780701178086 |
| ISBN 10 | 0701178086 |
| Title | A Shorter Life |
| Author | Alan Jenkins |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2005-03-03 |
| Number of pages | 64 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Forward Poetry Prize: Best Collection 2005 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |