Tony Curtis

The Last Candles confirms Tony Curtis's stature as a poet. In it he develops his prize-winning narrative style, bringing a vast range of contemporary and historical perspectives into play in poems private and public about the two world wars and the revolutions in Russia and the Empire. There are poems, too, about visual art, a preoccupation of the author, with painting, sculpture and photography all prominent. And there are intimate poems about family and friends, including the much admired 'Thoughts from the Holiday Inn', his elegy for John Tripp which also traces the changing face of society in Wales. Throughout, these poems show the formal control, keen observation and honesty of feeling which mark Curtis as such "an interesting and unpredictable poet" (PN Review). The Last Candles is Tony Curtis's fourth full collection, the first since his successful Selected Poems (1986), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Tony Curtis is Professor of Poetry at the University of Glamorgan where he directs an MPhil in Writing. He has published 26 books, including nine poetry collections, including Heaven's Gate (2001). A selection of his poetry has recently been translated and published in Armenia. He is also the editor of several anthologies including After the First Death, a volume of war writing (2007).

The Last Candles confirms Tony Curtis's stature as a poet. In it he develops his prize-winning narrative style, bringing a vast range of contemporary and historical perspectives into play in poems private and public about the two world wars and the revolutions in Russia and the Empire. There are poems, too, about visual art, a preoccupation of the author, with painting, sculpture and photography all prominent. And there are intimate poems about family and friends, including the much admired 'Thoughts from the Holiday Inn', his elegy for John Tripp which also traces the changing face of society in Wales. Throughout, these poems show the formal control, keen observation and honesty of feeling which mark Curtis as such "an interesting and unpredictable poet" (PN Review). The Last Candles is Tony Curtis's fourth full collection, the first since his successful Selected Poems (1986), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.Tony Curtis is Professor of Poetry at the University of Glamorgan where he directs an MPhil in Writing. He has published 26 books, including nine poetry collections, including Heaven's Gate (2001). A selection of his poetry has recently been translated and published in Armenia. He is also the editor of several anthologies including After the First Death, a volume of war writing (2007).

In this book Tony Curtis, himself an award-winning poet, offers clear and positive help to students who are faced by a modern poem which puzzles and frightens them. How do we proceed to construct a critical response to a poem which may not rhyme, may not have metrical regularity, may not be written in verses or even have conventional punctuation? This book deals imaginatively and originally with such problems. It also provides helpful critical readings of many of the major poems of the post-war years, by poets such as Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, R S Thomas, Dannie Abse and William Carlos Williams.