The Stairwell

The Stairwell

In The Stairwell, his tenth collection, Michael Longleyâ€™s themes and forms reach a new intensity. The second part of the book is a powerful sequence of elegies for his twin brother, Peter, and the dominant mood elsewhere is elegiac. The title poem begins: Â“I have been thinking about the music for my funeral. . .â€ The two parts are also linked by Homer. Longley is well-known for his Homeric versions, and the Iliad is a presiding presenceÂ—both in poems about the Great War and in the range of imagery that gives his twinâ€™s death a mythic dimension. Yet funeral music can be life-affirming. Longley has built this collection on intricate doublings, not only when he explores the tensions of twinship. The psychologically suggestive word Â“stairwellâ€ is itself an ambiguous compound. These poems encompass birth as well as death, childhood and age, nature and art, the animal and human worlds, tenderness and violence, battlefield and Â“homeland.â€ The Stairwell is a richly textured, immensely moving work. Michael Longley has the rare ability to fuse emotional depth with complicated artistry: to make them, somehow, the same thing.
Country USA
Brand Wake Forest University Press
Manufacturer Wake Forest University Press
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 9781930630697
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781930630697
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Wake Forest University Press
Manufacturer	Wake Forest University Press
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	9781930630697
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781930630697
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

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