For the Living

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Author photo © Melanie Rein
	Richard Berengarten For the Living Selected Writings 1: Longer Poems 1965-2000
	Search for a word or phrase in this book … Biographical note: Richard Berengarten was born in London into a family of musicians. He has lived in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Croatia and the USA. He now lives in Cambridge, where he is a Bye-Fellow at Downing College. A former Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, he has published more than 25 books. BIC Basic EAN13: 9781844714568 ISBN: 9781844714568 Author: Richard Berengarten Title: For the Living Series: Salt Modern Poets Product class: BB Language: eng Audience: General/trade BIC subject category: CTCH1 Publisher: Salt Publishing Pub date: 23-Nov-08 Extent: 240pp Height: 216 mm Width: 140 mm Thickness: 22 mm Weight: 360 gms Supplier: Gardners Books Supplier: Ingram Book Group Supplier: Inbooks (James Bennett) Availability: NP Price: GBP 14.99 Price: USD 26.95 Rights: World See also Richard Berengarten The Blue Butterfly Richard Berengarten The Manager Richard Berengarten In a Time of Drought Richard Berengarten Under Balkan Light	See larger image HARDBACK 20% off at the UK Bookstore! ~~£14.99~~ £11.99	Short description/annotation: For the Living is a selection of the longer poems of Richard Berengarten, written between 1965 and 2000. This edition includes the never-before published ‘Day Estate’, a withering indictment of Thatcherism and its legacy. Main description: This revised first volume of Selected Writings by Richard Burns consists of longer poems written between 1965 and 2000, in Greece, Italy, England and Yugoslavia. While some poems, like ‘Avebury’ and ‘Croft Woods’, have their focal points in a recognisably English landscape and consciousness, there is no insular limitation on the matter. Burns has written: “I would rather think of myself as a European poet who writes in English than as an ‘English’ poet.” The range and breadth of this ambitious collection confirm Burns’ place in the European late modernist mainstream. The predominant concerns are love, vision and justice. Oppression is confronted and defeated. Eros is celebrated. The voice of the Other is ever-present. Personal relations and integrities are affirmed. The keynote is magnanimity. The selection opens with ‘The Easter Rising 1967’, a poem against dictatorship, written during the military takeover in Greece. Involvement with Greece resurfaces in ‘Black Light’, a sequence dedicated to the memory of George Seferis. Also featured are poems set in former Yugoslavia, including ‘The Voice in the Garden’ dedicated to Burns’s friend Ivan V. Lalić. Other poems are rooted in family and filial relations ( ‘May’), in Cabbalistic Judaism (‘The Rose of Sharon’, ‘Tree’), in Breton and Welsh tradition (‘Ys’), in art (‘Transformations’, ‘Against the Day’), and in post-Holocaust consciousness and ecology (‘Angels’). For the Living includes the award-winning poems ‘The Rose of Sharon’ (Keats Memorial Prize) and ‘In Memory of George Seferis I’ (Duncan Lawrie Prize), as well as a range of previously unpublished pieces. Notes provide dedications, dates and places of composition. For the Living is the first volume in his Selected Writings ‘The Rose of Sharon’ won the Keats Memorial Poetry Prize and ‘In memory of George Seferis (1)’ received the Duncan Lawrie Prize. Richard Berengarten used to be known as RICHARD BURNS. With the publication of this book, he now repossesses the family name of his father, the cellist and saxophonist Alexander Berengarten. Table of contents: Contents Editorial Note Acknowledgments The Easter Rising 1967 Actaeon Avebury Angels Ode on the End of the Third Exile Naming the Creatures The Offence of Poetry The Rose of Sharon Ys Transformations In Memory of Frances Richards, Painter Dawn Awakening Midsummer Memory Two Lakes Tree Day Estate Matins Lauds Lord's Prayer Antiphons Common Octaves Sexts: Unpunctuated Anthem Suffrage Angelical Salutations Nones Evensong Compline Vigil: Privileged Octaves Black Light In Memory of George Seferis (I) The Voice Soulmonger Volta Cicadas (I) Only the Common Miracle Salt Neolithic Song, For Petro Shell Cicadas (II) In Memory of George Seferis (II) Ambassador (An Old Man in the Harbour) May Against the Day Croft Woods Vasilissa Postscript Notes View excerpt as PDF: Click here to view a sample (88 KB) Excerpt from book: from Tree … tree of spirits tree of secrets buried in heaven to flower through veins arteries nerves capillary tree meristematic your tap root drowned in infinite skies I descend up and ascend down … nurturing moss and lichen mould gathering mushroom tree mother of orchids and mistletoe tree of Dryads tree of Druids where the spider weaves and the rooks nest and the bat flitters and the kestrel waits tree of lives of consciousness generative language tree speaking names telling stories histories transformations depthless tree deathless tree tree of comrades of airs I breathe unpruned untameable immortal tree overarching freedom tree tree of love tree of justice human rainbow blossoming Unpublished endorsement : These poems are humane, passionate and wonderfully varied; at once visionary and restless, Burns is one of those fearless poets whose utter trust in honesty and clarity is, at times, breathtaking, at times heartbreaking. His work has been under-appreciated for too long; surely this collection will remedy that accident of time and place. John Burnside Unpublished endorsement : For the Living contains vital work – vital both because the poems are important, and because they are full of life. Richard Burns’ contribution to British poetry has been hard for many readers to judge these past 30-odd years: small presses, scattered publications, most of them out of print. But, all of a sudden, here they are together – the longer works of a poet of real distinction. Tony Frazer Review quote: ‘I'm not a prophet, but I believe you have written a great poem.’ OCTAVIO PAZ on ‘Avebury’ Review quote: ‘A miracle of pattern and variation, sustained on so high a pitch that it is impossible to consider one poem better than another. A blazing black unity.’ KIMON FRIAR on ‘Black Light’ Review quote: ‘Poised between Blake and Mandelstam, Berengarten has the best chance to strike greatness.’ THE JERUSALEM POST on ‘Angels’ Review quote: ‘An affirmation and celebration of a miraculous living being.’ STEFANO MARIA CASELLA on ‘Tree’ Review quote: ‘Croft Woods displays Burns at the height of his transcendent powers.’ SIMON JENNER