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Legion
In a series of momentary and abruptly discontinuous images, laconic despatches from a warzone, a fictional testimony begins to take shape - an array of different voices giving witness to war and the consequences of war. In its formal mastery of the poetic sequence, Legion is a distinguished successor to David Harsent's previous collection, Marriage.
- GenresPoetry
64 pages, Paperback
First published August 18, 2005
About the author
David Harsent
40 books8 followersDavid Harsent is an English poet and TV scriptwriter. Harsent also writes crime fiction novels under the pseudonyms David Lawrence, David Pascoe and Jack Curtis. He has published eleven collections of poetry which have won several literary prizes and awards. Legion won the Forward Prize for best collection 2005 and was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot and Whitbread Awards.
He lives with his wife, the actress Julia Watson and their daughter in London.
He lives with his wife, the actress Julia Watson and their daughter in London.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 2, 2026
maybe it’s because of all the things happening around us but I didn’t want to read about war now
February 21, 2016
All the cliches that heap up around war came to me as I read the 'Legion' section: harrowing, savage, chaotic devastation...
The dust-jacket captures the sensation well "the title-sequence...seem[s] to lock the reader into the crisis along with the protagonists." One feels the excruciating entrapment of war, a permanent state of fear and crisis in which nebulous forces barely distinguishable from the landscape and the weather encroach upon the security of all. Much of the time, we see this world through the eyes of what seem like a legion, an army who are themselves party to the destruction witnessed - some with empathy, others exploiting their power; other voices are heard - fragmented dispatches, lists of the dead, choruses of the vulnerable, many ordinary lives trying to carry on. Harsent deploys his postmodern dramatic machinery to stunning effect.
The 'Stelae' were interesting - an account of Dartmoor's ancient territorial markers, fragments of language that stand like the 'stelae' as signposts to a world that has worn away.
Part III is less coherent - more of a traditional poetry collection where each poem conjures its own world. The wit is a lot more quickfire and caustic, and often sexual though in a sordid way. Harsent has a Beckett-like penchant for 'lessness' - looking at the world as everything is taken away to look and see what 'essence' or nothingness might remain. A dark read.
The dust-jacket captures the sensation well "the title-sequence...seem[s] to lock the reader into the crisis along with the protagonists." One feels the excruciating entrapment of war, a permanent state of fear and crisis in which nebulous forces barely distinguishable from the landscape and the weather encroach upon the security of all. Much of the time, we see this world through the eyes of what seem like a legion, an army who are themselves party to the destruction witnessed - some with empathy, others exploiting their power; other voices are heard - fragmented dispatches, lists of the dead, choruses of the vulnerable, many ordinary lives trying to carry on. Harsent deploys his postmodern dramatic machinery to stunning effect.
The 'Stelae' were interesting - an account of Dartmoor's ancient territorial markers, fragments of language that stand like the 'stelae' as signposts to a world that has worn away.
Part III is less coherent - more of a traditional poetry collection where each poem conjures its own world. The wit is a lot more quickfire and caustic, and often sexual though in a sordid way. Harsent has a Beckett-like penchant for 'lessness' - looking at the world as everything is taken away to look and see what 'essence' or nothingness might remain. A dark read.
July 14, 2014
Harsent is a good poet and oh, he's got all the images down but to me it seemed as if that made him forget the actual destruction of war, the emotions.
Favourite bit, to keep (last part from Barlock):
I had plaster in my hair that made my whole scalp itch,
he looked like hell, lip bitten through, a raw patch
on the heel of his hand from hammering home the latch.
For an hour or more we could hear the phone and the fax
cross-ringing upstairs: that, and the chiming of clocks
with the incoming overlapping. I made a bed of sacks
and lay down with him, my hand tucked tight between his legs.
I dozed and dreamed of our place in the south, the beach,
the dunes and pines, the walk between rocks
that took us to the village, no more, really, than a few shacks,
a taxi rank, a bar, where he liked to hang out with the jocks, the jacks
of all trades, patriots, punks, argufiers, the one-time rich,
two-timers, time-servers: salt of the earth, he'd say. I said the dreggs.
Favourite bit, to keep (last part from Barlock):
I had plaster in my hair that made my whole scalp itch,
he looked like hell, lip bitten through, a raw patch
on the heel of his hand from hammering home the latch.
For an hour or more we could hear the phone and the fax
cross-ringing upstairs: that, and the chiming of clocks
with the incoming overlapping. I made a bed of sacks
and lay down with him, my hand tucked tight between his legs.
I dozed and dreamed of our place in the south, the beach,
the dunes and pines, the walk between rocks
that took us to the village, no more, really, than a few shacks,
a taxi rank, a bar, where he liked to hang out with the jocks, the jacks
of all trades, patriots, punks, argufiers, the one-time rich,
two-timers, time-servers: salt of the earth, he'd say. I said the dreggs.
September 14, 2015
It grew on me
July 3, 2016
Didn't get on with this very well. struggled to read it. whether that was me or the work, who knows?
it was certainly interesting...
it was certainly interesting...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews