Words From the Wall

by Adam Thorpe

These remarkable poems are despatches from the edges of from the remote coast of northern Iceland where tree-trunks and dead whales lie beached, to the furthest outposts of the Roman empire in the title poem From the very limit of the world,/Flavius sends you greetings, my lord. The collection is concerned with borders and brinks the liminal spaces where distinctions blur between outer and inner, known and unknown, between what is familiar and what is other. This is the terrain of the displaced and deracinated but also the shimmering space where all is volatile, mutable, in flux and it is also, of course, the thin, transparent veil between waking and sleep, between life and death.Shadowed by mortality, lit by lyrical grace, Words from the Wall includes poems about the killing fields of Agincourt, Flanders, Vietnam and a memorial poem to the victims of the 2015 Bataclan attack where the dead are stations of flame, and it begins and ends at the boundaries of the Roman territory, at the edge of The girls I laughed with once/in the baths atrium/are withered and wattle-necked./I love them still

80 pages, Paperback

Published April 11, 2019

About the author

Adam Thorpe is a British poet, novelist, and playwright whose works also include short stories and radio dramas.

Adam Thorpe was born in Paris and grew up in India, Cameroon, and England. Graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1979, he founded a touring theatre company, then settled in London to teach drama and English literature.

His first collection of poetry, Mornings in the Baltic (1988), was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award. His first novel, Ulverton (1992), an episodic work covering 350 years of English rural history, won great critical acclaim worldwide, including that of novelist John Fowles, who reviewed it in The Guardian, calling it "(...) the most interesting first novel I have read these last years". The novel was awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for 1992.

Adam Thorpe lives in France with his wife and three children.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Abi Londal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought because it was the only poetry book that was small enough to be enjoyable in the book shop, for my literature coursework. Finished within an hour, cried a few times and was left with a complete sense of hopelessness. Some of the best poetry I’ve ever read

[Cooch · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best one of his poetry books I've read.

The words from the wall poem is excellent. There are no poor poems at all. Overall this is perhaps his most varied collection.