Nine Lessons from the Dark

by Adam Thorpe

This stunning collection engages directly with history, the living continuum that connects us with our near and distant past, all while nourishing and illuminating our present. Here are traces left of Indian scratchings on rock, the nail-marks of destroyed frescoes, spoken fragments of war petroglyphs that function as both memorials and re-awakenings, all traceable with the finger of the imagination. Here, too, are images of the stilled, the stopped a snowed-up village, the paralyzed victim of motor-neurone disease, a soft drink fermented in an old village café. From this rueful equilibrium of midlife, Thorpe circles his own personal history, allowing regret and anticipation their Janus-like say. These are erudite, generous poems, formally versatile yet rich in startlingly original observation and a natural lyric grace. Performing his unique archaeology on lives lived, Adam Thorpe once again displays the range of his imagination and the depth of his humanity.

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

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

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adam Thorpe is one of my favourite modern novelists -- his brilliant 'Ulverton' was a tour-de-force of historical imagination -- and this collection of poems is his 4th ensemble from 2003.His polyglot background & itinerant childhood have allowed him to cultivate a wide & deep knowledge of the passage of time, & the past in different parts of the globe, & its constant reassessment & reappraisal as we journey through our fractured lives.To have the soul of a poet is rare these days; the unconscious gift of seeing the unseeable,of understanding the hidden motivations which shape our personalities, of encapsulating in a few words so much more than most writers can capture in over-stuffed volumes of fiction...I could go on,but that would be the proof of my own poverty of expression!
A taster of Thorpe's art should tempt even the most jaded literary palette:

" 'Signs bring trouble,' he said. 'I don't like signs.
If you want it enough, you arrive.' "

(from 'Odemira'...about a Portugese poet & potter,Manuel Branco.)

" History is a fraud whose lies are true
but this one stone of it we fail to find,

in the end, more bewildered than frantic. "

(from 'The Jewish Cemetery,Cracow'...for my father-in-law.)

There are several extraordinarily poignant pieces here about loss; it will be your loss if you don't make the effort to read more poetry,& this master's oeuvre in particular. Adam Thorpe, a direct contemporary of mine chronologically, offers you such an opportunity.Take it,dear reader, while you still can.