Opal Sunset: Selected Poems, 1958-2008

by Clive James

Inspired, through his vast reading, by the poetic voices of the past, yet always speaking in a voice unmistakably his own, Clive James ineffably combines humor and great tragedy (but never solemnity) to create poems that are at once traditional yet engagingly fresh. With this coruscating work, James, swimming through cultural debris both high and low, dispenses with his reputation as a perennial court jester, establishing himself as a poet of enduring power and resonance. from "Angels Over Elsinore" How many angels knew who Hamlet was When they were summoned by Horatio? They probably showed up only because The roster said it was their turn to go. Another day, another Dane. Too bad, But while they sang their well-rehearsed lament They noticed his good looks. Too soon, too sad, This welcome home for what seemed heaven sent.

Genres: Poetry

208 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2008

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

An expatriate Australian broadcast personality and author of cultural criticism, memoir, fiction, travelogue and poetry. Translator of Dante.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the introduction I learned how Clive James chose the title for this poetry collection. He writes: "I have called it Opal Sunset because in my home city the sun goes down through a pink and azure sky, and because my beginnings are still with me."

Also from the introduction, I learned about James' taste in poetry. He writes about E.E. Cummings that he "adored his rhythmic swing and sexy humor, but his tricks of typography and layout seemed to me as mechanical as a rusting tractor and just as obsolete." Ah, there is the James' that I remember from television in the 1980s, he always spoke his mind with a sharp dry wit and a tinge of sarcasm.

Indeed, James writes that when his career in television took off and he was working full-time, he "went on sending out any poem that [he] thought had a right to independent life."

About the current trends in poetry he writes, "By now, the world-wide deployment of poetry that looks like shrapnel has wearied us of such efforts, but the sad truth is that their chief inventors - Apollinaire got there before Cummings - wore them out instantly, because there was never any way you could say them."

James' complex and lyrical poems provoke reaction and thought. He needles and soothes.

My favorite lines from A Valediction for Philip Larkin:

"Silk brushed with honey in the hot noon light."

"With tickled hippos rolling in the aisles."

"The quiet voice whose voice resonance seemed vast."

Favorite lines from Budge Up:

"Flowering cherry pales to brush-stroke pink at blossom fall
Like watermelon bitten almost to the rind."

"Sweet sin
Swallows him at a gulp."

Anniversary Serenade is another of my favorites, here is the final stanza:

"The ring is closed. The rolling dice we cast
So long ago still roll but not so fast.
The colors fade that we nailed to the mast.
We lose the future but we own the past.
We own the past?
From our first kiss, a lifetime to the last."

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Generally speaking, these poems are clear and accessible. But the most striking thing about them, apart from the superb use of language, is the technique. Only occasionally does James use a form of blank or free verse; mostly he uses complex rhyming schemes that are so remarkably formed that you have to look twice to see how remarkable they are. In an age when anything goes in poetry these pieces stand head and shoulders above much of what is written and published.

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A poem should make you want to say it even if you don't understand it: that, indeed, is how you recognize it to be worth the effort of trying to understand." ---Clive James.


Special Needs
by Clive James

In the clear light of a cloudy summer morning
The idiot boy, holding his father’s hand,
Comes by me on the Quay where I sit writing.
His father spots me looking up, and I don’t want
to look as if I wished I hadn’t, so
Instead of turning straight back to my books
I look around, thus making it a general thing
That I do every so often —
To watch the ferries, to check out the crowd.
The father’s eyes try not to say “Two seconds
Is what you’ve had of looking at my boy.
Try half a lifetime.” Yes, the boy is bad:
So bad he holds one arm up while he walks
As if to ward off further blows from heaven.
His face reflects the pain at work behind it,
But he can’t tell us what it is:
He can only moan its secret name.
The Nazis, like the Spartans, would have killed him,
But where are the Spartans and the Nazis now?
And really a sense of duty set in early,
Or at least a sense of how God’s ways were strange:
After the death of Alexander
The idiot boy Philip was co-regent
To the throne of a whole empire,
And lasted in the role for quite a while
Before his inevitable murder,
Which he earned because of somebody’s ambition,
And not because he couldn’t clean his room.
They’re gone. I can look down again, two thoughts
Contesting in my head:
“It’s so unfair, I don’t know what to do”
Is one. The other is the one that hurts:
“Don’t be a fool. It’s nothing to do with you.”
A lady wants a book signed.
I add “Best wishes” —
All I will do today of being kind —
And when I hand it back to her, the sun
Comes out behind her. I hold up one arm.

[Claire Corbett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should give this book five stars for the poems I really loved, such as Lucretius the Diver. Wonderful poem. But there were quite a few poems I loathed, mostly his ones to do with women - Bring me the Sweat of Gabriela Sabatini being one of the most egregious examples, in which he drools over the female tennis players he finds hawt and dismisses those he doesn't such as Martina Navratilova. He seems to have zero awareness that women might have any value beyond whether he finds them sexaay despite the fact he is no Chris Hemsworth himself and most if not all the women appearing in the book except his wife are much younger and evaluated solely on their looks. Even thirteen year old girls are not spared an evaluation of their breast development while he's musing on the safety or otherwise of his daughters from serial killers. Jesus H, Clive. On the other hand I quite like his poems about the passion of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. His egotistic self-flagellation over his cruelty to his wife is, frankly, nauseating. But his good poems are so very good; they are worth sifting through the dross for.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I adored his collection, Nefertiti in the Flak Tower. But was disappointed to find this collection nowhere near as good. :( Glad to read an Australian poet though instead of the usual US/UK/Canada poets I read.

[Harold Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome... loved the poetry.

[DeterminedStupor · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

[Rita Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read other writings by Clive James, I was motivated to try his poetry and very glad I did. He has a unique way with words and a unique poetry style as well -- interesting and very readable. My two favorites were "Tramps and Bowlers" and "In Town for the Parade." And what's not to like about "The Book of My Enemy. . ."? It's a classic.

[Keith Neville · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of thought-provoking and stimulating stuff. CJ appears to me to be very underrated as a poet.