This Life, This Life: New & Selected Poems 1970 - 2006

by Greig, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9781852247133
• ISBN10: 1852247134
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-15
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd

Summary

Wildly diverse, affirmative, openhearted poems on the contours of life; childhood, adolescence, sex, love, marriage, break-ups and breakdowns, increased awareness of mortality, And The precious moments left.

Table of Contents

Night shift	p. 13
Return of Venture	p. 14
Maxwell	p. 15
After the affair	p. 16
Dido	p. 17
Evening sketch	p. 18
Captain Zen?	p. 20
Poet's tale	p. 24
Axe-man's confession	p. 27
On falling	p. 29
Grimpeur's explanation	p. 30
Praising the woman	p. 31
Zen on poetry	p. 32
Hoof	p. 33
Next morning	p. 37
To get higher	p. 39
Poet's night song & benediction	p. 41
In the tool-shed	p. 44
Confessions of an airman	p. 45
A man is driving	p. 46
Time, out for the night	p. 47
The elephants	p. 48
from Dissenting passages	p. 50
Wordscape : elegy for angus	p. 51
Melissa	p. 52
The glove	p. 53
A night journey	p. 54
In galloway	p. 57
Portobello beach	p. 58
Bus to Izmir	p. 63
We spoke of falling	p. 64
'One by one they will return'	p. 66
'Then we heard the guns around Gravesend'	p. 67
'The past blooms anywhere'	p. 69
'May you go your rounds'	p. 70
'A summer seen through perspex'	p. 71
'I wanted excitement'	p. 72
'Shaken awake in the dark'	p. 73
'He was mine, no doubt about it'	p. 74
'I went to visit Tim last night'	p. 75
'I watch my tracers arc and seed'	p. 76
'Say it straight, then'	p. 77
'Billy - shell splinter nicked his optic nerve'	p. 78
'Mercifully you never see them coming'	p. 79
'In an airless living-room on the new estate'	p. 80
Back again	p. 82
Interlude on Mustagh tower	p. 83
Sandy, topping out	p. 84
Entering askole	p. 86
The winter climbing	p. 87
Three above Namche Bazaar	p. 88
Shetland	p. 89
About Tess	p. 90
Still	p. 91
Annie, in spring	p. 92
Treaty	p. 93
Gulf	p. 94
Annie, in November	p. 95
Covert action	p. 96
Young American	p. 97
D, in a checked shirt	p. 98
D, riding	p. 99
Heart & Irish	p. 100
Up the Baobab	p. 101
The maid & I	p. 102
The house-builder variations	p. 103
Mexico	p. 104
from Part I: the quest & the company	p. 109
Prologue	p. 109
Lights up dim	p. 111
Stella writes from hospital	p. 114
Stella, escaping	p. 118
Cut to	p. 119
from Part II : at the up & down disco	p. 121
Inside the voodoo	p. 123
Conversations on a flying carpet	p. 126
Intermission	p. 129
from Part III : travails in the high atlas	p. 130
To resume the resume	p. 130
Into the drylands	p. 131
Tourists & terrorists	p. 134
In the last village	p. 136
A carry-out episode	p. 139
A munelicht flittin	p. 141
A graduation and a surprise	p. 144
from Part IV : in Marrakech (narratives of desire)	p. 146
In the Djemma el Fna	p. 146
A debate on karma	p. 146
Interlude in Essaouira	p. 150
from Part V : bringing it all back home	p. 151
The wanderer returns	p. 151
A parting song	p. 154
The return of the heretical Buddha	p. 155
Vow	p. 163
A shuttered lantern	p. 164
Lucky	p. 165
Tales of the flood	p. 166
D, swimming	p. 168
Ripe	p. 169
A night rose	p. 170
A woman in fife	p. 171
Into you	p. 172
That summer	p. 173
In the frozen nursery	p. 175
A pre-breakfast rant	p. 176
Their last bow	p. 177
Glider	p. 178
Norman's goodnight	p. 179
Scotland	p. 180
Stromness evening	p. 182
Above North Ronaldsay	p. 183
Pappay	p. 184
Last walk in Tayinloan, Kintyre	p. 185
Orkney / this life	p. 186
Walking the dog round stromness	p. 188
Best thing a dream	p. 189
The embroidered curtain	p. 190
The natural order	p. 191
A game of marbles / Gemme o toolies	p. 192
Park Mill	p. 193
In Endcliffe park	p. 194
A long shot	p. 195
The Edinburgh coliseum	p. 196
From the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh	p. 198
A resurrection of a kind	p. 199
From the shelter hut	p. 200
From the mother of all parties	p. 201
A simple evening	p. 202
From a marriage bed	p. 203
This pilgrimage	p. 204
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.