Opal Sunset
Selected Poems, 1958-2008
By Clive James
(W. W. Norton & Company, Hardcover, 9780393067071, 204pp.)
Publication Date: September 2008
Other Editions of This Title: Paperback (March 2010)
Categories: English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
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Description
"Opal Sunset" marks the exuberant introduction of Clive James's poetry to an American audience.
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.
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.











