D.H. Lawrence - Poems Selected For Young People (Hardback) 1967 Ex-Library Edn

 D.H. LAWRENCE: Poems Selected For Young People by William Cole 

With Darwings by Ellen Raskin.

D.H. Lawrence wrote his first two poems at the age of nineteen, and from that time on, poems flowed from him. The fact that he was so orolifi was perhaps one of the reasons why his poems were under-rated during his lifetime. No one could believe that a man who was a vitally important novelist, a penetrating critic, a writer of travel books, a playwright, and a painter could also be, as Mr Cole notes in his introduction, 'one of the three or four greatest poets of this century'.

Many of Lawrence's "rhyming poems" are enchanting, but his real voice is heard only when he writes without the restrictions of rhyme, when nothing gets between himself and the poem. Some of his poems are simple statements, written as though he wwere talking to the reasderr as a good friend; others are blasts of invective, and still others are complex, with meaning on many levels. Lawrence's affection, his reverence for life, comes through best in his animal poems, which are also well represented in this book.

This selection, chosen by William Cole, himself a poet and a discriminating editor of poetry anthologies, is a splendid introduction to Lawrence the poet.

 

A hardback published in 1968 (this is a 1971 reprint - ex-school library edition)