Carcanet Press Logo
Quote of the Day
I'm filled with admiration for what you've achieved, and particularly for the hard work and the 'cottage industry' aspect of it.
Fleur Adcock

Complete Poems

Jon Silkin

Edited by Jon Glover and Kathryn Jenner

Cover of Complete Poems by Jon Silkin
10% off eBook (EPUB)
10% off Paperback
Categories: 20th Century, British, Jewish
Imprint: Northern House
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (1088 pages)
(Pub. Feb 2015)
9781847772404
£29.99 £26.99
eBook (EPUB) Needs ADE!
(Pub. Jan 2015)
9781784100001
£29.99 £26.99
To use the EPUB version, you will need to have Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) installed on your device. You can find out more at https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html. Please do not purchase this version if you do not have and are not prepared to install, Adobe Digital Editions.
  • Description
  • Excerpt
  • Author
  • Reviews
  • And then slowly the eye stopped looking
    Inward. The silence rose and became still.
    The look turned to the outer place and stopped,
    With the birds still shrilling around him.

    from ‘Death of a Son’
    Complete Poems brings together the published and unpublished work of one of the most significant poets of the late twentieth century, founding editor of Stand and of the Northern House imprint. As well as reprinting all the poems included in Silkin’s books (from The Portrait and Other Poems in 1950 to Making a Republic in 2002), it includes significant poems previously unpublished or published only in a wide variety of journals, and work transcribed from manuscripts. Complete Poems demands a new perception of Silkin’s language and his concerns, the breadth of his passionately humane response to war and the Holocaust, and his scrutiny of humanity alongside nature.
    Jon Silkin
    Jon Silkin was born in London in 1930. After National Service and time as a manual labourer, he went to the University of Leeds as Gregory Fellow in Poetry. He founded Stand magazine in 1952 and the Northern House press in 1965. His publications included nine volumes of poetry and many ... read more
    Jon Glover
    Jon Glover was born in Sheffield in 1943 and grew up in south London. He studied English and Philosophy at the University of Leeds, where he met Jon Silkin and began a long association with Stand magazine, of which he is now Managing Editor. Jon Glover is an Honorary Fellow of ... read more
    Kathryn Jenner
    Kathryn Jenner graduated with a BA and MA from the University of Leeds before working as an archivist in the university’s Brotherton Library, where she catalogued the Jon Silkin archive and the poetry and notebooks of Geoffrey Hill. ... read more
    'It's impossible to do justice to a driven lifetime's worth of work. Final plaudits are very much due to editors Jon Glover and Kathryn Jenner who, having painstakingly constructed such a thorough and intelligently sequenced summary of Silkin's poetic output, have also managed to make a compelling case for reappraising his reputation as more than a poet of his own time. Within this comely breezeblock of post-Second World War verse, ther is much that ought to interest, inspire and concern our own faltering century.'
    Stand Magazine


    'Complete Poems enjoins a new perception of Silkin’s language and concerns, the breadth of his passionately humane interrogation of war and the Holocaust, and his scrutiny of nature and humankind.'
    Jon Glover
    Praise for Jon Glover  'Magnetic Resonance Imaging by Jon Glover is my book of the year'
    Ian McMillan, The Verb, BBC Radio 3 (December 2008)
You might also be interested in:
Cover of Making a Republic
Making a Republic Jon Silkin
Cover of Her Birth
Her Birth Rebecca Goss
Cover of Leaf Graffiti
Leaf Graffiti Lucy Burnett
Share this...
The Carcanet Blog Near-Life Experience: Rowland Bagnall read more The Silence: Gillian Clarke read more Baby Schema: Isabel Galleymore read more The Iron Bridge: Rebecca Hurst read more Sleepers Awake: Oli Hazzard read more The Miraculous Season: V.R. 'Bunny' Lang, edited by Rosa Campbell read more
Find your local bookshop logo
Arts Council Logo
We thank the Arts Council England for their support and assistance in this interactive Project.
This website ©2000-2024 Carcanet Press Ltd