Ward's poems have a bracing freshness. He is extremely aware of the basis of language, of the alphabet as an abstract, symbolic and sacred presence, and he is wary of pinning down experience with it. His poems are as carefully composed for sound as music; philosophically they are open and searching.
Ward stands persona and narrative poems on their heads, turning them into amalgams of thought, impression and imagery which reflect reality's complexity. People and place are at the heart of the book, as are their inter-relationship. Ward's is not a picturesque nature, but has its strangeness and wonder intact. In elegiac, scientific poems about the environment Ward replaces the temptation to rant with telling, reticent humour and understatement. Astute readers will recognise and enjoy the formal creativity and humane, contemplative sensibility in this challenging and innovative new collection.
"There's a sincerity and consscientiousness about 'Late Thoughts in March' which issues in undeviatingly scrupulous address to places and occasions... his writing arrives from a point where rational discourse and the liberating resources of the imagination merge"
Poetry Review
John Powell Ward was born in Suffolk and educated at the Universities of Toronto, Cambridge and Wales. Editor of Poetry Wales from 1975 to 1980, he is the author of critical works on Wordsworth and R.S. Thomas among others, and editor of the Border Lines series. He has also published several volumes of poetry.
Ward stands persona and narrative poems on their heads, turning them into amalgams of thought, impression and imagery which reflect reality's complexity. People and place are at the heart of the book, as are their inter-relationship. Ward's is not a picturesque nature, but has its strangeness and wonder intact. In elegiac, scientific poems about the environment Ward replaces the temptation to rant with telling, reticent humour and understatement. Astute readers will recognise and enjoy the formal creativity and humane, contemplative sensibility in this challenging and innovative new collection.
"There's a sincerity and consscientiousness about 'Late Thoughts in March' which issues in undeviatingly scrupulous address to places and occasions... his writing arrives from a point where rational discourse and the liberating resources of the imagination merge"
Poetry Review
John Powell Ward was born in Suffolk and educated at the Universities of Toronto, Cambridge and Wales. Editor of Poetry Wales from 1975 to 1980, he is the author of critical works on Wordsworth and R.S. Thomas among others, and editor of the Border Lines series. He has also published several volumes of poetry.