The Disappeared and other poems
• Poetry
• De luxe
Description: The Disappeared and other poems presents a selection of Pinter’s work from his first published pieces in 1950 written when he was just twenty to poems dating from as recently as 1998. Selected by Pinter and Stephen Stuart-Smith, this book is a continuation of Enitharmon Press’s association with the poet, which began when his Poems was published in 1968. All twenty-nine poems testify to Pinter’s belief in the 'relish, challenge, [and] excitement' of language. Presented in reverse chronological order, the poems span the spare, impersonal tone of Pinter’s mature years to the hurly-burly exuberance of his youth, when his poetry was influenced by Dylan Thomas and John Webster. Just as ‘New Year in the Midlands’ is about 'a young actor’s vagabond life in rep', many other poems make allusions to Pinter’s theatre world. Indeed, the poems themselves are highly dramatic: his manipulative word-play and penetrating, loaded questions turn the colloquial into something sinister and new. He keeps us in suspense by only presenting fragments of plots, with crucial elements left unsaid, so that we too ask, 'What will happen next?' Even the bleakest poems such as ‘God’ or ‘Poem’ (1995) are theatrical: ‘Don’t look. / The world’s about to chuck out all its light / And stuff us in the chokepit of its dark’. For the confusion Pinter creates between black and white, darkness and dazzling light, draws the reader into a world which operates in its own unique medium; a world where order is turned upside down and where an unnamed 'they' are found playing cricket at night. Pinter’s poetry may be disturbing but it also contains many moments of beauty, such as the moving elegy to Pinter’s English teacher, Joseph Brearley, the fragile love poems and the closing image from ‘Paris’ – 'She dances in my life. / The white day burns'. The text of The Disappeared and other poems was designed and printed by Sebastian Carter of the Rampant Lions Press, Cambridge. It is hand-set in 14pt Hunt Roman on 160gsm Arches Vélin paper. The books have been bound and slipcased by The Fine Bindery in Northamptonshire. There are 12 full-colour plates in the text, reproducing paintings by Tony Bevan made between 1986 and 2002. These have been printed by Expression Printers Ltd. The de luxe edition consists of seventy-five numbered copies, signed by Harold Pinter and Tony Bevan. With each copy is a signed and numbered original etching by Tony Bevan – Violet Interior – printed at Hope Sufferance Press on 350gsm Zerkall natural white.
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