Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Great Regulars: In his "asylum" poems, [Ivor] Gurney sometimes hurls

himself into a desperate argument with God and fate, but not here. Here, like his remembered self, he quietly shoulders the final disappointment. The farmer has other business to attend to, and the poet is driven on by his clamouring private demons. There is no self-pity or recrimination. The end of the poem is wonderfully matter-of-fact, with the precise measurement of the field ("fifteen acres") a peculiarly haunting detail, almost an acknowledgement that something apparently trifling has imprinted itself on the poet's mind, intense and unforgettable.

The Mangel-Bury

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: The Mangel-Bury by Ivor Gurney

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