Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough To get it ready for the plough. The cabbages are coming now; The earth exhales. --from "Slough"
When the beloved English poet John Betjeman's Collected Poems first appeared in 1958, it made publishing history, and has now sold more than two million copies to a steadily expanding readership. Betjeman is almost unique among poets in that his work appeals equally strongly to those who love poetry and to those who rarely read it. This volume, the first American edition of the Collected Poems, incorporates all the poems...
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough To get it ready for the plough. The cabbages are coming now; The earth exhales. --from "Slough...
Much of the originality of John Betjeman as a poet, apart from the unique assonance of his haunting verse forms, comes from the sharp and affectionate gusto with which he introduces his readers to the people and places in a poetic world he has made so much his own. He has few rivals in the personal harmonics he draws from his themes and from the natural world as the setting for human hopes and achievements in all their odd, humorous, and poignant trajectories.
Much of the originality of John Betjeman as a poet, apart from the unique assonance of his haunting verse forms, comes from the sharp and affectionate...
