Poetry Thursday - Biography by Ian Hamilton

Found in the library

Biography

Who turned the page? When I went out
Last night, his Life was left wide-open,
Half-way through, in lamplight on my desk:
The Middle Years.
Now look at him. Who turned the page?

- Ian Hamilton (1938-2001)


"Slender, enigmatic poetic output" was one description of Hamilton's Collected Poems:

"At 50 Hamilton put together a selection of just 50 poems. Ten years later it was 60. He died at 63, and it was never likely that he would be one of those poets, like Larkin, whose oeuvre dramatically increases after death."

I liked the brevity - and conciseness - of this poem ... but some of the others in the book were perhaps too enigmatic, first time round. Though that's one of the joys of poetry - the re-reading.