Robert Graves - Collected Poems

Posted by Ray Schaufeld on Thu, 05 Jun 2014

Weird stuff this, legends, ballads, horrors, ghosts. Robert makes it up as he goes along. His first poems were published in 1926, his last in 1975. Darkness of title and topic, 'Warning to Children' 'One Hard Look'. 'Alice' is a crisply rhymed wonderland of kittens and queens. 'The Cool Web' illustrates how we can employ words to calm us and control our fears. Until words fly off the handle and madden us on our deathbed. Some poems rhyme some are free verse, some tell a simple fable others are fine-wrought puzzles. A mix of cerebral and emotional. Usually I prefer cheerful, to doom and gloom, I'm breaking my rules here because I like him. I'm only on page 45 so in no place to pick a favourite yet but if you like a good chiller  try 'Nobody'.'Nobody ancient mischief nobody....'

He also wrote two novels I Claudius and Claudius the God. Readable tough historical faction, they were on TV years ago.

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

I Claudius, yeh, I remember that. I thought Robert Graves was one of the First World War war poets with Sassoon and Owen. Shows you what I know.

 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

RG was born in 1895 and fought in WWI. So you're not wrong, CM. I got my Collected Poems anthology from the library because according to Bob Mann he visited  Berry Pomeroy castle which I almost visited, and wrote 'the Devil at Berry Pomeroy',It's not here. I have now read the small print of the Library Catalogue and requested his Complete Poems.   

Working through the book, it gets better and better, I do not think that Robert wrote 'about war' more that war was lurking at the back of his mind and sometimes pushed to the front eg in 'Interruption'. 'The Christmas Robin' has sharp stabbing chills in the final stanza. He also wrote a war memoir in 1929 'Goodbye to all that.'