Heft: Selected Poems
William Scammell had only been writing poetry for twenty years when he died, just as he entered his sixties, yet – despite a series of publishing misfortunes – he left behind nine collections, and was in full flow.
A feared reviewer in the popular press, respected for his book on Keith Douglas and his edition of Ted Hughes’s prose, Scammell was never afraid to speak his mind. He lived for many years in Wordsworth’s Lake District, but had also travelled widely as a photographer on cruise liners, and led an extraordinarily varied life.
But almost two decades on, his name has slipped out of print. John Greening, who knew him well, brings his brilliantly entertaining work into the 2020s in this fresh selection. Here we have a mixture of the satirical, the pastoral, the political, the personal, the cryptic and the literary, as well as his celebrated series of verse parodies about tennis. New readers and old fans alike will find much to treasure in these pages – poems that are as surprising, diverting and moving as the man who wrote them.
Praise for Scammell:
‘Accomplished and wide-ranging.’
Blake Morrison, London Review of Books
‘Admirable.’
Donald Davie, London Review of Books
William Scammell
A renowned poet and literary critic, William Scammell lived for many years in Wordsworth’s Lake District and regularly wrote about the area, but he was originally from the south coast, had travelled widely as a photographer on cruise liners, and was never in the least a provincial poet. Heft: Selected Poems, edited by John Greening, is the first fresh selection of his work in almost two decades.