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Synopsis
All my years before me For Della and Ralph I want to be singing again Round fires with friends Loud, full of harmony Breath in my lungs And all my years before me I want again those I knew And talked with all night through Discovering the world Argument on my lips And all my years before me I want not to have read Dead Souls, Bovary Hardy, Lawrence, Orlando Fathers and Sons John Donne Penguins stacked ready And all my years before me Give me my first love Dreams and courage again Expectation in my parents' eyes Hopes, promise, lost youth And all my years before me I ache for the dead Long for my mother's laugh My father's songs My sister's wedding feast War letters from abroad her husband wrote Telling me I was talented Intelligent, my voice had broken. I want each family event again With all my years before me. For All Things Tire of Themselves Arnold Wesker has selected what he considers to be his best and most characteristic poems. In a Foreword commissioned for this publication, TV writer and producer Michael Kustow describes it as ‘an extended soliloquy about family, love, ageing, anger, Jewishness’ whose ‘predominant tone is one of sadness and disenchantment, but never resignation. . .’ Out of this struggle with despair, the poet delivers a hard-won wisdom, ‘a precarious triumph over thieving time.’ In addition to his work for the stage, Wesker has published collections of stories, essays, a book for young people, an autobiography, and most recently his first novel, Honey, but until now he has not brought out a poetry collection even though he has written poems and published them in magazines for many years. 'Arnold Wesker's reputation has survived the vicissitudes of fashion, and it is now easier to see the lasting strengths and variety of his work.' — Margaret Drabble Arnold Wesker, who was knighted in the 2006 New Year’s Honours list for services to drama, is a major British playwright. Born in London in 1932, he achieved early critical success with the three plays known as The Wesker Trilogy (1958–60). Since then he has written around forty more plays, as well as opera librettos and scripts for film, TV and radio. He lives in Hay-on-Wye.
ARNOLD WESKERThe Kitchen, Chicken Soup with Barley Roots, I'm Talking About Jerusalem and Chips with Everything - did as much for to change the face of British drama from drawing room to kitchen sink as the plays of John Arden, John Osborne and Harold Pinter. This is a serious and engaging collection, and a welcome addition to the Wesker oeuvre, even if the bottom line is that he is a major playwright but a minor poet.
Richmond, Keith
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