Thursday, August 28, 2014

The Poems of Joseph Campbell

A small, hard back book, published 1963 in Dublin with an intro by Austin Clarke.

Campbell (1879-1944) was one of the early group of poets whose arguments in London lead towards Imagism and then Modernism.  More of him later.

This is how Clarke's introduction ends:

In the spring of 1944, his nearest neighbours in the Glen, who lived a few fields away, noticed that no turf smoke was coming from the chimney and became alarmed. The poet was found dead where he had fallen across the hearth stone. 

And this is one of his poems:

Night, and I Travelling 

Night, and I travelling.
An open door by the wayside,
Throwing out a shaft of warm yellow light.
A whiff of peat smoke;
A gleam of delf on the dresser within;
A woman's voice crooning, as if to a child.
I pass on into darkness.
(p104)








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