Selected Poems 1990.

ENRIGHT, D. J.

$200.00

Item Number: 124389

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

First edition of this collection containing many of Enright’s finest poems. Octavo, original illustrated wrappers. Presentation copy, inscribed by the poet on the title page, “For Sally Soames (& cameras) – Dennis Enright.” The recipient, British photojournalist Sally Soames, worked for The Sunday Times from 1968 until 2000 and was highly regarded for her exclusively black and white portraits of many of the most prominent figures of the 20th century including Menachem Begin, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Thatcher, Sean Connery, Rudolf Nureyev, Alec Guinness and Andy Warhol. Soames, who was known to be a warm and personal journalist, performed extensive research on the subjects of her photographs and developed intimate rapports with them during her process resulting in intimate and revealing portraits. In addition to the several world leaders Soames came to know and photograph, she captured the creative energy and personality of some of the world’s most gifted authors, poets, and playwrights. She published two books of photographs during her lifetime, Manpower (1987) with text by Robin Morgan and an introduction by Harold Evans and Writers (1995) with a preface by Norman Mailer. In fine condition. Cover illustration: detail from The Creation and the Fall of Man and the Expulsion of the Rebel Angels form Heaven by Hieronymus Bosch.

This selection of Enright's best poems is made from the Collected Poems 1987 and includes selections from the major poem-sequences Terrible Shears, Paradise Illustrated, A Faust Book, and Instant Chronicles. "The art of these poems is the counterpart of the frame of mind in which they are composed: just as the mood is unpretentious but the wit and judgement quick as a hunting hawk, so the rhythms and rhymes eschew any sort of grandiloquence yet control the pace and emphasis with deftness and aptness" (Derwent May, Listener).