BOOKS
My Grandmother’s Glass Eye
A Look at Poetry
Craig RaineRRP: £25.00
5 May 2016
Published by Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9781848872899
RRP: £9.99
5 May 2016
Published by Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9781782397434
‘By poetry we – we the masses – mean something vague, something untrue, something uplifting, something beautiful, something so eloquent it isn’t for everyday. The word “poetry” is up there with “soul”. And I am against it.’
My Grandmother’s Glass Eye deploys its considerable learning, its intelligent expertise, wittily, memorably. It is an exercise in demystification and clarity. If you want to know how poetry works on the page, here are sure-footed accounts of particular poems. There is something Johnsonian in Craig Raine’s common sense – an elegant wrecking ball used with precision and delicacy to pick off the pretentious, the platitudinous, the over-promoted. Here, poetry is well read, attentively read, by a practitioner whose range runs from Bion to John Lennon, from Bishop to Balanchine.
REVIEWS
Treat yourself to a blast of poetry this summer. Anyone remotely interested in the art form should read Craig Raine's wonderful My Grandmother's Glass Eye: A Look at Poetry (Atlantic). Feisty, provocative, learned, passionate - it is a seminal, lasting work.William Boyd
Guardian
Craig Raine still walks among us, a brilliant and passionate observer
THES
Witty and wide ranging... giving bad readers (Tom Paulin and John Carey) a confident kicking along the way
New Statesman
Animus, erudition and not a hint of self-doubt.
Spectator
A knack for making one look and think again, a fidelity to precise description in poetry and criticism that is impressive...
Times Literary Supplement
Vibrantly derrière-garde... a swipe at that sometimes lazy and often convenient anything-goes school of literary criticism.
Spectator
Craig Raine's rude and definitive argument for precision in poetry and criticism.
Times Literary Supplement
An undeniably gripping book... invigorating, vivid and entertaining reading.
Guardian
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