Product Description

Minsk is Lavinia Greenlaw's third collection, and the first since the title poem of A World Where News Travelled Slowly won the Forward Prize for the year's finest poem of 1997. From London Zoo to an Essex village and the Arctic Circle, Greenlaw explores questions of place - the childhood landscapes we leave behind, those we travel towards, and those like 'Minsk' which we believe to be missing from our lives. Greenlaw's restless, inquisitive tone builds to make Minsk a hypnotic collection from one of the leading poets of her generation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #321258 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

From the Back Cover
Minsk is Lavinia Greenlaw’s third collection, and the first since the title poem of A World Where News Travelled Slowly won the Forward Prize for the year’s finest poem of 1997. From London Zoo to an Essex village and the Arctic Circle, Greenlaw explores questions of place – the childhood landscapes we leave behind, those we travel towards, and those like ‘Minsk’ which we believe to be missing from our lives. Greenlaw’s restless, inquisitive tone builds to make Minsk a hypnotic collection from one of the leading poets of her generation.

About the Author
Lavinia Greenlaw was born in 1962. Night Photograph (1993) was shortlisted for both the Forward Prize for First Collection and the Whitbread Poetry Prize; A World Where News Travelled Slowly (1997) was her award-winning second collection. Her novel, Mary George of Allnorthover (Flamingo), was published in 2001.

Customer Reviews

her best yet
Lavinia Greenlaw's previous two collections have shown her to be among the most interesting and gifted poets in Britain, but this collection is outstanding. Some seem to be inspired by her childhood; others by observing animals in London Zoo ("An arrangement of parts, the giraffe/carries himself off, all height, no wieght"). The vigour and wit of her imagery (Blackwater starts "Where the coastline doubles up on itself/as if punched in the gut by the god Meander") is matched by a thoughtful melancholy. The most powerful is The Flight of Geryon, inspired by Canto XVll of Dante's Inferno, which becomes an extended metaphor for the terror implicit in trusting someone. The latter poems describe a period in the Arctic Circle. A striking collection, dominated by themes of travel, loss and hope, it has already been short-listed for the Whitbread Prize for Poetry. It deserves to win.