Synopses & Reviews
Remember me when I am deadand simplify me when I'm dead. As the processes of earthstrip off the colour and the skintake the brown hair and blue eye and leave me simpler than at birthwhen hairless I came howling inas the moon came in the cold sky.from Simplify me when I'm dead”
By the time he was killed in Normandy in June 1944, at the age of only twenty-four, Keith Douglas had achieved a body of work that singled him out as the most brilliant and promising English poet of World War II. While his early poems deal with the wonder and pain of love, his later poems are focused on the misery and brutality of war and death. His body of work still conveys a rare immediacy and youthful power, markedas Ted Hughes wrote in his introductionby a burning exploratory freshness of mind.”
Keith Douglas was also the author of a memoir of his experiences in World War II, Alamein to Zem Zem. He died in France in June 1944. By the time he was killed in Normandy in June 1944, at the age of only twenty-four, Keith Douglas had achieved a body of work that singled him out as the most brilliant and promising English poet of World War II. While his early poems deal with the wonder and pain of love, his later poems are focused on the misery and brutality of war and death. His body of work still conveys a rare immediacy and youthful power, markedas Ted Hughes wrote in his introductionby a burning exploratory freshness of mind.” "Read him; he's a fine, irascible, powerful, cynical, imaginative poet who never had more than a little bit of a chance, as he says, because of military engagements that might be the end of him. And they were. But on the pagethe pagesKeith Douglas exists: not still exists, but exists. And so does the war in the desert, and the brave and good poet that he was."James Dickey, from Classes on Modern Poets and the Art of Poetry
[Douglas's poetry] is still very much alive, and even providing life. And the longer it lives, the fresher it looks . . . It is not enough to say that the language is utterly simple, the musical inflection of it peculiarly honest and charming, the technique flawless. The language is also extremely forceful; or rather, it reposes at a point it could only have reached, this very moment, by a feat of great strength . . . His triumph lies in the way he renews the simplicity of ordinary talk, and he does this by infusing every word with a burning exploratory freshness of mind."Ted Hughes, from his Introduction
Ted did a beautiful [BBC radio] program on a marvelous young British poet, Keith Douglas, killed in the last war . . . Both of us mourn this poet immensely and feel he would have been like a lovely big brother to us.”from a letter Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother in June 1962
Review
“Each poem turns out to be an exercise [and] whatever they are, these 'exercises' display [the poet's] striving towards and, briefly, perfecting the qualities we value in him: the incisive, nimble glance, the uniquely tempered music, the simple, point-blank, bull's-eye statement, the tensile delicacy.” —Ted Hughes, from his Introduction
“Ted did a beautiful [BBC radio] program on a marvelous young British poet, Keith Douglas, killed in the last war... Both of us mourn this poet immensely and feel he would have been like a lovely big brother to us.” —from a letter Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother in June 1962
Synopsis
Remember me when I am deadand simplify me when I'm dead. As the processes of earthstrip off the colour and the skintake the brown hair and blue eye and leave me simpler than at birthwhen hairless I came howling inas the moon came in the cold sky.—from “Simplify me when I'm dead”
By the time he was killed in Normandy in June 1944, at the age of only twenty-four, Keith Douglas had achieved a body of work that singled him out as the most brilliant and promising English poet of World War II. While his early poems deal with the wonder and pain of love, his later poems are focused on the misery and brutality of war and death. His body of work still conveys a rare immediacy and youthful power, marked—as Ted Hughes wrote in his introduction—by a “burning exploratory freshness of mind.”
Synopsis
Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I'm dead.
As the processes of earth
strip off the colour and the skin
take the brown hair and blue eye
and leave me simpler than at birth
when hairless I came howling in
as the moon came in the cold sky.
from "Simplify me when I'm dead"
By the time he was killed in Normandy in June 1944, at the age of only twenty-four, Keith Douglas had achieved a body of work that singled him out as the most brilliant and promising English poet of World War II. While his early poems deal with the wonder and pain of love, his later poems are focused on the misery and brutality of war and death. His body of work still conveys a rare immediacy and youthful power, marked as Ted Hughes wrote in his introduction by a "burning exploratory freshness of mind."
"
Synopsis
Remember me when I am deadand simplify me when I'm dead. As the processes of earthstrip off the colour and the skintake the brown hair and blue eye and leave me simpler than at birthwhen hairless I came howling inas the moon came in the cold sky.from “Simplify me when I'm dead”
By the time he was killed in Normandy in June 1944, at the age of only twenty-four, Keith Douglas had achieved a body of work that singled him out as the most brilliant and promising English poet of World War II. While his early poems deal with the wonder and pain of love, his later poems are focused on the misery and brutality of war and death. His body of work still conveys a rare immediacy and youthful power, markedas Ted Hughes wrote in his introductionby a “burning exploratory freshness of mind.”
Synopsis
"First published in 1964 by Faber and Faber Limited"--T.p. verso.
About the Author
KEITH DOUGLAS was also the author of a memoir of his experiences in World War II, Alamein to Zem Zem. He died in France in June 1944.