Selected Poems Chosen by Ruth Fainlight

The poems of a well-travelled man, a reader of maps in many senses, who ranged widely, restlessly, in his life and in his mind; poems that, whether brief lyric or extended parable, all speak to Alan Sillitoe's flintily individual grasp of the world, in all his voices, authentic, humorous, sardonic and compassionate. Alan Jenkins; It is when he engages the novelist's eye for incident that he is most successful. Car fights Cat relates how a cat faced down a Daimler, tumbled beneath its wheels, then shot out with limbs still solid, / Bolted, spitting fire and gravel / At unjust God who built such massive / Catproof motorcars in his graven image . There is a fine poem about a map of the Somme (one of several war-related pieces) and there are some welcome lighter moments in different voices - the rather brilliant duologue Full Moon's Tongue and the jaunty monologue Derelict Bathing Cabins at Seaford . ; John Greening, The TLS, May 15, 2020