Francis Warner's Poetry

The poetry of Francis Warner is unlike that of any of his contemporaries in its blend of passion and scholarship. It is the work of a mind steeped in the great traditions of poetry – work that is learned and allusive, but simultaneously intense in its lyricism. Glyn Pursglove, author of an earlier study of Warner's plays Francis Warner and Tradition, provides a detailed account of this fascinating body of work, demonstrating both its indebtedness to tradition and its profound originality. In a manner both scholarly and sensitive he clarifies the complex craftsmanship of Warner's major poems and demonstrates the extraordinary formal inventiveness which characterises so much of his work. Central to Francis Warner's achievement as a lyrical poet are several remarkable sequences of love poems. Theses are here afforded a poem-by-poem examination so that readers will find their pleasure in them enhanced by these meticulous and lively studies.