Book description
The 'wind dog' is a broken rainbow, but, in the title poem of Tom
Paulin's sixth collection, it provides this most agile of poets with a
perfect bridge into childhood and its 'lingo-jingo of beginnings'. The
poem is a gloriously singing meditation on the life of the ear - 'the
only true reader' - and the meaning and music of both words and
pre-verbal sounds are a recurring theme in this rich, cogent and
prosodically adventurous volume.
Tom Paulin was born in Leeds in 1949 but grew up in Belfast, and was
educated at the universities of Hull and Oxford. He has published eight
collections of poetry as well as a Selected Poems 1972-1990, two major
anthologies, two versions of Greek drama, and several critical works,
including The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style and,
most recently, Crusoe's Secret: The Aesthetics of Dissent. His most
recent collection of poems is The Road to Inver (2004). Well known for
his appearances on the BBC's Newsnight Review, he is also the G. M.
Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.
