{"product_id":"only-fig-prosciutto-new-collected-poems-paperback","title":"Only Fig \u0026 Prosciutto: New \u0026 Collected Poems - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eLuke Whitington\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"These poems record a life lived sensuously and to the full in three countries: Italy, Ireland, and Australia. In an era when eros-charged descriptions of foreign feasts make best-selling travel books and TV programs, this book will find a large audience. But Luke Whitington is far more than a sensualist whose mind's tongue curves inquisitively round gnocchi in the shape of a famous courtesan's navel. This is a poet who knows history and art, and feels intensely both youth's freshness and the nostalgias of age, lamenting lost parents and lovers. His Italy is flavoured by Horace and Brodsky; and his imagery is rich and deep. Hedges shaken by a storm in Ireland are seen 'running away like green-cloaked rogues'. The moon rises like a 'Soaring circular Sphinx, slowing in mid-summer night air'. Youth clings to a middle-aged man's complexion 'Like an anxious fly'. A high wind sets the leaves 'streaming this way, that way \/ Like frightened mice'. Lovers lie embraced, 'While the whole world looks, and thinks it sees.' Pigeon-swarms, 'intoxicated with the element', swerve, dissolve, reform 'as if to a heavenly conductor's baton'. Cows in a water-meadow munch flowers 'where Vikings rose in roars from bumping prows of curved ships'. A poet of such luxuriant talent would normally have revealed it over a lifetime in a dozen slim volumes. Whitington instead has saved all his riches and served them up in this one sitting. Enjoy!\" - Mark O'Connor\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"For years, I have been part of a small group of friends who have received, almost daily, an early morning email from Luke W. As a rule, it would contain only two or three words of text, and an attachment - a poem. Newly minted, fresh out of his imagination, sometimes still to be completed. A prodigious production that meant a prodigious inner push to do poetry. It is something that would at times irritate: how does he dare doing so much and so well? To see now, finally in a book, some of those works, gives a sense of timelessness to those morning emails - they are now part of a coherent whole, of a life justified also by a poetic product of considerable, true quality and appeal. Good on you, early riser, constant, brilliant writer!\" - Paolo Totaro AM\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 228\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.48 x 7.81 x 5.06 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 12, 2017\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47993514262749,"sku":"9781760413132","price":39.74,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/9867\/8237\/files\/1j2RrMtV6i9781760413132.webp?v=1780448565","url":"https:\/\/handfulofbooks.com\/products\/only-fig-prosciutto-new-collected-poems-paperback","provider":"Handful of Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}