description: Peter Levi writes of the poems in `The Echoing Green': `This series of three laments was written for three of my friends who died in 1981, all rather young for death. They were all scholars, and I had known them all in Oxford... These three laments are a deliberate series of poems. Anne Pennington's is the Christian centre-piece, and Denis Bethell's is a pure elegy, a tribute of affection, but Colin Macleod's is the climax, it expresses unconsoled grief and unreconciled anger. They must be taken together.' Since his `Collected Poems 1955-1975', Peter Levi's books of poems have been `Five Ages' and `Private Ground'. John Heath-Stubbs wrote of the latter that `what breathes from these poems - some of the finest he has written - is a true humanism, which accepts the inevitability of death and decay, and does not appear to seek for any consolation in an idea of transcendance.'
language: English
title: The Echoing Green: Three Elegies
titlecomplete: The Echoing Green: Three Elegies
publisher: Anvil Press Poetry