Heft

William Scammell had only been writing poetry for twenty years when he died, just as he entered his sixties, yet – despite a series of publishing misfortunes – he left behind nine collections, and was in full flow.

A feared reviewer in the popular press, respected for his book on Keith Douglas and his edition of Ted Hughes’s prose, Scammell was never afraid to speak his mind. He lived for many years in Wordsworth’s Lake District, but had also travelled widely as a photographer on cruise liners, and led an extraordinarily varied life.

But almost two decades on, his name has slipped out of print. John Greening, who knew him well, brings his brilliantly entertaining work into the 2020s in this fresh selection. Here we have a mixture of the satirical, the pastoral, the political, the personal, the cryptic and the literary, as well as his celebrated series of verse parodies about tennis. New readers and old fans alike will find much to treasure in these pages – poems that are as surprising, diverting and moving as the man who wrote them.