Selected Poems Chosen by Ruth Fainlight

""The poems of a well-travelled man, a reader of maps in many senses, who ranged widely, restlessly, in his life and in his mind; poems that, whether brief lyric or extended parable, all speak to Alan Sillitoe's flintily individual grasp of the world, in all his voices, authentic, humorous, sardonic and compassionate."" Alan Jenkins; ""It is when he engages the novelist's eye for incident that he is most successful. ""Car fights Cat"" relates how a cat faced down a Daimler, tumbled beneath its wheels, then ""shot out with limbs still solid, / Bolted, spitting fire and gravel / At unjust God who built such massive / Catproof motorcars in his graven image"". There is a fine poem about a map of the Somme (one of several war-related pieces) and there are some welcome lighter moments in different voices - the rather brilliant duologue ""Full Moon's Tongue"" and the jaunty monologue ""Derelict Bathing Cabins at Seaford"".""; John Greening, The TLS, May 15, 2020