New Collected Poems

'I first read a W. S. Graham poem in 1949. It sent a shiver down my spine. Forty-five years later nothing has changed. His song is unique and his work an inspiration.' Harold Pinter.

From his first publications in the early 1940s, to his final works of the late 1970s, W. S. Graham has given us a poetry of intense power and inquisitive vision - a body of work regarded by many as among the best British poetry of the twentieth century. This 2004 Faber and Faber New Collected Poems, edited by me, with a foreword by Douglas Dunn, offers the broadest picture yet of Graham's work.

"For all its eventual and hard-won austerity, his poetry keeps the warmth of human contact. This is partly due to his exceptionally skilful manipulation of verse forms, which allows even the most conversational pieces to preserve a sense of anticipation and surprise. We come round to his line-endings never quite knowing what to expect, and find that new life has been breathed into the most everyday phrases .... The several powerful love poems that strew the whole path of his career are more than just tender interludes; they are the framework and foundation of his vision." (Andrew Motion, The Guardian)

"This new edition supersedes the earlier Collected Poems. It adds more work from Graham's early career, when he was edited by TS Eliot and loosely associated with Dylan Thomas, as well as two posthumous collections. It has been sympathetically edited and is handsomely presented. To sit down with Graham is to share in a warm and constructive engagement with silence." (Alan Marshall, The Telegraph)

"This beautifully produced new edition restores his earlier books to their entirety, and it includes three sections of posthumous writing, glossaries of names and Scottish words, and spare but useful notes ... Throughout his career Graham struggled against what he called the 'beast of silence' that lives in the page unmarked by text, but like the arctic explorer Nansen, whom he greatly admired, he makes his trek into the unexplored terrains of language exhilarating, sublime, and not a little dangerous." (Brian Kim Steffans, Boston Review)

"It is intensely pleasing to see this important book published in such a handsome but unadorned format. This is the book to do Graham justice at last. His reputation can only continue to grow." (David Wheatley, The Irish Times)