The Bells of St. Babel’s

He has been a major voice at every stage of his career , wrote C.K. Stead in the London Review of Books , knowing what he is about, moving at his own pace, inventive, unpredictable… . In The Bells of Saint Babel’s Allen Curnow, now in his nineties, is unique in English-language poetry not only in the length of his innings but in the vigour of his most recent work. The Bells of Saint Babel’s , his first book for four years, revisits places and considers life’s ironies, the chances and accidents that lead to here . There are narrative sequences, a sonnet, four free translations from Pushkin, and poems of lyric reflection. All are marked by Curnow’s close attention to visual detail, his lovingly severe interest in the landscape and history of his own country, and his formal fluency and variety.