Rouflaquettes (Paperback)

In many ways Rouflaquettes is a more personal collection than the writer's last volume Dorset Street. Ian Burton has divided these very direct and memorable poems into three sections, which are flanked at the beginning of part one by a version of Jean Cocteau's L'Ange Heurtebise, and at the end of the third part by a version of some of Michelangelo's Sonnets to Tommaso de Cavalieri. The first section is predominantly concerned with the poetry of place", that is to say, landscapes with a particular significance for the writer and irradiated by memory, whereas the second section is concerned with people, friends and lovers, particularly those who have disappeared", as the French say. The third section opens with a group of autobiographical poems which form part of a longer work, and is followed by a group of poems addressed to one particular person, who appears in various artistic and historical disguises, and all of these poems are qualified by the observation that Everything personal rots; /Pack it in salt or ice."