So Brightly at the Last: Clive James and the Passion for Poetry

JIMI HENDRIX, PRINCESS DIANA AND SYRIA’S ASMA AL-ASSAD rub shoulders with Auden, Eliot and Shelley – and with the Trouser Thief Clive met during ten long weeks locked up in a closed psychiatric ward – in this offbeat and affectionate poetic biography. Since 2010, when Clive was told he had three separate life-threatening conditions, he has poured out a stream of fine poems – sometimes light, witty and paradoxical, sometimes sad, heartfelt and regretful. Some, like ‘Japanese Maple’, an insta...