I'm not a great fan of the New & Selected idea of a book. I'm sure there are admirable artistic justifications for it but it can look as if it's about time we did a new book, there aren't enough new poems yet so let's do a Selected and include what else we have.
Nearly half of the poems here are from Out of Danger, a book that I already have. Most of that book is here, in fact, although I can't quite just this minute find my copy to do the counting.
Fenton is among our major poets and to his credit not quite as visible as some of the others. There's a lot to be said for not being laureate. And it is certainly a good time to be reminded of these poems.
The first section covers the early, reputation-making poems from his time as a war correspondent; the Out of Danger poems are predominantly well-made, often beautifully besotted love poems and the third section is the new poems that most of us will want the book for, including the fine title poem, an in memoriam Mick Imlah and the best thing, a poem called Cosmology.
In a time in which the poetry zeitgeist admires the allusive and elusive, Fenton remains almost unorthodoxly direct both in tenor and the use of full rhymes. In that way, I suppose, it might be termed muscular poetry, or masculine, but that is not to suggest any unrequired machismo or lack of consideration in the utterance. Because the poems are not consciously oblique doesn't mean they lack intelligence.
Of course, we will remember Fenton being 'in Paris with you', how he felt the beloved was 'out of danger from the heart/ Falling, falling out of love,' and several other of these deja vu pieces but Cosmology is probably the poem we wanted from this book, a meditation on the very origins of our thoughts on the universe,
All the evidence was destined to be lost-
...
As these questions have waited for their tens of thousands of seasons,
Patient or indifferent to our expertise.
It's taken a little while this year for my shortlists for Best Poem and Best Collection to get underway but we do now have a genuine contender.