[Clive Watkins]

My essay on the English poet E J Scovell, which first appeared in the winter 2009 issue of AbleMuse, is now posted as well at her page at her publisher’s site, Carcanet here.

My thanks to Gregory Dowling and to Alex for their encouragement, and of course to Michael Schmidt of Carcanet Press, Manchester, UK.

Clive Watkins

[Adam Elgar]

A wonderful marriage of aesthetic sensitivity with intellectual rigour, Clive. That is rare and cherishable. A fine study of a poet whose work I don't know at all, and will now seek out.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Adam put it better than I can. Thanks for the link, Clive.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

Nice work on an unfairly neglected poet, Clive!

I was interested to see her using "slowlier" instead of the standard "more slowly". You note that she was by no means as adventurous as Hopkins, but this example of a neologism indicates that she was willing to take linguistic risks when she felt the occasion demanded it.

I'm not sure whether her collected or selected is the better bet. Which would you recommend?

Duncan

[Gregory Dowling]

Clive, I'm very glad to see the essay appearing on the poet's page as well. It was a privilege to be associated with its first publication.
Gregory

[Andrew Frisardi]

Thanks for the link, Clive--I hadn’t read this before now. Your essay is a lesson in close reading, and I appreciated that there were so many carefully chosen quotations in it from Scovell’s poems. Based on these, and on what you say about her style and leanings, I imagine her translations of Pascoli are excellent. She has been added to my list of poets whose work I want to get to know.
Andrew

[Clive Watkins]

Dear Adam, Janice, Duncan and Andrew

Thank you for the kind words. The essay was fun to write.

Duncan, I’d buy the Selected, I think. Though I have not checked exhaustively, from recollection I believe it contains all the poems I refer to, including those late, late poems not in the Collected. It also includes some of her fine Pascoli versions.

Thanks again.

Clive

[Tim Murphy]

Well done, Clive. I enjoyed the essay when it first appeared, and good for Michael Schmidt for posting at the Carcanet site.

[Catherine Tufariello]

I greatly admire E.J. Scovell's poems (I'm lucky enough to have acquired a signed copy of her Selected a decade or so ago), and I enjoyed and learned from your thoughtful essay, Clive. Thanks for posting the link.

[John Whitworth]

Inspired by your essay i rabbitted about on my shelves for the book of Scovell's poems that I know I have. But I haven't? Did I lend it to some bloody student. A hideous curse... Thank you for you essay.