[R. S. Gwynn]

http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/books-and-aut...et-who-forgot/

This is a good and poignant book. I had some correspondence with Alec in the late 70s and 80s, and I earlier heard him read in 1968, which occasioned a lifelong love affair with his work. He was a great poet, of course, but a great man as well. I would hate to see his works vanish into obscurity. He is part of the great tradition but, like Clive James (to a lesser degree), has suffered from being Antipodean. This sonnet should prove the peer of any in English. Any.

[Roger Slater]

[nevermind]

[Gregory Dowling]

Thanks, Sam. I didn't know that book and will have to get hold of it.

I don't think total obscurity is likely in Hope's case but it is certainly a pity that even partial obscurity should have fallen on his later books. I hope it'll be possible to remedy that.

Cally is on the case, for a start...

[ross hamilton hill]

i've been checking out Hope, not a great fan but I heard in an interview on the radio that he used 'dreamworkers' to help him write his poetry, so I'm with him on that score. Just thought I'd mention that if you are really keen there are bookfinders, companies that will find books for you, I would imagine what you are after would be easy to find in Australia, also if you look on Radio National, Australia's ABC, (Australian National Broadcaster), like the BBC, you will find an archive of poetry radio broadcasts, there's two I found on Hope, one has Clive James reading one of his poems, then a discussion, another I noticed had a reading list of local books about his work (including a collected old and new essays).
He was a weird bloke, from another time really, he seemed to have no affinity with the contemporary world, who can blame him? Some one who met him when he was old described it as like meeting Gandalf.

[Gregory Dowling]

Thanks, Ross, for the advice. Here in fact is a link to one of the programmes you refer to (for which I also thank David Mason). A great discussion of "The Death of the Bird", with Clive James.

[Michael F]

I stole a phrase from "The Death of The Bird" a few years ago for a poem. My poem languishes somewhere in a virtual drawer, but it pleased me at the time, and it was, in part, my hat-tip to A.D. Hope's mastery.

OK: the phrase was inane dominions. I still covet it.

[Gregory Dowling]

You do right to covet it, Michael. I think Hope was remembering the last line of Act III of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound: "Pinnacled dim in the intense inane."