All the poems /

Includes index.

Table of Contents -- A Tour of London -- The Dark Music of the Rue du Cherche-Midi -- The Yellow Book -- What? -- Verlaine Villanelle -- Edinburgh Villanelle -- Holy Water Rondel -- The Creative Writing Class -- Authors' Ghosts -- That Bad Cold -- Leaning Over an Old Wall -- Flower into Animal -- Abroad -- Going Up to Sotheby's -- On the Lack of Sleep -- The Grave that Time Dug -- The Pearl-Miners -- Omen -- My Kingdom for a Horse -- Intermittence -- Letters -- Holidays -- Facts -- Complaint in a Wash-Out Season -- Litany of Time Past -- The Fall -- Faith and Works -- Conundrum -- The Messengers -- Fruitless Fable -- Note by the Wayside -- Mungo Bays the Moon -- Panickings -- The Hospital -- The Empty Space -- Hats -- Anger in the Works -- Dimmed-Up -- While Flickering Over the Pages -- Standing in the Field -- To the Gods of My Right Hand -- That Lonely Shoe lying on the Road -- The Victoria Falls -- Conversation Piece -- Elementary -- Against the Transcendentalists -- Shipton-under-Wychwood -- Conversations -- The Card Party -- Chrysalis -- Elegy in a Kensington Churchyard -- Evelyn Cavallo -- The Rout -- Four People in a Neglected Garden -- Like Africa -- We Were Not Expecting the Prince To-day -- Communication -- Created and Abandoned -- The Goose -- A Visit -- Bluebell Among the Sables -- Industriad -- Canaan -- The Nativity -- The Three Kings -- Sisera -- The Ballad of the Fanfarlo -- From the Latin: -- Persicos Odi -- To Lucius Sestius in the Spring -- Winter Poem -- Prologue and Epilogue

This collection of poetry by Muriel Spark presents the full range of one of Britain's most acclaimed writers. It includes villanelles, ballads and epigrams, as well as freer forms, all marked by her sharp observations and command of her medium. Muriel Spark was a poet before she was a novelist: All the Poems presents the full range of the poetry of one of the most acclaimed modern British writers. Here are villanelles, ballads and epigrams, as well as freer forms, all marked by brilliantly precise observation and command of her medium. Her poems are witty, idiosyncratic and haunting, transforming the familiar into glittering moments of strangeness, revealing the dark music beneath the mundane. The edge of danger and wry insights in Muriel Spark's poems are equally unforgettable. Although most of my life has been devoted to fiction, I have always thought of myself as a poet. I do not write poetic prose, but feel that my outlook on life and my perceptions of events are those of a poet. Whether in prose or verse, all creative writing is mysteriously connected with music and I always hope this factor is apparent throughout my work. Muriel Spark The National Library of Scotland holds the Muriel Spark archive and has just launched a dedicated website. Visit www.nls.uk/murielspark/ for more information.