The Boys at Twilight: Poems 1990 - 1995

By Glyn Maxwell

The poems in this volume were selected by Glyn Maxwell from TALE OF THE MAYOR'S SON (published in 1990, when he was twenty-eight), OUT OF THE RAIN (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize), and REST FOR THE WICKED. Maxwell "is a formalist," wrote Robert McIlwaine about his first book, "but . . . he is an outspoken anti-elitist social poet. His strenuous well-wrought poems . . . come from an English tradition of technical virtuosity with plain speech." The Boys at Twilight shows, sometimes comically, men at war, boys at play, boys grown up, men overreaching and reverting. Other concerns are the dangers of authority and mob psychology, the absurdities of stardom and consumerism, the heroism of the decent, and the wisdom of doubt. His subjects range from biblical stories to the "Tale of the Chocolate Egg," which is a long, "pitch-perfect description of a bored young man's growing obsession with a new kind of candy" (Adam Kirsch, New Republic). Always in his work, "Maxwell knows that to see into is not necessarily to see through . . . His virtuosity has a ballast of sobriety" (Poetry Book Society).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618064141
• ISBN13: 9780618064144
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

The Development of a Career

I sometimes wonder why young writers allow their publishers to talk them into releasing a "selected poems" volume. Almost invariably, they will come to see much of their earliest work as a development, not a finished product. That fact is very much in evidence in this work. Maxwell makes selections from his first 3 books, and each book is more accomplished than the one before. His formalism becomes more assured with each successive book. As such, I recommend this book to people interested in Maxwell from his other works, or who are interested in neo-formal poetry in general. Be aware, though, that you can't judge the whole book by the first few poems.