BACKGROUND MUSIC

by Christy Brown ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1973

Very musical, very Irish, and most disinclined to keep to the background. The ""I"" here is no anemic lyric device but a fine, full-blooded, pub-crawling pronoun, and a match -- a close match -- for any poetic self-assertion of this type. As a type, Brown veers between rainbows and whiskey bottles, wringing the last drop of moisture from every amorous episode and drear morning after. Rather than extending, he intensifies to give dimension to his personal world; but -- and this is apart from the type -- he is as intrepid as any exploring poet. He is not afraid, for example, to interrupt a series of rhymes on the order of dying/crying, doom/gloom, with the eye rhyme sky/ immensity -- as boisterous a bit of prosody as you'll find -- or, giving his mimic blarney rein, to utter a deliciously drunken slur like ""avaricious fishes."" In still moods his tenderness is just as uninhibited, a somewhat different tone from his 1971 novel Down All the Days. But like the novel, the poems are justified by the life in them.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Stein & Day

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION