Ken Smith (1938-2003) was a major voice in world poetry, his work and
example inspiring a whole generation of younger British poets. His
politically edgy, cuttingly colloquial, muscular poetry poetry shifted
territory with time, from rural Yorkshire, America and London to the
war-ravaged Balkans and Eastern Europe (before and after Communism).
His early books span a transition from a preoccupation with land and
myth to his later engagement with urban Britain and the politics of
radical disaffection. The pivotal work marking this shift was his long
poem Fox Running (1980), brought to recent attention when an archive
recording of him reading it was broadcast by BBC Radio 4's Poetry
Please in 2016. His Collected Poems brings together poetry from four
decades, including all the work from two earlier retrospectives, The
Poet Reclining: Selected Poems 1962-1980 (1982) and Shed: Poems
1980-2001 (2002), together with the posthumously published You Again:
last poems & other words (2004).
The book is introduced with essays by Roger Garfitt and Jon Glover. Its
publication coincided with his 80th birthday and with the 40th
anniversary of the publication of Bloodaxe's first title, Ken Smith's
Tristan Crazy (1978).
