Dolphins

"Dolphins is Stephen Spender's first new volume of poetry since his Collected Poems appeared in 1985. Although most of the poems included here were completed recently, they cover a whole lifetime of experience, going back to memories of childhood during the First World War and advancing to old age. Written for anonymous friends or for prominent contemporaries like Simone Weil or Isaiah Berlin, these poems explore the images of war, the loss of childhood, or the longing for freedom, however evanescent. When read as one work, these poems, like dolphins, "leap out of the surface of waves reflecting the sun." Dolphins is a testament to the transcendent power of poetry, a book of enduring and lyrical verse written by one of the greatest poets of our age."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved