Winner of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, 2006
Fleur Adcock (1934-2024) was one of Britain’s most accomplished poets. Her poised, ironic poems are tense and tightly controlled as well as shrewdly laconic, and often chilling as she unmasks the deceptions of love or unravels family lives. Disarmingly conversational in style, they are remarkable for their psychological insight and their unsentimental, mischievously casual view of personal relationships.
Born in New Zealand, she explored questions of identity and rootedness throughout her work, both in relation to her personal allegiances to her native and adopted countries as well as her family history, whose long-dead characters she brings to life. She also wrote movingly of birth, death and bereavement, and has tackled political issues with honest indignation and caustic wit.
This first complete edition of her poetry was published on her 90th birthday, superseding her earlier retrospective, Poems 1960-2000, with the addition of five later collections published by Bloodaxe, Dragon Talk (2010), Glass Wings (2013), The Land Ballot (2015), Hoard (2017) and The Mermaid’s Purse (2021), along with a gathering of 20 new poems. All her most celebrated poems are here, from the highly entertaining ‘Against Coupling’, ‘Smokers For Celibacy’ and ‘The Prize-winning Poem’ to modern classics such as ‘The Ex-Queen Among the Astronomers’ and ‘Things’.
‘Fleur Adcock began writing at a time when very few women poets were being published, and remained a pioneer, a champion and a role model, providing the inspiration for other women writers to follow. Her poems are witty, warm and conversational, welcoming the reader in.’ – Judith Palmer, Director of The Poetry Society
‘Fleur’s deceptively relaxed conversational style is often barbed with an oblique take on reality. As the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy said: “The sharper edge of her talent is encountered like a razor blade in a peach.” Her poetry deals with life’s surprises and oddities, the unexpected or unexplained that can cut the ground from beneath your feet.’ – Janet Wilson
‘Her work was characterized by wit and powerful observation. She was a stalwart of the British poetry scene for many decades. Her writing remained clear-eyed and humorous even as she contemplated her own old age.’ – Samira Ahmed, paying tribute to Fleur Adcock on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row
‘… her work has been consistently good right from the start […] The relaxed, conversational style that has become her hallmark over the years is a testament to the power of plain words when placed within a poetic context […] This major retrospective of her work will be welcomed with enthusiasm by all who wish to study in depth the span of Adcock’s literary career.‘ – Neil Leadbeater, Write Out Loud
‘Fleur Adcock may be about to turn 90, but – as her new Collected Poems shows – she’s still writing essential work. Originally from New Zealand, since settling in England in 1963 she has become one of the most celebrated, and quietly influential, voices in British poetry. Adcock writes with a rare lightness of touch, and a candour that’s often seen her labelled a confessional poet.’ – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph (Poem of the Week)
‘Fleur Adcock’s Collected Poems is a vast treasure chest of vivid, memorable poetry. Opening it at almost any page I find strikingly original turns of phrase and thought or sophisticated plays on register’ – Edmund Prestwich, London Grip
