Conjurors: Poems - Paperback

by James Keery (Editor), Julian Orde (Author)

A major poet revealed for the first time: Julian Orde's lost poems of love, war, and surreal landscapes. Julian Orde (1917-74), a friend of Stevie Smith and intimate of Dylan Thomas, published only in magazines during her lifetime. Now, her substantial and unexpected poems come alive, showcasing her evolving worlds and changing landscapes.

Experience Orde's lyrical surrealism, prophetic and charged: 'The speckled water rippled into minnows, /Of worms and turf smelt all the fish pale morning...'. William Empson celebrated her 'wonder at nature' and 'supply of unforced humour.' Discover a voice that makes it 'hard to imagine the middle of the twentieth century now without Julian Orde.'

Carcanet's recovery of her work--thanks to James Keery and V. Beatson--proves that the past is rich in resource and surprise. For readers of modernist poetry and those seeking forgotten women's voices.

Author Biography

James Keery lives in Culcheth with his wife Julie and teaches English in Wigan. He has published a collection of poems, That Stranger, The Blues, and edited Carcanet's Apocalypse, an anthology of mid-century visionary modernist poetry, as well as the Collected Poems of the Scottish poet Burns Singer. Julian Orde (1917- 74) was a granddaughter of the 4th Duke of Wellington, raised in London and Paris, and presented at court as a debutante. She rebelled. She achieved distinction and professional success as a poet, a writer of short stories, an actor, a playwright, a screenwriter and a copywriter. She published around twenty poems in the forties, but no more in her lifetime. Greville Press published a pamphlet edition of her classic long poem, Conjurors, in 1988.