The Face of It

Overview

Visual art, French film, Shakespeare, natural history, and weather are all put under a unique microscope in this selection of poems. Originally based upon a series of notebook observations, the poems—presented in a late modernist style—range in subject from Palladian architecture to Rauschenberg’s pop art, from Bresson’s cinematography to Bottom’s dream. Demonstrating a nostalgic affection for rural English and European landscapes, these poems uncover surprise and truth in the most ordinary of moments.

Reviews

"Wonderfully inventive, bursting with linguistic exuberance . . . Langley is one of poetry's best-kept secrets."  —Whitbread Poetry Prize judges

"The quality of Langley's writing is extraordinary. On first reading I found myself bolt upright, the book falling from my hands as his poetry tore through me."  —Randolph Healey, author, Daylight Saving Sex

Author Biography

R. F. Langley is a retired English and art history teacher. He is the author of Collected Poems, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize and was an honored recommendation by the Poetry Book Society.