Castles: Variations On An Original Theme

Out Of Print ... Castles is a long poem of variations on a theme, in six sections, each in memory of a friend or relative. The theme has two parts, first, an act of assertion, as of the building of a castle, and second, its collapse. A number of castles are recalled and some of the more vivid and evocative writing is concerned with these 'dormant or extinct volcanoes of militarism'. The sense of immense antiquity, and of hardness, stoniness, is powerfully evoked. Interwoven with the public theme of the castle there is a private dimension of the poet's friends and what they have meant to him. Castles id shadowed by death, but many other topics-nature, war, art, religion-are touched on. And, over all, the poem meditates on the country, Wales, its history and people.