"Imperium" opens with a high seriousness rare in contemporary poetry. Seven 'sacraments' - meditations on those moments at which the sacred can still touch our lives - are followed by nineteen sonnets dedicated to the 'dismembered spirit' of the poet's father. But the collection is dominated by the title poem, a fine successor to the historical sequences which distinguished Hilary Davies' last collection, "In a Valley of This Restless Mind". Using a range of voices and perspectives, she creates a narrative of the Napoleonic Wars, taking us from Chatham Docks to Aboukir, from a Glamorgan foundry to Trafalgar. Here and in the book's final sequence, 'Southwark', which swings between a prehistoric 'wattenmeer' and the London of 1958, then back to Roman times via a wonderfully riotous Elizabethan South Bank, Davies satisfies us both emotionally and intellectually, drawing from her historical sources a rich, invigorating music.
- ISBN10 190056419X
- ISBN13 9781900564199
- Publish Date 13 May 2005
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 17 May 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Enitharmon Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 64
- Language English