Robert Crawford's new biography, Young Eliot, takes its subject only as far as this momentous publication, ending with some sketchy gestures toward its initial reception.
(Warner published 10 story collections, ending with some of her most eerily convincing in the incomparable "Kingdoms of Elfin" of 1977).
The result was like an easy-going party in the desert, with female drummers and singers joined by slinky instrumental work from the male guitarists, and the session ending with some furious dancing.
Well, in fact, the book that gives the most close-up view of the museum's looting, Matthew Bogdanos's "Thieves of Baghdad," has been optioned to Hollywood — though one studio, Bogdanos tells me, asked if they could adapt it as fiction, so that instead of ending with some artifacts being returned, the museum would be blown up by terrorists!
I'm ending with some of my favourite music to listen to when writing poetry: Calypso: Mighty Sparrow Sparromania (Wit, Wisdom and Soul from the King of Calypso 1960-1976) - particularly side 1, No. 7 Kennedy And Krushchev and side 2, No. 6 Lion & Donkey.
It was, however, many other things, beginning with a long Epistle Dedicatory in the shape of a letter to Arthur Bingham Walkley, the theatre critic of the Times, who regarded Shaw as a brilliant journalist but an awful dramatist; and ending with some clever revolutionary sayings purported to be written by the central character of the comedy, John Tanner ("Member of the Idle Rich Class").
