For All Things Tire of Themselves Arnold Wesker has selected what he considers to be his best and most characteristic poems. In a Foreword commissioned for this publication, TV writer and producer Michael Kustow describes it as ‘an extended soliloquy about family, love, ageing, anger, Jewishness’ whose ‘predominant tone is one of sadness and disenchantment, but never resignation. . .’
Out of this struggle with despair, the poet delivers a hard-won wisdom, ‘a precarious triumph over thieving time.’
In addition to his work for the stage, Wesker has published collections of stories, essays, a book for young people, an autobiography, and most recently his first novel, Honey, but until now he has not brought out a poetry collection even though he has written poems and published them in magazines for many years.
‘Arnold's Wesker's reputation has survived the vicissitudes of fashion, and it is now easier to see the lasting strengths and variety of his work.’
— Margaret Drabble
...a fascinating footnote to the life of a great playwright. It is also a lovely study of growing old, a painful exploring of what Wesker calls ‘the stumbling age’ when ‘Old men fear never waking again,’ ‘Old men sit wondering at themselves’ and ‘Old men forget the gap between Ambition and lapsed energy.’
— Andy Croft, in the Morning Star (21 May 2008)
There is more melancholy from the playwright Sir Arnold Wesker, who has published his first volume of verse at the grand age of 75.
Several of the poems in All Things Tire of Themselves concern growing old. This is a Yeatsian theme, and Wesker alludes to the great man - We'll sail no more to Byzantium
- in 'Old Boats'.
Overall, this collection offers a fascinating footnote to Wesker's dramatic themes of extended family, love, the quest for justice and Jewishness.
— Peter Lawson, in the Jewish Chronicle (15 August 2008)
‘Most of these poems are pretty good. This is a serious and engaging collection, and a welcome addition to the Wesker oeuvre, even if the bottom line is that he is a major playwright but a minor poet.’
— Keith Richmond, in Tribune (14 March 2008)
‘Quite a few of the poems reflect on old age, old friends, lost hopes, faded dreams. They're not necessarily pessimistic, though a note of disenchantment might come through. It's possible to get through life losing illusions without giving up on it, and there are consolations such as family, shared pleasures, and the fact of having survived.’
— Jim Burns, in Ambit
All Things Tire of Themselves costs £8.00 and was published in April 2008.
ISBN: 978-1-873226-98-8
Photo: Dan Wesker
Arnold Wesker, who was knighted in the 2006 New Year’s Honours list for services to drama, is a major British playwright. Born in London in 1932, he achieved early critical success with the three plays known as The Wesker Trilogy (1958–60). Since then he has written around forty more plays, as well as opera librettos and scripts for film, TV and radio. He lives in Hay-on-Wye.
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