Guelf
Love moves the family, but hate
makes the better soldier;
why would the boxer scatter his purse,
sell up his soul, be Ugolino evermore,
for the soft-hard piece of his rival’s ear—
were it not for the lovely taste of hate;
if it didn’t award him a pleasant pillow
of hate to soften the stone of his cell?
Dante, who loved well because he hated,
Hated the wickedness that hinders loving.
Read reviews here, here, here, and here. Read obits here, here, here, and here. And this.
2 comments:
God that's awfully young to die. And he looks terribly handsome in that photo.
Andrew Motion has a piece about them being in Oxford together and how he was the only arty type he knew who played rugby! It's quite funny actually. I can just imagine all these weedy types reading bad poems to eachother (probably not true, that's just pure bitterness on my part) while Imlah heads off to play. There are some rugby related poems in the collection.
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