A Brightness to Cast Shadows

In A Brightness to Cast Shadows, his first collection of poems, David Constantine creates a world of heightened contrasts: celebrating personal love; reaching into social misery; exploring the beauty and harshness of nature. His poems are often conceived in groups or cycles, and particular landscapes are evoked: West Cornwall, North Wales, the Pennines. The collection includes his poem sequence 'In Memoriam 8571 Private J.W. Gleave', a deeply moving account of his grandmother's lifelong incomprehension of her husband's death in the trenches. David Constantine's poetry is direct and uncomplicated, combining classical precision and a tender lyricism; he writes, as we should read, with the kind of sensitivity Randall Jarrell characterised as 'a mixture of sharp intelligence and of willing emotional empathy, at once penetrating and generous'.