A Book of Substance

The Fire of Joy is (putatively) the last book by the expatriate Australian poet Clive James (1939–2019) and deserves a longer consideration than Ian Shircore was able to give it in his wide-ranging article in the January-February issue of this magazine. It’s the kind of book that every poet of substance ought to be encouraged to compile and leave behind.

Unfortunately, because of his achievements in so many other fields (television, cultural commentary, fiction, memoir, song lyrics) there has often been a reluctance to see James as a “poet of substance”. Until the more sombre late collections written during his extended final illness, many readers were inclined to dismiss James as a “dilettante”, an “entertainer”, a writer of “light (or lightish) verse”.

Whatever other people may have thought, James always thought of himself as a poet. His interest in it was effectively lifelong and extended well beyond his own personal ambitions in the form. The Fire of Joy…