Collected Poems: Frances Horovitz

Frances Horovitz’s poems have the clarity of ballad and the power of myth. Her finely honed lyrics 'strike to areas of the soul as old as humanity itself'. Many were inspired by the remote Cotswold valley where she lived for ten years; others by the border country of Cumbria and the Welsh Marches. Her posthumous Collected Poems (1985) was one of the landmark volumes of postwar British poetry. She was one of the finest ever readers of poetry, and this enhanced book with audio includes an recording from 1982 of her reading a selection of her poems, along with an interview. Frances Horovitz (1938-85) was greatly loved and respected not only as a poet, but also as a broadcaster and performer of poetry. She was one of the finest poetry readers this country produced, possessing a rare ability to hear a poem and become its voice. She published four collections of poems, including Water Over Stone (Enitharmon Press, 1980) and Snow Light, Water Light (Bloodaxe Books, 1983). She died in 1983, aged 45, after a long illness.