{"product_id":"clive-lawrance-my-barbados-hat","title":"Clive Lawrance - My Barbados Hat","description":"\u003cp\u003eISBN: 9780620488020\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJive Media Africa, 2011\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e56 pages, Paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSIGNED BY AUTHOR\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClive Lawrance’s new collection of poetry begins with a quote from WB Yeats: “Why should not old men be mad?”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt’s a good question, one Lawrance feels in a position to answer. Now that he is in his seventies he doesn’t feel the need to justify what he does. Not that he ever did, mind. It’s just that his latest collection of poetry is his most honest, his most personal, and it is, as anything is that Lawrance does, unapologetic.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“In the past, people have complained that I haven’t put myself into the poems I’ve written,” he explains over a cup of tea at my kitchen table. “For the first time, though, this book is full of me. My previous poems were observational and were true to who I was when I wrote them. The fact that I can express my own feelings in poetry now is a new development for me.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLawrance explains how reading his new-found favourite poet, American Ted Kooser, opened up the world of personal poetry for him. “I usually hate poems where feelings are spat on to the page like gob!” he exclaims. “So I’ve always been wary of pouring out my deepest feelings in poetry. Previously, most of my poetry was about nature. I considered myself primarily a nature poet. But Kooser showed me how I could write about people as well as myself. He is still my biggest inspiration. Strangely enough, my other favourite poets, William Blake, Robert Frost and WB Yeats, are too far removed from my own way of writing to influence me. Yeats inspires me very much, but he’s a giant, so he can’t really be my role model, as he’s so far beyond me. Also, I can’t relate to Yeats’s and Frost’s metrical worlds. Kooser, however, writes about the same kinds of things I do. I can identify with him. So I am able to emulate the way he approaches human feelings in a way which makes me feel comfortable. He is within my grasp. Ted’s my boy!”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"I H Pentz Booksellers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47621565350050,"sku":null,"price":150.0,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0364\/4047\/3732\/files\/my_barbados_hat.jpg?v=1788521190","url":"https:\/\/pentzbooks.co.za\/products\/clive-lawrance-my-barbados-hat","provider":"I H Pentz Booksellers","version":"1.0","type":"link"}