Swinging between the “hysterically quiet’ of Australian towns and China’s commercialisation of Mao, between allegorical voyages and densities of affection, Dennis Haskell’s All the Time in the World provides explorations of the nature of truth and the meaning – if any – of human emotions.
Language stands here in varying relations to the world, sometimes fragile, sometimes firm, in portraying a deep link between “the unsayable” and the ordinary. The book explores meanings underwritten by death, and pits a breadth of language against the values of a contemporary world dominated by the anonymity of money.
Agreeing that the resources of English ‘must be kept up’, Dennis Haskell in his new work creates a dialogue between modernist improvisation and the traditional pleasures of poetry. The result is a book that is full of verbal play and sparkle. But beyond that, as the finest poets do, he takes us out onto the depths of feeling.
Robert Gray
Contents: all the time in the world
Excerpt: “Brightly Shone the Moon”
