Harold Monro, poet

The poet and bookshop owner Harold Monro (1879-1932) is a fascinating figure in Twentieth Century British poetry. His poetry, neither particularly traditional nor easy to sit beside the radical poetries of the day, deserves to be read for its understated simmering lust/depression/desperation and its destructive elements. There is a great selection available from Laurel Books, edited by Dominic Hibberd. One of my favourites in the book is 'Introspection', in which the poem literally disintegrates, fades out to nothingness. But here is the excerpted beginning of the poem. It has a great first couplet:

'That house across the road is full of ghosts;
The windows, all inquisitive, look inward:
All are shut.
I have never seen a body in the house;
Have you? Have you?
Yet feet go sounding in the corridors,
And up and down, and up and down the stairs,
All day, all night, all day.

When will the show begin?
When will the host be in?
What is the preparation for?
When will he open the bolted door?
When will the minutes move smoothly along in their hours?

Time, answer!

The air must be hot: how hot inside.
If only somebody could go
And snap the windows open wide,
And keep them so!'

I find this poem suffocating and desperate. ILOVEIT! The book is great and highly recommended. So thank-you Laurel Books.