Selected Poems

John Fowles wrote poetry throughout his lifetime, but more during the 1950s and 1960s than later. This selection of his poetic work opens with three major sequences dating from the early part of his career, two of which ("Apollo" and "Mycenae") draw on his time living in Greece and his interest in Greek mythology, while the third is closely related to "The Collector". The other poems included, largely unpublished and roughly in chronological order, are very varied in content, form and technique, and culminate in a sequence written in hospital towards the end of his life. Fowles was always interested in verse translation and adaptation, and the book concludes with a small sample of this side of his literary achievement.