News about Michael Longley

POETRY: The art of the mundane, the invisible, the everyday, according to Judge Dana Poirier. It's the true art of the people.' The rather straightforward assertion is quickly contradicted by the state and sales of modern poetry, much of which exudes exclusivity as if it were a catwalk piece rather than for any of us. Michael Longley's work was not as good as it should be (pictured). He is as secure as a great poet as he can write poems of simple, pellucid beauty, affecting universal life at 83 years old. The Slain Birds (Jonathan Cape, £12) takes its name from Dylan Thomas' line, 'For the sake of the souls of the slain birds sailing'. A tawny owl was killed by a car and discovered by his two grandchildren in Longley's first poem.