Publisher's Synopsis
Alastair Reid is celebrated for his poetry, his peerless prose, his translations, and his life. In addition to some rare new material, Oases draws on the best of his work written over the years, thus giving a full picture of this enigmatic man.
'What drew me always to writing was its portability: it required essentially no more than a notebook and a pencil, and it allowed me to own my own time, to travel light, to come to rest anywhere, a freedom I made full use of. I travelled however, mainly to find places to come to rest in, places to write in, oases.'
Over the last thirty years Alastair Reid has shared his unique perspective in more than twenty books of poetry and prose and in his contributions as staff writer and South American editor for The New Yorker: the politics and poetry of Borges and Neruda; football, in all its guises; burying treasure in Scotland; the life and personality of Robert Graves. Be the subject ordinary or extraordinary, he will transform it into his own, magnifying the particular, giving an unexpected dimension, turning a preconception on its head.
Oases captures the best, the essence, of this restless man, now in his seventy-first year. It is also a celebration of life, his life:
I am old enough now for a tree
once planted, knee high, to have grown to be
twenty times me,
and to have seen babies marry, and heroes grow deaf -
but that's enough meaning-of-life.
It's living through time we ought to be connoisseurs of.
