Collected Poems of Sally Purcell

"... Sally's prodigious range of allusion is light-fingered; and always voiced through her own unique sensibility. Her wide knowledge lives in the delicate mesh of her language... The poems seem to me to grow stronger, with some of the finest of all among the uncollected found after her death."

 

- from the Preface by Marina Warner

 

 

 

Containing all her published work along with over 70 uncollected poems, this is the definitive edition of a poet with a growing body of admirers. Clive Wilmer spoke of "the ghostly music" of Sally Purcell's poetry and described her first book as "a miracle of chaste perfection". These qualities remained constant in her work.

 

Sally Purcell was born in Bromsgrove, Worcs in 1944. She studied Mediaeval and Modern French at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and continued to live and work in Oxford (as typist, barmaid, researcher and, above all, writer) until her death in 1998.

"... Sally's prodigious range of allusion is light-fingered; and always voiced through her own unique sensibility. Her wide knowledge lives in the delicate mesh of her language... The poems seem to me to grow stronger, with some of the finest of all among the uncollected found after her death." -- from the Preface by Marina Warner

Sally Purcell (1944-1998), a specialist in medieval literature, published her own poetry with Anvil in several volumes, all of which are included in the posthumous Collected Poems (2002).