The Wednesday Poet Series No. 2

One of the great things about poets is they seem to come in all sizes and shapes. Well, not really... er, yes really but that is not literally what I meant. Last Wednesday, the poet of my focus for the most part exhibited a voice that was mollifying, pacific, permeated in nature. Today, I've gone a different direction with poet and playwright Harold Pinter.

Pinter is born and educated in Britain and has received a number of awards for his work, much of it in the area of playwrite. In 2005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

I found a most interesting quote from Pinter on his own web site attributed to him in 1958.

"There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false." It was then followed by this text: I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?

Harold Pinter has been an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq as well as other hostilities. His anti-war voice has won him acclaim and criticism both. He was awarded the Wilfred Owen award for poetry, given biennially to a writer seen as continuing Owen's tradition for poems observing and distilling what he called "the pity of war".


Pinter's poetry is pretty down to earth. You don't have to read too much between the lines. Examples if this are prevalentnt in all six of his poems found here . His language can be quite dicey as you will see in American Football or Message.

Readers will no doubt find Harold Pinter to be pretty much unmasked in his work. He is the kind of writer that puts himself out there and will never make apologies for it.

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