{"product_id":"9781447207009-secondhand-nefertiti-in-the-flak-tower","title":"Nefertiti in the Flak Tower","description":"Collecting verse written in the years 2008-2011,  Nefertiti in the Flak Tower  sees Clive James approach his later years with the same technical versatility, emotional poignancy and lightly-worn erudition as defined his career. Across a breathtaking range of themes, there are moving elegies, a meditation on the later W.B. Yeats, a Hollywood Iliad, odes to rare orchids, wartime typewriters and sharks - as well as a poem on the fate of Queen Nefertiti in Nazi Germany. What marks this collection out is his intensified concentration on the individual poem as self-contained universe. Poetry is a practice he compares (in 'Numismatics') to striking new coin; in  Nefertiti in the Flak Tower  each poem is a twin-sided balance of the unashamedly joyous and the deadly serious, 'whose play of light pays tribute to the dark'. Clive James  (1939-2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collection  Sentenced to Life  and a translation of Dante's  The Divine Comedy , both  Sunday Times  bestsellers. His passion for and knowledge of poetry are distilled in his book of criticism on the subject,  Poetry Notebook , and, written in the last year of his life, his personal annotated anthology of favourite poems,  The Fire Of Joy .  Praise for Clive James: 'He will be seen, I think, as one of the most important and influential writers of our time' - Bryan Appleyard,  Sunday Times 'Wise, witty, terrifying, unflinching and extraordinarily alive' - A.S. Byatt, critic and author of  Possession: A Romance 'Clive James is a true poet' - Peter Porter,  London Review of Books","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48957490987227,"sku":"9781447207009-SECONDHAND","price":12.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/3c1c69df-c9c2-41f2-963d-25f3e6cd56cc.jpg?v=1783516205","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/9781447207009-secondhand-nefertiti-in-the-flak-tower","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}