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JON SILKIN was working with Cargo Press on his collection Testament Without Breath at the time of his death in November 1997. In 1952 he founded Stand magazine which he was still editing 45 years later with undiminished skill and commitment. His first volume of poems, The Peaceable Kingdom, was published in 1954 and has been followed by several more. The Lens Breakers was published by Sinclair Stevenson in 1992. He edited several anthologies and books of criticism, most notably on the poets of the First World War. He lectured and taught widely, both in the UK and abroad. He was highly respected and much loved. |
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TESTAMENT WITHOUT BREATH Limited edition ISBN 89990 05 9 paper, 254 x 160. 36 pp. £9.00 Images by Robert McNab Jon Silkin was working on Testament until his sudden death. It is both an exploration of his Jewish inheritance and a passionate avowal of life.'I have died, you said. Your will is no thing, but your testament is the release of your image in my breast. Tender love is my recall. Mimulus. Yet in the yard, now, you raise trumpets, in papery silence. Save for the blood-orange tint, you look like petunias, your returning upon us is a ship woven into the ocean, upon Penelope's skein indifferent to an ending. Clash clash. But never, never that at all...' The Mimulus Showing Itself |