The Empty Air: New Poems 2006-2012

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Tony Connor's tenth collection is framed by military encounters. In the first poem a young man grapples with a malfunctioning machine-gun, while the author grapples with the poem he is making from this event, memory or fantasy. In the surrealistic sequence that ends the book, a strange army invades a country collapsing into societal and semantic dissolution.

Connor's abiding preoccupations continue into his eighties: his own life and the lives around him, passing time and its traps, poetry and its transfiguration of the commonplace. Yet all is not solemn as Connor extends his range into comic verse and dramatic dialogue. His new poems mix fantasy and reality in unexpected ways, always with the unobtrusive hand of a skilled craftsman.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Part 1
• Centurion (p. 11)
• Marble Cover (p. 13)
• The Enquiry (p. 15)
• The Old Marquesa (p. 17)
• A Fortunate Fall (p. 18)
• A Tale (p. 19)
• Divorce (p. 20)
• Reading at Midnight (p. 21)
• Kitchen and Street (p. 22)
• An Absence (p. 23)
• Free Saturday (p. 24)
• End of a War (p. 27)
• Autumn in Age and Youth (p. 28)
• In John B's Café (p. 30)
• Car Crash (p. 31)
• Clear Night in Oxfordshire (p. 32)
• Evening in Adolescence (p. 34)
• Hotel de la Soledad (p. 35)
• Three Births (p. 36)
• Vigil (p. 37)
• Ensor and Friends (p. 38)
• A Visitation, 1941 (p. 39)
• Four Little Poems (p. 40)
• Black Dress-Gloves (p. 42)
• Poet in the USA (p. 43)
• Annual Visit (p. 44)
• Child in Chipshop (p. 46)
• Late Game (p. 47)
• Bad Afternoon (p. 48)
• To Anyuta (p. 49)
• Vacation Land (p. 50)
• Family Funeral (p. 51)
• Night Piece (p. 53)
• Meeting and Missing (p. 54)
• Unknown Voice (p. 56)
• Part 2
• The Poet's Life (p. 59)
• Success Story (p. 61)
• Death at the Vicarage (p. 62)
• A Night Out (p. 64)
• A Reception (p. 66)
• Visit to an English Country Church (p. 67)
• Part 3
• Changeable Afternoon (p. 73)
• Youth (p. 74)
• An Outburst (p. 75)
• Ritual (p. 76)
• Marching through Paderborn (p. 77)
• Shadowing (p. 78)
• Old Soldiers (p. 79)
• Wounded Concealment (p. 80)
• Hero's Return (p. 81)
• Two Voices (p. 82)
• Fraternity (p. 83)
• At Seventy-Nine (p. 84)
• Speeches at an Eightieth Birthday (p. 85)
• Nocturnal (p. 86)
• Affairs of the Day (p. 87)
• Late Life (p. 88)
• Afternoon Caller (p. 89)
• Blizzard (p. 90)
• Dark Street Curving (p. 91)
• Near the End (p. 92)
• Indian Hill (p. 93)
• Trysts (p. 94)
• Part 4
• Approach and Withdrawal (p. 97)
• Morning and Evening (p. 98)
• Don's Lament (p. 99)
• In the Classroom and Out (p. 100)
• Juvenilia (p. 101)
• Newspaper Delivery (p. 102)
• Cold Day in Connecticut (p. 103)
• Going for a Haircut (p. 104)
• My Own Company (p. 105)
• Face to Face (p. 106)
• Dream Dance (p. 107)
• No. 1 in A Minor (p. 108)
• Part 5
• Account of a Possible Coup d'État (p. 113)