One Another

Dale's acclaimed sonnet sequence. One Another, concerns, as its title suggests, a long-term relationship between a man and woman. As Dale himself has written: 'The poems present the male and female sensibility of each partner as they relate to each other and respond to significant events, attitudes and details of their lively relationship. Terry Eagleton, one of the book's finest critics, described One Another as 'the most distinguished [collection] has produced to date' and went on to say: 'Dale has always worked best in fairly rigorous lambic forms, sensing adroitly when to ruffle, slacken or telescope a line, and it therefore isn't surprising that the sonnet form works for him so impressively. His work has always been unheroically low-keyed...but here, while preserving that "literalism of the imagination" at which his poetry is so accomplished, he ventures into more explicitly lyrical terrain, more imaginatively fertile than before, perhaps more confident that the terseness of the form will curb emotionalist excess...'

About the Author :
Peter Dale was born in in Surrey in 1938, and educated at Strode's School, Egham, and St Peter's College, Oxford. For twenty-one years he was head of the English department of Hinchley Wood School, Esher, and concurrently an editor of the poetry quarterly Agenda. Well-known for his Penguin verse-translation of Villon, he has recently published a terza-rima version of Dante's Divine Comedy and his selected poems, Edge to Edge, both with Anvil Press Poetry Ltd. His Richard Wilbur in Conversation with Peter Dale was published by Between The Lines in 2000. Revised and extended editions of his Poems of Francois Villon and his Poems of Jules Laforgue appeared from Anvil in 2001. He currently edits a poetry column for Oxford Today.

Review :
'One Another is a fine book, ambitious and serious in its themes, using language carefully and quietly to explore the ideas first touched on in [his earliest book] it is also a brave and generous book, using respectfully a much maligned form to deal with themes that leave Dale wide open to the sneers of the minimalists. Such a combination of ambition and reticence seems to me to be essentially part of Dale's achievement as a poet, an achievement that has a great deal to do with seriousness and courtesy. One Another is both a confirmation and a development of his talent.' - William Bedford. 'But where [Meredith's] Modern Love was dramatic, One Another takes, as its title implies, a synthesis of shared experience, and makes it extraordinarily vivid and accessible to the ordinary unengaged reader.' - John Bayley 'One Another is an impressive and moving sequence; courageous also... in touching so truthfully the intimacies we find unspeakable.' - D.M. Thomas 'It is poetry of a very high order, quite worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as that published in its decade by Philip Larkin, Geoffrey Hill and F.T. Prince...' - W.G. Shepherd