Farewell Performance : Collected Later Poems

Vernon Scannell (1922-2007) was a unique link between the generation of writers who fought in the Second World War and the post-war literary scene: Fitzrovia in the late 1940s, the Mavericks in the 1950s, the 1960s jazz and poetry scene and the New Formalism of the 1980s and 1990s. During a long and sometimes chaotic life, he earned his living as a professional boxer, teacher, novelist, broadcaster and critic. He published over fifty books of poetry across seven decades.

Although Scannell published the massive Collected Poems in 1993, he continued to write for another fourteen years. His last six books – The Black and White Days, Views and Distances, Of Love and War, Behind the Lines, A Place to Live and Last Post – are now collected here for the first time. Published to mark the centenary of his birth, this volume shows how his verse remained accessible, entertaining and honest to the end of his life, reflecting on love, war, cancer and old age with recognisable wit, wisdom, humour and craft.