The Passionate Measure

This title is recommended by the Poetry Book Society. Ivan V Lalic is now recognised as a major figure in European poetry, and thanks to Francis Jones' translations his work can be appreciated as authentic poetry in English. "The Passionate Measure" is a complete translation of Lalic's "Strasna mera", which received Yugoslavia's most important literary award in 1984. Reviewing Lalic's last volume from Anvil, "The Works of Love", Michael Bird wrote in 'PN Review': '...a poetry as real as anything 'original' shines in many of the translations - a cast of strong lyricism that recalls distinctly, both in formal density and in the subjects to which it addresses itself, some of Geoffrey Hill's work (he and Lalic are nearly exact contemporaries)...Far from being ingrowing reveries or blurred and plangent meditations on the lost, these lyrics are ablaze with successes of metaphor'.