Out of Danger: Poems

Out of Danger (1994) was Fentons first collection of poems in ten years and the poems in it renew and amplify the qualities of unflinching observation and freewheeling verbal play that made his earlier Children in Exile so distinctive and distinguished. The poems in this books title sequence address the dangers of love and the love of danger; Fenton proposes that in love politics and poetry alike the truth is something you say at your peril and yet something you shouldnt contain. Part II of the book Out of the East is a series of ironical fight songs about political violence-- in Manila the Middle East Tiananmen Square and elsewhere. Part III Maski Paps reveals again Fentons celebrated talents for light-verse nonsense. And in The Manila Manifesto he turns his gifts loose upon the world of poetry itself in ways that will both enrage and delight. Out of Danger is refined and daring jocular and deeply challenging.