Craig Raine Critical Essay | Critical Review by Gavin Ewart

SOURCE: "References Back," in Times Literary Supplement, June 30, 1978, p. 728.

In the following review, Ewart finds The Onion, Memory "intellectually so satisfying that some triviality of theme can be overlooked."

[The Onion, Memory] is Craig Raine's first book. At the age of thirty-four he is no infant prodigy and it is clear at once that there are qualities of thought and control here which a younger writer might not have been able to command. It is also clear, from the very first poem, that metaphor and simile rule OK. A butcher "duels with himself" and offers "heart lamé-ed from the fridge, a leg of pork / like a nasty bouquet". The new customer in a barber's shop is "another piece / of sheeted furniture to sit there and be dusted". There is also some verbal trickery—"the slap and trickle of blood", "tired as a teapot" (alliteration, in my...
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