Louis Macneice

Collected Poems Louis Macneice First American edition

As MacNeice s lifetime falls further and further away from us, his poetry seems to be keeping its proximity. In part, this is a matter simply of excellence, and the power of excellence in poetry to endure MacNeice s lyric gift enabled him to write a number of pieces that are almost certain to be permanently safe from oblivion but it is partly also to do with the sheer depth and range of MacNeice s resources as a writer. Paradoxically, it was his capacity to absorb the present moment, in all its complexity, vividness, and immediacy, which fuelled MacNeice s ability to make art that could live beyond that present time and into a future which he could not know. --from Peter McDonald's Introduction to the American edition