ONLY FIG & PROSCIUTTO (WHITINGTON, LUKE)

?These poems record a life lived sensuously and to the full in three countries: Italy, Ireland, and Australia. In an era when eros-charged descriptions of foreign feasts make best-selling travel books and TV programs, this book will find a large audience. But Luke Whitington is far more than a sensualist whose mind?s tongue curves inquisitively round gnocchi in the shape of a famous courtesan?s navel. This is a poet who knows history and art, and feels intensely ?both youth?s freshness and the nostalgias of age, lamenting lost parents and lovers. His Italy is flavoured by Horace and Brodsky; and his imagery is rich and deep. Hedges shaken by a storm in Ireland are seen ?running away like green-cloaked rogues?. The moon rises like a ?Soaring circular Sphinx, slowing in mid-summer night air?. Youth clings to a middle-aged man?s complexion ?Like an anxious fly?. A high wind sets the leaves ?streaming this way, that way / Like frightened mice?. Lovers lie embraced, ?While the whole world looks, and thinks it sees.? Pigeon-swarms, ?intoxicated with the element?, ?swerve, dissolve, reform ?as if to a heavenly cond