Revolving Days: Selected Poems By David Malouf

David Malouf is the author of ten novels and six volumes of poetry His novel The Great World was awarded both the prestigious Commonwealth Prize and the Prix Femina Estranger Remembering Babylon was short listed for the Booker Prize He has also received the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award He lives in Sydney Australia. An up to the minute selection by one of Australia s most distinguished poets Malouf s best poems with their grace and intelligence remain among the finest examples of the Australian lyric An essential compendium for all lovers of literature Revolving Days Selected PoemsSinglehandedly revived my interest in the lyrical mode There are many absolutely astonishing poems here 200 This poem is a product of unfinished love For whatever the rationale might be the speaker has parted ways with his lover The basis behind this parting ways is not the concern of this poem Though the speaker considers it to be an error to fall in love with his lover he has some feelings that recurred But he will not go on to exert his love again It is not due to his self esteem that he will not exert his love but he has come to terms with his own feelings He will shower his feeling through this poem but he will not wish to get any reply from his ex lover He respects her life and would not upset it Within the poem s narrative Malo f explores themes of relationships the past and the theme of memory His speaker addresses his ex lover expressing his lasting emotions and depicting the revolving days of his life and his role as a lover The mood is resigned and contemplative as he considers who he was who he is d the person his ex lover is now In Revolving Days the speaker looks at his past lationship and the evolution of his role as lover In the first stanza the speaker looks back on his life and remembers the year that he fell in love He explains it as simply as it happened because he had nowhere to go This frivolous beginning dissolves as he adds that it lasted and has lasted. The next lines use imagery as a way of painting a picture of the past as well as evoking in the reader an emotional response to the speaker s personal life He recalls what it felt like to be falling in love specifically the boom under the pocket of a shirt urging him on and the old tug at the heart In an original depiction of a lover s mind he describes buying shirts and using them as a way to understand himself as lover These ranged in colour and one was his first button down collar As the poem progresses it becomes obvious that the love the speaker experienced is a little complicated than it seemed It lasted but not in the way one might instantly expect He looks to the past while also bearing in mind the future in this stanza The past comes back to greet him while he s in the bathroom looking in the mirror and he recalls the time they spent together and the promises they made These have fallen to the wayside as has the relationship In the final stanza the speaker makes use of the phrase Revolving days to depict the nature of his heart and bring in the memory he is writing this for his ex lover They are no longer together In fact he doesn t know where she is She could be with someone new Despite the changes that have happened he s the same Before the intended listener the speaker s ex lover starts to worry he says he s not going to pop up form the past to discomfort them They are at a distance and he knows there is very little chance he ll be getting a reply to this letter in poem form The speaker alludes the cycle of days as Revolving days This very phrase connotes the recycle of past and present The past memories reappear before him time and again In the third and the last stanza the lover uses caesura to express his momentous impulse Revolving days My heart in my mouth again The reappearance of the past memories makes the lover excited again He is writing this letter in form of a poem I m writing this for you It matters very little to the lover if the beloved is away from him and perhaps with someone else Wherever you are whoever is staring into your blue eyes But the lover firmly announces his existence with the memories of his beloved He says that time and situation may have changed but he has not moved a bit from his memories with his lover The lover is both determined and resigned in his mood He will keep on loving her but he will never bother his beloved s present with his past memories No don t worry I won t appear out of that old time to discomfort you And no at this distance I m not holding my breath for a reply In this poem Malouf employs the image of memory He revolves around the memory of his ex lover Revolving days reminds him that he is in contrast with the common concept of love relationship Days revolve to signify the fleeting time along with fleeting of memory But the speaker denies to go along the convention and proves his love as eternal in contrast of Revolving days So the title is emblematically noteworthy 200 This is probably the first single author poetry book I read all the way through and I did it by sheer force of will also I was on a crowded bus from Sydney and the woman next to me was talking for a REALLY LONG TIME on her mobile next to me and the only way I could stay sane was to block my ears and read the poems aloud. Anyway the point is these poems are not going to give up their secrets quickly They need you to sit down with them and make them tea and possibly endure long periods of slightly uncomfortable silence before they ll give you any hint as to what they re on about They seem to have been put together with some kind of dark magic you can t see the seams or any evidence of the massive amount of work that must have gone into them Birthday Poem is probably my favourite Check this first bit At thirty no visible scarsno medals Having survivedthe several deaths not allmy own I ve walked away fromand putting on flesh I stand at the bright sill watchinga northern town grow realthrough fog Soft green climbs into the beeches night hauls off See what I mean Dark crazy magic 200