In reply to UKC Articles:
> Al Alvarez, poet, writer, critic, poker play – rock-climber, died peacefully on 23 September 2019 at his home in Hampstead. Anthony King is a close friend of Al's son, Luke, and was taught to climb by Al. Luke asked Anthony to write a climbing obituary for his father.
I read Feeding the Rat when I was young. Antoine's adventures introduced me to the possibility of climbing at a larger scale in farther away places. More recently, I read The Savage God which was about the irresistible compulsion to suicide (Alvarez was a friend of Silvia Plath). I also read The New Poetry an anthology of postwar poetry which he edited. In his introduction to the work, he offered the most intelligent definition of psychosis as a social phenomenon that I know. Twentieth century social life is often referred to as psychotic. He was trying to describe a certain form of poetry, something about a form of poetry in which the refinement of the poet's craft - the word-craft, the metre, the geometry, whatever - encases a centre that can no longer hold because what it reflects in our culture can no longer hold. What a great mind, what a cool guy.
Post edited at 19:42
Al Alvarez, poet, writer, critic, poker play – rock-climber, died peacefully on 23 September 2019 at his home in Hampstead. Anthony King is a close friend of Al's son, Luke, and was taught to climb by Al. Luke asked Anthony to write a climbing obituary for his father.
