We talked, not so long ago, about poets who had also written novels.
I was reminded of this today as I sorted through our poetry shelves and I realised how many works of poetry we had by writers normally recognised for their fiction: Peter Ackroyd, Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Jorge Luis Borges, Alasdair Gray, Nikos Kazantzakis, James Tiptree Jr., and so on.
Then I noticed our volumes of C.P. Cavafy. Poems like ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ or ‘The God Abandons Antony’ are pretty perfect novels in their own right. But wouldn’t you just love to read a real novel by Cavafy?
Or if not Cavafy, which poet would you like to read a novel by?