Culture

Poems From an Attic does not greatly extend understanding of Murdoch

Murdoch once wrote the best thing about being God would be making the heads

Knowledge of Murdoch's life helps

Murdoch said poets can express much more than novelists

He is headed toward an obscure hotel where he is waited for

A collection of her poetry, almost none of which was published during her lifetime, is now available

One central poem in this collection written in 1955 is titled "Musical Evening for Three"

One poem is titled "To a Girl With Yellow Hair" and begins "How is it that we understood each other / At once and recognized each other / Without the usual preliminaries"

Murdoch had all-consuming affairs with men and women including Elias Canetti and Brigid Brophy before settling down with John Bayley

Two editors were invited into the attic of Murdoch and Bayley's last house on Charlbury Road in Oxford in 2016

The book is titled "Poems From an Attic: Selected Poems 1936-1995"

Obsessive love is a primary theme

The poetry is in keeping with the style and subject matter of her novels including "Under the Net" (1954) and "The Sea The Sea" (1978)

Iris Murdoch feared her poetry was mediocre

Murdoch's letters published as "Living on Paper" in 2016 are among the most ardent and vivid literary letters of the previous century

Some posthumous work has been sumptuous

The diaries Murdoch kept as a young woman were published as "A Writer at War" in 2010

There has also been a trickle of posthumous work

The Murdoch industry has churned since then

Three memoirs about Iris Murdoch from her husband John Bayley and Peter Conradi's biography "Iris Murdoch: A Life" were published