Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louis Simpson (1923-2012) was a leading figure in American letters for more than half a century. Born in 1923 in Jamaica, the son of a lawyer of Scottish descent and a Russian mother, he emigrated to America at the age of 17. Voices in the Distance is the first selection of his poetry to be published in Britain for over 25 years, drawing on 18 collections, from The Arrivistes (1949) to his latest book, Struggling Times, which he published last year at the age of 86. Both timely and personal, Louis Simpson's poetry dramatises his continuing quarrel with suburban America, as well as his concerns about the direction of an American society struggling to retain its integrity in the midst of widespread challenges and worldwide strife.
