Imperfect

I've been on a P.J. Kavanagh jag recently. Paradoxically first reading a more recent memoir (Finding Connections 1990) which focused on the old dead; and now his first book (The Perfect Stranger a memoir of love and survival 1966) about a tragic young death. The death of young people is normally tragic, dying in the fullness of his years less so. The ever young [Sally 24] and the finished up old [PJ 84]are buried in the same grave, same churchyard [R] in Westwell, Oxforshire [photo Tom Robinson wikimedia commons]The Perfect Stranger apparently found it difficult to find a publisher. It's partly because PJK is not as good a writer as he thinks he is: some of his run-on sentences baffle me and I'm a native speaker. As a poet, he claims a pretty good internal critic, but if the lines cross this bar then the poem is Good, and several examples finish up in this memoir. I'm not judging - I skip embedded lyrics because they are a detour or paraphrase. This self-satisfaction extends to other…