Pinter in verse: a selection of his poetry

Though his reputation was built on his work as a playwright, towards the end of his life, Harold Pinter turned again and again to poetry - a cleaner, clearer medium through which to express his growing political outrage.

While his output was not held in universal regard within the poetry community (Don Paterson famously dismissed his "big sweary outburst[s] about how crap the war in Iraq is" in his 2004 TS Eliot lecture, with a withering "anyone can do that"), he was nevertheless awarded the Wilfred Owen award for poetry, bestowed biennially on a writer seen as continuing Owen's tradition, for his 2003 pamphlet, WAR. Michael Grayer, chairman of the Wilfred Owen Association, described his poems as "hard-hitting and uncompromising, written with lucidity, clarity and economy".

Several of Pinter's poems first appeared in the Guardian. Read a selection, dating back to 1995, below.

Poem (17 January, 1995)

Don't look.
The world's about to break.
Don't look.
The world's about to chuck out all its light
And stuff us in the chokepit of its dark,
That black and fat and suffocated place
Where we will kill or die or dance or weep
Or scream or whine or squeak like mice
To renegotiate our starting price.

Cricket at Night (3 June, 1995)

They are still playing cricket at night
They are playing the game in the dark
They're on guard for a backlash of light
They are losing the ball at long leg
They are trying to learn how the dark
Helps the yorker knock back the off-peg
They are trying to find a new trick
Where the ball moves to darkness from light
They're determined to paint the scene black
But a blackness compounded by white
They are dying to pass a new law
Where blindness is deemed to be sight
They are still playing cricket at night

Order (12 September, 1996)

Are you ready to order?
No there is nothing to order
No I'm unable to order
No I'm a long way from order
And while there is everything,
And nothing, to order,
Order remains a tall order
And disorder feeds on the belly of order
And order requires the blood of disorder
And 'freedom' and ordure and other disordures
Need the odour of order to sweeten their murders
Disorder a beggar in a darkened room
Order a banker in a castiron womb
Disorder an infant in a frozen home
Order a soldier in a poisoned tomb