I couldn’t compete this one without some guesswork and subsequent research to check. Maybe it’s because I’m from a scientific background and don’t much like poetry so know little or nothing about it, but the references in this one were rather obscure, I suspect, to many of our solvers. I also had MERs at parsing 22a and 25a although the answers were clear enough. Add a dodgy spelling at 23d and you have a puzzle solved. Can’t say I enjoyed this one much.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Possibly question our ersatz gemstone (4,6) |
| ROSE QUARTZ – (Q OUR ERSATZ)*. | |
| 6 | Box mostly surplus to requirements (4) |
| SPAR – SPAR[E]. | |
| 9 | Flog prisoner in cruel castle regularly (10) |
| FLAGELLATE – LAG (prisoner) inside FELL (cruel) then cAsTlE. | |
| 10 | Broadcast live in the morning (4) |
| BEAM – BE (live) A.M. in the morning. | |
| 12 | Group of poets with half of Dante’s inspiration and creation (4,10) |
| BEAT GENERATION – apparently Dante’s inspiration (and love at first sight, when he was 12) was one BEAT[rice] Portinari, which of course was news to me. GENERATION = creation. And the group of poets of which Allan Ginsberg was the only one I’d heard of, was known as this. I see Kerouac was also in this band, I’d heard of him too. Is this the TLS crossword? | |
| 14 | Dinosaur ultimately with a power to run? (6) |
| RAPTOR – [dinosau]R, A, P[ower], TO, R[un]. Odd sort of clue where you need the R of the definition for the answer. | |
| 15 | What some do to the wheel? Check where the air goes (8) |
| REINVENT – REIN = check, VENT = where the air goes, or comes in. They may try to reinvent it, but it’s already been invented, so “some” don’t actually do it. | |
| 17 | Traveller a long way away in south at all times (8) |
| SEAFARER – S[outh], E’ER (ever, at all times, poetic), with A FAR inserted. | |
| 19 | Sweet, tailless dogs were trained by this man (6) |
| PAVLOV – PAVLOV[A] loses the tail. Ivan Pavlov won a Nobel Prize in 1904 for studying dogs and their digestive systems. | |
| 22 | Area coldest, close against part of leg (8,6) |
| ACHILLES TENDON – A[rea], CHILL[i]EST, END (close) ON (against]. Is chillest a word meaning coldest, or if it’s more correctly chilliest, how does the i disappear? Or is it a verb form, I chill, thou chillest, he chills? But cold isn’t a verb, is it. | |
| 24 | What comes before the final house? (4) |
| SEMI – DD. | |
| 25 | Building in city to secure housing plan that’s had backing (5,5) |
| TOWER BLOCK – TO LOCK = to secure, insert BREW reversed. Which means brew must mean plan in this case, but it’s not a synonym I was aware of. I suppose you could ‘brew up’ a scheme. Eyebrows raised here. | |
| 26 | Disrespectful rough dismissing Conservative (4) |
| RUDE – [C]RUDE. | |
| 27 | Keep talking about poet’s end? This one’s was tragic (10) |
| CHATTERTON – Keep talking = CHATTER ON, insert the T from end of poet. Apparently Thomas Chatterton was a poet who topped himself at 17, by taking arsenic, so that was tragic. I’d never heard of him. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Split first part of the tree up (4) |
| RIFT – T[he], FIR, all “up” = reversed. | |
| 2 | Something fishy in second completed reshuffle (5-2) |
| SHAKE-UP – HAKE (a fish) inside S (second), UP (completed). | |
| 3 | A noble’s quite revolutionary? It’s doubtful (12) |
| QUESTIONABLE – (A NOBLES QUITE)*. | |
| 4 | Delayed, putting off day to get joined in marriage (6) |
| ALLIED – [D]ALLIED. | |
| 5 | Final character of garment badly treated? (8) |
| TATTERED – T (end of garment), (TREATED)*. I don’t know what the proper term is for a clue where the definition is an anagram to lead to the answer, but somebody will. | |
| 7 | Be in charge and live under pressure (7) |
| PRESIDE – P = pressure, RESIDE = live. | |
| 8 | Contemplative Persian poet born here (10) |
| RUMINATIVE – What’s with all these poets? Does the setter know I know nothing about poets? Apparently Jalal Al-Din Muhammad Rumi was a 13c Persian / Sufi poet. Add NATIVE (born here) to RUMI. | |
| 11 | Leading place to eat outside a home is sustainable (12) |
| MAINTAINABLE – MAIN (leading) TABLE (place to eat), insert A, IN (home). | |
| 13 | Who’s got well within lock and key, right? (10) |
| TRESPASSER – TRESS (lock of hair), E (key) R (right), insert SPA = well. | |
| 16 | He tangled with the mob, a monstrous thing (8) |
| BEHEMOTH – (HE THE MOB)*. | |
| 18 | After a fake, news chief is red-faced (7) |
| ASHAMED – A, SHAM (fake), ED (editor). | |
| 20 | Concern when oaf takes in nothing very well (7) |
| LOOKOUT – LOUT (oaf), insert O, OK (nothing, very well). As in “It’s your lookout / concern” perhaps. | |
| 21 | Way mastic perhaps is worked into stone (6) |
| STREET -TREE (mastic) is inside ST (stone). A mastic is a type of tree, as well as the name of the resin it yields. | |
| 23 | Image of no king one put up (4) |
| IKON – NO K I reversed. Apparently an alternative spelling of icon, I’d never seen it, and it’s the German for icon so maybe borrowed. | |
Yeah when you call my name, I salivate like a Pavlov’s dog. R. Stones.
14’06”. Much enjoyed.
30’45”
Respectable pace but lacked any turn of foot.
Alongside Zabadak I fruitlessy tried to bisect Dante’s five letters rather than Helen’s, until Beatrice came back to me. I’ve often thought that, had I any daughters, I’d like to resurrect some moribund names.
Then I think of the tribulations of Mr and Mrs Bennet who hardly tempted fate with their choices.
I’d end up with a polyamorous Chastity, the constant din of Patience smashing crockery, having to keep Judith well away from anything sharp, and over all this mayhem Beatrice sprinkling woe like confetti.
I’m in the enjoyed this camp; thank you setter and Pip.
I enjoyed this, despite the occasional instances of clunky clueing, and would echo the comments of keriothe above. All done in 32 minutes, about my average. Fortunately most of the poetic GK was within my range, with the exception of RUMI. I seem to recall that Ginsburg and Ferlinghetti were among the literary anti-heroes of my youth.
FOI – FLAGELLATE
LOI – SEMI
COD – PAVLOV
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
Elif Shafak’s novel The Forty Rules of love brought Rumi to the attention of a lot of people who didn’t know about him. Like me
“Ikon” may well be German for”Icon”…. but it’s also (Ancient) Greek for “Icon” — and by origin it’s a Greek word (there’s no letter C in Greek)