Literary studies: poetry and poets Books

Book Synopsis"When I say this book is a love story, I mean it is about things that cannot be gotten over-like this world, and some of the people in it."In 1819, the poet John Keats wrote six poems that would become known as the Great Odes. Some of them-"Ode to a Nightingale," "To Autumn"-are among the most celebrated poems in the English language. Anahid Nersessian here collects and elucidates each of the odes and offers a meditative, personal essay in response to each, revealing why these poems still have so much to say to us, especially in a time of ongoing political crisis. Her Keats is an unflinching antagonist of modern life-of capitalism, of the British Empire, of the destruction of the planet-as well as a passionate idealist for whom every poem is a love poem.The book emerges from Nersessian's lifelong attachment to Keats's poetry; but more, it "is a love story: between me and Keats, and not just Keats." Drawing on experiences from her own life, Nersessian celebrates Keats even as she grieves him and counts her own losses-and Nersessian, like Keats, has a passionate awareness of the reality of human suffering, but also a willingness to explore the possibility that the world, at least, could still be saved. Intimate and speculative, this brilliant mix of the poetic and the personal will find its home among the numerous fans of Keats's enduring work.Trade ReviewIn Anahid Nersessian's Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse, red life streams again through Keats's poems. It is a risky, passionate criticism that - in addition to yielding all sorts of insights into the man and his writing - tests what of her own life the poems might hold (and quicken). This is living in and through and with and against poetry. A brilliant and refreshingly unprofessional book -- Ben Lerner * Paris Review *Keats's Odes is brash, skeptical, and tender by turns, offering a fluctuating re-visioning of Keats which is firm in its convictions...Nersessian's prose is bold, irreverent, declarative, and feral. Hyperbole and slackness are deceptive: every phrase feels carefully pitched. * Times Literary Supplement *The book's intimacy, vulnerability and determination to provoke is true to Keats, and Nersessian's genuine feeling for his work is never in doubt. One can't help but be pleased that two centuries on, Keats's odes still inspire engagement and love. * Washington Post *This book claims to be 'about' Keats's odes. And it is. But it is also about beauty and sadness and love and revolution and how the odes can help us to better understand these things. It is nothing short of a perfect book, one that understands how poetry can transform one's life. Nersessian is on track to be the Harold Bloom of her generation, but a Bloom with politics. -- Juliana SpahrThis is an intense, often dazzling, original, illuminating, idiosyncratic, but also welcoming and welcome book. Offering trenchant, astute, often polemical and sometimes breathtaking readings of Keats's Odes - and simultaneously of love, politics, worldmaking, and self - Nersessian has written a propelled, impelled, impassioned work, truly in Keats's spirit. -- Maureen N. McLaneThe best book about John Keats published at the poet's bicentenary. * Jacobin *I've read Anahid Nersessian's KEATS ODES: A LOVER'S DISCOURSE a half dozen times now, and it just keeps getting better. Nobody's smarter than Nersessian, nobody's more humane, nobody's more searching, fearless, nobody's more provocative, nobody challenges and cherishes their subject this way. It is that thrilling sensation of meeting a new voice on the page you know you'll spend your entire life following. -- Kaveh AkbarAnahid Nersessian offers a radical and unforgettable reading of the British writer's odes-one that upends our sense of his poetic project. * The Nation *Intense emotion abounds in this literary blend of analysis and autobiography. . . . In six essays that examine each of Keats's Great Odes, Nersessian tells a 'kind of love story' between herself and the poems. * Publishers Weekly *Thinking through John Keats's six "Great Odes," Nersessian offers up six critical and autobiographical essays that work, in their own right, like odes. Keats's Odes is also a terse, stunning pastiche of Roland Barthes's "A Lover's Discourse". In imaginative, lucid prose, Nersessian proves that criticism can be loving, literary art. * Boston Globe, Best Books of 2021 *Keats's Odes is a discourse on love as interpretive practice. Demanding, generous, precise, utopian, and unfailingly brilliant, Nersessian reinvents reading itself as a form of critical intimacy for our broken times -- Srikanth ReddyThis book is a classic of a new genre, a love letter of literary theory, giving a desired political language to the left's long-quivering heart for the lyric and sensuous knowledge of Keats. We always knew he was the activist's Romantic, and now in articulate and radical analysis, we have an understanding of his poetic form that illuminates our unwavering passion for his Odes. -- Holly Pester

Read more less

Book SynopsisDyma gyfrol gyfoethog o ysgrifau'n ymwneud ag amrywiol agweddau ar lenyddiaeth Gymraeg a Cheltaidd, ac sy'n talu teyrnged i gyfraniad arbennig yr Athro Marged Haycock i'r ddisgyblaeth. Cesglir ynghyd waith ysgolheigion blaenllaw ar bynciau'n ymestyn o'r cerddi Cymraeg cynharaf i lên gwerin a chof bro. Gyda'i gilydd, ffurfia'r penodau lyfr tra sylweddol a phwysig ar lenyddiaeth Gymraeg a Cheltaidd.This rich volume of essays engages with varied aspects of Welsh and Celtic literature as a tribute to the enormous contribution made to the discipline by Professor Marged Haycock. Work by leading scholars is gathered together on subjects ranging from the earliest Welsh poems to folklore and regional memory. The volume forms a substantial and important contribution to the study of Welsh and Celtic literature.

Read more less

Book SynopsisRailway Rhymes is probably the first time that the poetry of railways has been brought together into one dedicated volume. Here will certainly be found the old favourites - Philip Larkin's 'Whitsun Weddings', W.H. Auden's 'Night Mail', John Betjeman's 'Distant View of a Provincial Town', - but equally this little book is stuffed with forgotten gems like Edmund Blunden's 'Two Wars' and Patricia Beer's 'The Branch Line'. Divided up into chapters entitled Navigation, Engineering, Waiting, Travellingand Musing, Railway Rhymes is the perfect pocket companion for waiting room and train compartment alike

Read more less

Book SynopsisMusic may be the universal language that needs no words-the "language where all language ends," as Rilke put it-but that has not stopped poets from ancient times to the present from trying to represent it in verse.Here are Rumi and Shakespeare, Elizabeth Bishop and Billy Collins; the wild pipes of William Blake, the weeping guitars of Federico García Lorca, and the jazz rhythms of Langston Hughes; Wallace Stevens on Mozart and Thom Gunn on Elvis-the range of poets and of their approaches to the subject is as wide and varied as music itself.The poems are divided into sections on pop and rock, jazz and blues, specific composers and works, various musical instruments, the human voice, the connection between music and love, and music at the close of life. The result is a symphony of poetic voices of all tenors and tones, the perfect gift for all musicians and music lovers.

Read more less

Book SynopsisPlace of refuge, place where we can be ourselves; place we long to escape from, place where we are confronted by absence and loneliness; shabby downtown apartment or idyllic country cottage. Like it or loathe it, home is where we do most of our living. Home is, of course, many things to many poets. It is Billy Collins's favourite armchair and Imtiaz Dharker's 'Living Space' in the slums of Mumbai. It is Wordsworth's 'dear Valley' of Grasmere, and Philip Larkin's Coventry, that place where nothing so famously happens. It may be somewhere we long for, perhaps unattainably: Ovid and Mahmoud Darwish lament their home countries, Kapka Kassabova seeks 'a house we can never find', while Jules Supervielle is 'Homesick for the Earth'.There is an abundance of domestic life. Attend a miserable breakfast chez Jacques Prévert; observe Wendy Cope and partner happily 'Being Boring'. Cut to Anna Barbauld's washing-day, Marilyn Nelson dusting, Buson mending his clothes and Fiona Wright contending with a Tupperware party. Peep in on Amy Lowell in the bath and John Donne in bed, Auden in the privy and Joy Harjo at the kitchen table. Here are removals and homecomings, neighbours good and bad. Inevitably, after a year of enforced domesticity, some lockdown thoughts (Anna McDonald, Pauline Prior-Pitt); Mary Oliver's dream house, Naomi Shihab Nye's homes where children live, the far-from-safe houses of U. A. Fanthorpe, and some final reflections on the idea of a dwelling place from Rumi, Emily Dickinson, John Burnside, Vinita Agrawal, Derek Walcott, Les Murray and Iman Mersal. It may not always be sweet, but there is certainly No Place Like Home.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of poetry witnessing celebrations both private and public, from the author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS.'A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' BARACK OBAMAMaya Angelou's poetry has stirred our souls, energized our minds and healed our hearts. Celebrations is a collection of timely and timeless poems: the inspiring 'On the Pulse of Morning', read at President William Jefferson Clinton's 1993 inauguration; the heartening 'Amazing Peace'; 'A Brave and Startling Truth', which marked the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations; and 'Mother', which beautifully honours the first woman in our lives. 'She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence and a fierce grace . . . She will always be the rainbow in my clouds' OPRAH WINFREY'She was important in so many ways. She launched African American women writing in the United States. She was generous to a fault. She had nineteen talents - used ten. And was a real original. There is no duplicate' TONI MORRISON

Read more less

Book SynopsisT. S. Eliot once spoke of a lifetime burning in every moment. He had the mind to conceive a perfect life, and he also had the honesty to admit he could not meet it.'He was a man of extremes whose deep flaws and high virtues were interfused,' writes Lyndall Gordon in this perceptive and innovative biography of the great poet. She brilliantly explores his poetry, drama and essays in relationship to the four quite different women in his life and to his time in America and England. The Imperfect Life of T.S. Eliot follows the trials of a searcher whose flaws and doubts speak to all of us whose lives are imperfect.Trade ReviewThe most valuable single book yet published about Eliot -- Jonathan Raban * Sunday Times *A nuanced, discerning account of a life famously flawed in its search for perfection * New Yorker *An intellectually demanding, sophisticated and distinguished book . . . Probing and extremely thoughtful -- Richard Bernstein * New York Times *

Read more less

Book SynopsisSeni Seneviratne's debut collection offers a poetic landscape that echoes themes of migration, family, love and loss and reflects her personal journey as a woman of Sri Lankan and English heritage.The poems cross oceans and centuries. In 'Cinnamon Roots' Seni Seneviratne travels from colonial Britain to Ceylon in the 15th century and back to Yorkshire in the 20th Century; in 'A Wider View' time collapses and carries her from a 21st century Leeds back to the flax mills of the 19th century; poems like 'Grandad's Insulin', based on childhood memories, place her in 1950's Yorkshire but echo links with her Sri Lankan heritage."Loss, love, memory, from Yorkshire to Sri Lanka and back, Seni Seneviratne's poems delve in and out of a complex history. These tender, moving poems weave a delicate web." Jackie KaySeni Seneviratne is a writer, singer, photographer and performer. She was born in Leeds, Yorkshire in 1951 to an English mother and Sri Lankan father. She has been writing poetry since her early teens and was first published in 1989.Trade Review"Loss, love, memory, from Yorkshire to Sri Lanka and back, Seni Seneviratne's poems delve in and out of a complex history. These tender, moving poems weave a delicate web." -- Jackie Kay "There's something about us. There are historians that may record our experiences. And these experiences may be found in the galleries of the future. Preserved. But it's in the poetry where the exhibits actually live. And it's here. Let Seni walk you through the labarynthine gallery of Wild cinnamon and winter skin." -- Lemn Sissay "Seni Seneviratne's poetry straddles continents and centuries - and does so with an easy fluency. The reader is drawn into her journey of discovery for her 'cinnamon roots' and her exploration of issues of identity and relationships. Personal and universal histories interweave in these poems." -- Debjani Chatterjee"

Read more less

Book Synopsis**WINNER of the 2019 PEN Ackerley Prize**'A major literary talent . . . speaks about the power and powerlessness that young women are subject to in a wholly fresh, clear-eyed way . . . you'll find it hard to come away from The Terrible without a stab of recognition in your chest' Stylist 'You may not run away from the thing that you arebecause it comes and comes and comes as sure as you breathe.'This is the story of Yrsa Daley-Ward, and all the things that happened - 'even the Terrible Things (and God, there were Terrible Things)'. It's about her childhood in the north-west of England with her beautiful, careworn mother and her little brother who sees things written in the stars. It's also about growing up and discovering the power and fear of sexuality, about pitch grey days of pills and powder: going under, losing yourself, and finding your voice. 'Yrsa's work is like holding the truth in your hands' Florence WelchTrade ReviewElegant, daring, profound - confirms her abundant talent as a writer -- Arifa Akbar * Observer *Beautiful and harrowing . . . Daley-Ward writes with disarming honesty * Vogue *A major literary talent . . . speaks about the power and powerlessness that young women are subject to in a wholly fresh, clear-eyed way . . . you'll find it hard to come away from The Terrible without a stab of recognition in your chest * Stylist *Daley-Ward explores the connection between raw emotion and the mechanics of language with more wildness and tenacity than ever * Dazed *A rare combination of literary brilliance, originality of voice and a narrative that commands you to keep going until you've reached the last page . . . her prose is invigorating, razor-sharp and moves at the speed of light . . . Yrsa Daley-Ward is an explosive new talent and this book should not be missed -- Anna van Praagh * Evening Standard *The Terrible's raw yet lilting prose draws the reader in at once. Unpredictable shifts in form and structure - from prose to poetry and script - are refreshingly disorientating. This is both a defiant book and a defiantly inventive one. -- Patricia Yaker Ekall * The Times Literary Supplement *Daley-Ward is a stylish writer, as well as an unusual voice . . . she has a knack for distilling wild emotions into precise imagery, for selecting insightful impressions. -- Francesca Angelini * Sunday Times *Daley-Ward's beautiful prose wrapped its hands around my neck - I found myself doing stupid things like walking through New York at rush hour with my nose buried in her book. -- Jamal Jordan * The New York Times *The Terrible is a lyrical piece of writing that oscillates between prose and poetry . . . Daley-Ward's lines land like dandelion spores, these weightless things that are somehow simultaneously profound -- Una Mullally * Irish Times Magazine *Daley-Ward has cooked a broth of dizzying emotions and touching moments down to a nuanced and taut account . . . there are so many flourishes of imagination and pathos here, that it's impossible not to get caught up in the torrential pace of the narrative . . .the result is one of the year's genuine must reads * Irish Independent *Daley-Ward combines beautifully crafted and deeply personal verse with impressive prose, bending the form of the memoir into her own genre -- Alexander Holmes * Metro *Daley-Ward is twenty-nine years old, but the events of her life more than justify the publication of this unflinching chronicle. -- Patricia Yaker Ekall * The Times Literary Supplement *Daley-Ward is twenty-nine years old, but the events of her life more than justify the publication of this unflinching chronicle. -- Patricia Yaker Ekall * The Times Literary Supplement *

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis collected editon of Sorley MacLean brings together published poetry from MacLean's own edited volumes of poetry, poetry previously published in various magazines, literary journals and anthologies, and poetry which has never been published before. The poems are given in their original Gaelic with English translations. The volume opens with a biographical summary of Maclean's childhood on Raasay, his life at university and war experiences, and examines MacLean's effect on Gaelic and Scottish literature, and his literary, political and philosophical influences, which included Gaelic traditional song, Romanticism and Modernism, as well as Communism and Fascism.

Read more less

Book Synopsis‘The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day …’ Thomas Gray’s 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' has been loved and admired throughout the centuries. First circulated to a select group of friends, it was rushed to official publication in 1751 in order to avoid pirated copies being sold without the young poet’s permission. Praised by Samuel Johnson, reprinted over and over again in Gray’s lifetime and recited by generations of school children, it is one of the most famous poems in the English language. This edition reproduces the exquisite wood engravings made by Agnes Miller Parker in 1938. Parker visited the churchyard at St Giles, Stoke Poges, where the poem is set, in order to make her sketches, and all thirty-two stanzas of the poem are accompanied by detailed full-page illustrations. Commemorating the 250th anniversary of the poet’s death, this edition will not only bring new readers to the 'Elegy' but will also appeal to those already familiar with its riches.Table of ContentsContents Loss Transformed - Carol Rumens Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Read more less

Book SynopsisPoetry has never been so rigorous and diverse, nor has its audience been so numerous and engaged. Strong words? Not if the poets are right. As Ezra Pound wrote: 'You would think anyone wanting to know about poetry would go to someone who knew something about it.' That's exactly what Bloodaxe has done with this judicious and comprehensive selection of British, Irish and American manifestos by some of modern poetry's finest practitioners. Opening the 20th century account with Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot, the book moves through key later figures including W.H. Auden, Ted Hughes, Stevie Smith and Dylan Thomas. America is richly represented too, from Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams to the influential New England poets Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath. Strong Words then brings the issues fully up to date with over 30 specially commissioned statements from contemporary writers including Seamus Heaney, Andrew Motion, Simon Armitage, Selima Hill, Paul Muldoon and Douglas Dunn, amounting to a new overview of the poetry being written at the start of the 21st century. For poets and readers, for critics, teachers and students of creative writing and contemporary poetry, this is essential reading. As well as representing many of the most important poets of the last hundred years, Strong Words also charts many different stances and movements, from Modernism to Postmodernism, from Futurism to the future theories of poetry. This landmark book champions the continuing dialogue of these voices, past and present, exploring the strongest form that words can take: the poem.Trade ReviewUtterly compelling… Strong Words brings together a diverse collection of essential commentaries in a single volume. -- Duncan Wu * BBC Radio 3 Book of the Month *

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn this innovative series of public lectures at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, leading contemporary poets speak about the craft and practice of poetry to audiences drawn from both the city and the university. The lectures are then published in book form by "Bloodaxe", giving readers everywhere the opportunity to learn what the poets themselves think about their own subject. Jane Hirshfield examines the roles of hiddenness, uncertainty and surprise as they appear in poetry and other works of literature, in the life and psyche of the writer, and in the broader life of the culture as a whole. "Poetry and Hiddenness: Thoreau's Hound Explorations of Hiddenness" go back to the beginning of literature. There is no paradise, no place of true completion, that does not include within its walls the unknown. In this lecture, Hirshfield explores the centrality and necessity of hiddenness in our lives, and elucidates both the uses of hiddenness and hidden meanings in the work of writers ranging from Homer to Cavafy, from Auden to Jack Gilbert.Poetry and Uncertainty - To be human is to be unsure, and if the purpose of poetry is to deepen the humanness in us, poetry will be unsure as well. This lecture illuminates the ways uncertainty - in poems, and in life - allows both broadened feeling and enlarged knowledge. Translations are central to this talk, which includes poems by Izumi Shikibu, Anna Swir, Fernando Pessoa and Paul Celan. "Poetry and the Constellation of Surprise Poems" preserve their inaugural newness in part because they are like the emotions - not object, but experience, event. Poems that last are those that do not lose the power to astonish. This lecture examines surprise as a central, unrecognised fulcrum of great poems. Three poems are then looked at in detail by Hirshfield as test-cases: "Ithaka" by C.P. Cavafy, "Oysters" by Seamus Heaney and "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn this innovative series of public lectures at Newcastle University, leading contemporary poets speak about the craft and practice of poetry to audiences drawn from both the city and the university. The lectures are then published in book form by Bloodaxe, giving readers everywhere the opportunity to learn what the poets themselves think about their own subject. It's almost a cliche that music and poetry are cousins, and that the term lyric names this cousinship. Yet the actual forms music takes within poetry are unclear, even contested. At the same time, our assumptions about these forms condition the ways we hear poetry. So it's useful to us as both readers and writers to discover where the analogies between music and poetry are. Fiona Sampson's Music Lessons outlines some of these, using ideas and examples from Martin Heidegger to J.S. Bach, Emily Dickinson to Leonard Cohen, and George Herbert to Julia Kristeva. Her first lecture, Point Counter-point, uses melody to suggest a link between poetic line, phrase and breath. Here is my space explores how pureA", abstract forms can be created in time in the same way that they are created in space. Finally, How strange the change looks at sensuous apprehension and the pleasure principle.

Read more less

Book SynopsisOne day in spring 1964, the young American poet Robert Bly left his rural farmhouse and drove 150 miles to the University of Minnesota library in Minneapolis to obtain the latest book by the young Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer. When Bly returned home that evening with a copy of Transtromer's The Half-Finished Heaven, he found a letter waiting for him from its author. With this remarkable coincidence as its beginning, what followed was a vibrant correspondence between two poets who would become essential contributors to global literature. Airmail collects more than 290 letters, written from 1964 until 1990, when Transtromer suffered a stroke that has left him partially paralysed and diminished his capacity to write. Across their correspondence, the two poets are profoundly engaged with each other and with the larger world: the Vietnam War, European and American elections, and the struggles of affording a life as a writer. Airmail also offers remarkable insights into the processes of translating literature from one language into another. As Bly began to render Transtromer's poetry into English and Transtromer began to translate Bly's poetry into Swedish, their collaboration soon turned into a friendship that has lasted fifty years. Insightful, brilliant, and often funny, Airmail provides a rare portrait of two artists who have become integral to each other's particular genius. Based on the original Swedish edition published in 2001, this publication marks the first time letters by Transtromer and Bly have been made available in Britain. Robert Bly's translations of Tomas Transtromer appear in The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Transtromer, published by Graywolf Press. Transtromer's complete poetry is available in English in Robin Fulton's translation, New Collected Poems, published by Bloodaxe Books (and by New Directions in the US under the title The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems).Trade Review..a book of real importance...this is a generous, intimate book. It should be required reading for everyone interested in poems and the making of poetry. -- Fiona Sampson * Guardian *I spent early summer days with Airmail: The Letters of Tomas Tranströmer and Robert Bly. In March 1964 Bly drove across Minnesota to borrow Tranströmer’s latest collection from a library. On his return he found a letter from the Swedish poet. With this coincidence began 26 years of letters. It’s an elegant, humorous and illuminating collection. -- Mary O'Donoghue * Irish Times, Books of the Year 2013 *

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe major seventeenth-century English poet between Shakespeare and Milton, Donne is chiefly celebrated as a love poet. But he was also the author of magnificent satires and epistles, and a series of religious poems including the Holy Sonnets. All these genres are represented in this volume, together with a selection from his prayers, letters and sermons, presenting a complete portrait of a great poet an an extraordinary man.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA few magical poems by Coleridge remain among the most celebrated works in the language: KUBLA KHAN, CHRISTABEL and - above all -THE ANCIENT MARINER. All are included in this volume, together with many other superb but lesser-known poems and a selected prose extracts from the BIOGRAPHIA LITERIA and the NOTEBOOKS which show that Coleridge was not only a major poet but also a great critic and prose writer.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisCan you tell an iamb from a trochee? An anapest from an amphibrach? Why do children always take such delight in dactylic tetrameter? Is a ballad the same as a ballade, and what is poetic rhythm? In this neat little book, Scottish poet Octavia Wynne examines the elements of poetry, from its various feet, metres and lines, through its patterns, stanzas and rhymes, right up to the poetic forms themselves, with ancient and modern examples from William Shakespeare to Dr.Seuss. WOODEN BOOKS are small but packed with information. "Fascinating" FINANCIAL TIMES. "Beautiful" LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. "Rich and Artful" THE LANCET. "Genuinely mind-expanding" FORTEAN TIMES. "Excellent" NEW SCIENTIST. "Stunning" NEW YORK TIMES. Small books, big ideas.

Read more less

Book Synopsis'The one hundred and forty poems he wrote in the last two years of his life are a miracle. I can think of no body of work in English that is more mysterious.' - Michael Longley. When Edward Thomas died in the First World War, very few of his poems had been published, but he is now recognised as one of the finest and most influential poets of the last century. Although often referred to as 'a poet's poet', his writing has an almost universal appeal. He wrote accessibly, on traditional themes - the natural world, human relationships, transience and mortality. And yet his poetry is alive with the critical intelligence that came from years of writing non-fiction and reviewing verse. "Branch-Lines" captures the range of Thomas' achievement, not least by combining poetry with prose. In this unique collection, fifty-five contemporary poets reflect on Thomas' craftsmanship and enduring power. Some have chosen poems of their own in which they detect his influence, others have written new poems in his honour. Each poet has also contributed a piece of prose, and the volume contains an introduction, four critical essays, illustrations, a foreword by Andrew Motion and an afterword by Michael Longley. "Branch-Lines" offers a fascinating perspective on the workings of literary influence, with personal insights from some of the leading poet-critics of our time. 'The collection has a double value. It is a celebration of Thomas, and dignified tribute to his achievement; at the same time it bears witness to his powers of regeneration' - Andrew Motion. 'I read Thomas' collected poems at a sitting, poem by poem, all the way through and felt as I had not felt since reading Lawrence and Graves ten years before: I love this man, I can learn from him.' - David Constantine. 'I have always loved Edward Thomas' poetry' - Geoffrey Hill. 'He comes naturally, I think, to writers in English, like grass growing.' - U. A. Fanthorpe. 'When I started to try and write poetry and prose, a very uncertain beginning, it would have been even more uncertain if I hadn't read Thomas' poetry in my teens.' - Tom Paulin.

Read more less

Book SynopsisBiographical writing about Eliot is in a more confused and contested state than is the case with any other major twentieth-century writer. No major biography has been released since the publication of his early poems, "Inventions of the March Hare," in 1996, which radically altered the reading public's perception of Eliot. There have been attempts to turn the American woman Emily Hale into the beloved woman of Eliot's middle years; and Eliot has also been blamed for the instability of his first wife and declared a closet homosexual. This biography frees Eliot from such distortions, as well as from his cold and unemotional image. It offers a sympathetic study of his first marriage which does not attempt to blame, but to understand; it shows how Eliot's poetry can be read for its revelations about his inner world. Eliot once wrote that every poem was an epitaph, meaning that it was the inscription on the tombstone of the experience which it commemorated. His poetry shows, however, that the deepest experiences of his life would not lie down and die, and that he felt condemned to write about them.Trade ReviewReviewed in 2010 May CHOICE. 'An accomplished biographer who knows how to go straight to the issues, Worthen (emer., Univ. of Nottingham, UK) contributed immensely to D. H. Lawrence studies with his D. H. Lawrence (CH, Sep'06, 44-0195) and other titles. He has also written a biography of the Romantic poets (The Gang, CH, Sep'01, 39-0195) and Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician (CH, Feb'08, 45-3118). Here he reinforces some of the usual stories--Eliot's family, health difficulties, friendships--and also revises some of the biographical understanding of Eliot by addressing controversies and issues surrounding Eliot's life, e.g., Eliot as an unsympathetic husband and as anti-Semitic. Though he brings little new to the discussion, Worthen uses good biographical sources and relies on the poetry, plays, and prose to provide clues to a life that Eliot deliberately obscured. The book's brevity is its advantage: it brings relevant, useful information to the first-time student of Eliot and invigorates the idea that a life can be read many ways in retrospect. Those looking for more will want to seek out the second volume of The Letters of T. S. Eliot, ed. by Valerie Eliot (2009), which provides insights on such subjects as homosexuality, misogyny, and eroticism. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and general readers.' -- L. L. Johnson, Lewis & Clark College CHOICE Magazine 20100501

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe poetry of Helen Craik (17511825), Gothic novelist and friend of Robert Burns, was long thought lost. The rediscovery of her manuscript Poems by a Lady (1790), transcribed and annotated here for the first time, invites a fresh evaluation of her life and work. From short satires and verse-letters to longer dramatic monologues of psychological introspection, these thirty-nine poems offer an invaluable insight into her social circle in the Dumfries area and her wide literary interests, demonstrating the distinctive imagination later seen in Craik's novels. The introduction discusses Craik's biography and the major themes in her work, casting new light on why, two years after finishing these poems, she suddenly left home and family. With full notes on each poem's background, and additional source material, this volume adds significantly to Craik scholarship and to the critical reassessment of poetry by Scottish women in the Romantic era.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAs a naive and innocent young man, Parzival encounters a group of noble knights in the forest. Overcome by the leading knight's shining armour, he assumes that the man must be a God. This key turning point in Parzival's life inspires him to seek to become a knight himself, and immediately he embarks upon a quest to find King Arthur's court and ultimately the Holy Grail. Through his journeys Parzival is to learn many unexpected lessons, discovering qualities of empathy, humility, compassion and ultimately true and selfless love. Filled with spiritual wisdom and artistic beauty, Parzival is one of the greatest works of world literature. In this concise, accessible introduction to the central Gail story, Eileen Hutchins describes the key characters, including Parzival's father Gamuret and mother Herzeleide, and relates the tale in outline. Her classic study also features commentary on the book's historical background, essays on its significance today, and a comparison with other Grail Romances. Eschenbach is the first medieval poet to represent a character who has to win his way through trial and error, from ignorance to wisdom, and from fascination with the world of the senses to recognition of higher realms of experience. In this sense he is representative of modern man.' - from the Introduction

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe International Companions series offers essential insights into Scottish literary studies, covering key authors, periods and topics from the medieval to the contemporary. A range of leading international scholars provide the reader with a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the extraordinary richness and diversity of Scotland''s poetry, from early medieval texts to contemporary writers, examining all forms of verse in English, Gaelic, Latin and Scots.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Drunken Sailor traces the life of Arthur Rimbaud: poet, surrealist, libertine and gun runner. In dazzling artwork, Nick Hayes follows Rimbaud from his youth in Ardennes to the poetry salons of Paris, from the absinthe-glazed passion of his relationship with Verlaine to his flight into the jungles of Indonesia and the deserts of Yemen and Egypt. Told entirely in Rimbaud’s own words, from a new translation of Le bateau ivre, The Drunken Sailor confirms Nick Hayes’ place as one of the most talented graphic novelists at work today.Trade ReviewMagnificent illustrations… [Hayes] has done a wondrous job… his visual narrative has an intense, restless pace… here is a ribald beauty you find only rarely between two covers. -- Rachel Cooke * The Observer *At once phantasmagorical and bewitching… the best of his career so far. * Bookmunch *Hayes’s green-filtered, stylised illustrations have a breathtaking punch to them. -- Teddy Jamieson * Herald Scotland *The Drunken Sailor is an Impressionist hymn to Rimbaud. But Hayes' song is greatly embellished with knowledge... You run the gamut when you read this book. * Bookmunch *A bewitching work from one of Britain’s finest graphic novelists. -- James Smart * Guardian,**Books of the Year** *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisMalcolm Hebron writes with one aim in mind: to help you read, understand and appreciate poetry. The English language has an extraordinarily rich stock of poems to its credit, from the epic Beowulf, written perhaps as early as the eighth century, to the poetry of Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy and the many other fine writers working today. This slim volume is packed with good advice on how to get the most of great poems, whether old or new. Look for the surprising words, for example – that’s one good tip. They will help you understand what the poet is trying to say. And look for the conflict in a poem – there’s always some kind of central tension or opposition in great poetry. “Out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry,” observed W.B. Yeats. This book explains, too, those puzzling technical terms used to describe the tricks poets use, like enjambment, and shows how they use them to brilliant effect. Here are explained too the mysteries of rhythm, sound, meter and poetic imagery, amidst a wide variety of wonderful examples of great poetry, from Thomas Hardy to W.H. Auden. After reading this short book, you will approach any poem you read with fresh eyes.

Read more less

Book SynopsisEdward Thomas ranks as one of the foremost poets of the twentieth century, both in his own poetry and in his influence on subsequent poets. 'He is the father of us all,' asserted Ted Hughes.This book combines the story of his life until his death at the Battle of Arras in 1917 with numerous illustrations, including photographs, printed material and original letters, many of which have never been published before. The book will add to what is already known of Thomas and his family before and after his death by putting his biography into a visual and historical context.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA series of chronological entries documenting Lawrence Durrell's life (1912-1990) and writing career, preceded by "Antecedents" (1851-1910), and followed by "Aftermath" (1991-2019), listing the main events connected with his reputation since his death. There is a 16-page "Index of Persons".

Read more less

Book SynopsisSince 1996, Sam Adams's Letter from Wales' column has been appearing in PN Review, one of the most highly-regarded UK poetry magazines, offering insight and appreciation of Welsh writing, culture and history. This landmark volume collects these letters a quarter century of work.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWords and language offer us a way of expressing ourselves and our feelings in ways that feel psychologically helpful. Aspin takes us from the practice of writing therapeutically and passes through a range of psychological and psychoanalytic ideas, so that the reader gains a fuller understanding of the place of poetry within therapeutic practice.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn defense of the poetic, Pascal Quignard pens an impassioned reply to von Hofmannsthal's despondent Lord ChandosIn 1902, Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Lord Chandos Letter articulated a deep crisis of faith in language. Having lost completely the ability to think or speak of anything coherently, the titular character abandons literature in favor of silence. In The Answer to Lord Chandos, a text that was meticulously crafted over 41 years, Pascal Quignard passionately challenges this withdrawal and urges us not to forsake the power of poetry. His exhortation meditates on Emily Brontë, Handel, Rembrandt and more to demonstrate how literature rejuvenates our connection to the universe. In an introduction to this first English edition, French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy illuminates the core question animating this debate, which has resonated within literature since its inception: can poetry give access to the real? Quignard's resounding answer offers a tes

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis Pivot book provides a wide-ranging and diverse commentary on issues of legibility (and illegibility) around poetry, antifascist pacifist activism, environmentalism and the language of protest. A timely meditation from poet John Kinsella, the book focuses on participation in protest, demonstration and intervention on behalf of human rights activism, and writing and acting peacefully but persistently against tyranny. The book also examines how we make records and what we do with them, how we might use poetry to act or enact and/or to discuss such necessities and events. A book about community, human and animal rights and the way poetry can be used as a peaceful and decisive means of intervention in moment of public social and environmental crisis. Ultimately, it is a poetics against fascism with a focus on the well-being of the biosphere and all it contains. Table of Contents1. A Pacifist Antifa Poetics.- 2. Handwriting Protest.- 3. Marks.- 4. Privilege, Property, Opprobrium.- 5. Modes of Protest.- 6. Legibility of Journal Extracts January 2020 — followed by extracts from handwritten journal.- 7. Micro and Macro Aggressions and Social Contracts.- 8. Versions of Mallarmé.- 9. Against Competition/Against Winning... and Consequence Theory.- 10. Note in Journal Extracts 2017-2020 — followed by extracts from handwritten journals.- 11. Palestine and Israel.- 12. On Injustice. On peace. On Justice. On Peace....- 13. Pandemic/s.- 14. Choice and Whose Rights We Are Talking About? Cruelty and Animal Rights... Justice, Genetics and Consensus.- 15. Empathy, Not ‘Property’.- 16. ‘Conclusion’.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book is the first collection of critical essays on Hilda Hilst (1930-2004) published in English. It brings together a variety of perspectives on one of Latin America’s most inventive and innovative authors. Nine essays by scholars and translators reflect about various aspects of her work, placing it in the context of Brazil and world literature. During her lifetime, Hilst won several major national literary awards and attracted legions of devoted readers. Her writing spanned styles and genres, encompassing poetry, theatre, and experimental fiction. She was also considered to be “a writer’s writer,” and her literary achievements eluded both mainstream acclaim and international recognition. In recent years, Hilst’s books have enjoyed increased visibility in Brazil and beyond. A host of translators (including three contributors to this volume) have finally made some of her masterpieces available in English. This pioneering collection of essays should excite longtime readers and introduce her to a new audience.Table of ContentsIntroduction: “Who’s Afraid of Hilda Hilst? An Author Between Brazil and ‘World Literature’”; Adam Morris & Bruno Carvalho.- PART I: HILST ON STAGE- 1. “A Brazilian Teorema: Queering the Family in Hilda Hilst’s O Visitante (The Visitor)”; David William Foster.- 2. “Is the Word Alive? An Inquiry into Poetics and Theater in As aves da noite (Nightbirds) by Hilda Hilst”; Tatiana Franca R. Zanirato.- PART II: OBSCENITY AND THE HUMAN CONDITION- 3. “Figurations of Eros in Hilda Hilst”; Eliane Robert Moraes.- 4. “Hilda Hilst, Metaphysician”; Adam Morris.- PART III: HILST IN NATIONAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXT- 5. “A Nation on the Ground Floor: The Face of Brazil, Drawn with Hilda Hilst’s Political Pen”; Deneval Siqueira de Azevedo Filho.- 6. “When Life is Extremely Bourgeois”: Ideal love and non-conformism in the love poems of Hilda Hilst; Alva Martínez Teixeiro.- PART IV: HILST IN TRANSLATION.- 7. “Translating Brazil’s Marquise de Sade”; John Keene.- 8. “Derelict of Duty”; Nathanaël.- 9. Hilst on Hilst: Excerpts from interviews with the author, 1952-2003.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe most comprehensive publication of Kodojin – beautiful and mysterious – a collection of more than 100 paintings with the English translations of his inscribed Chinese poems. The Art and Life of Fukuda Kodojin is the first publication in English to offer an in-depth examination of Kodojin's life, painting, and poetry. This fully illustrated publication draws from institutions and private collections worldwide, and is the result of fifteen years of extensive research into almost eight hundred works of inscribed poetry, literati landscapes, brush paintings and calligraphy. A beautiful and contemplative look into the world of Kodojin, this coveted edition accompanies a special exhibition held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Fukuda Kodojin (1865-1944) was a multifaceted artist, recognised for his poetry, painting and calligraphy, and is one of a handful of artists who continued the tradition of Japanese literati painting (nanga) into the twentieth century. Kodojin's painting style is characterized by bizarrely shaped mountain forms rendered in vivid color or monochromatic ink, often with a solitary scholar enjoying the expansive beauty of nature and bits of inscribed poetry. Creating over 700 works in his lifetime, he also made simple paintings of plants and flowers in his dramatic brushwork, and distinctive literati landscapes. Kodojin literally means "Old Taoist" which seems to reflect the path he chose of resilience of an old tradition facing new conditions and new challenges, and is theme felt throughout his art. There is both beauty and mystery in his life and work, and his landscapes can be rich in costly green and blue pigments, detailed layers of ink shading and strokes, or purely abstract. Unique, mysterious and distinctively expressive, The Art and Life of Fukuda Kodojin offers an unprecedented walk through the Old Taoist's mind, sure to both surprise and enlighten the curious reader, scholar, or literati enthusiast.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe armed conflict in the east of Ukraine brought about an emergence of a distinctive trend in contemporary Ukrainian poetry: the poetry of war. Directly and indirectly, the poems collected in this volume engage with the events and experiences of war, reflecting on the themes of alienation, loss, dislocation, and disability; as well as justice, heroism, courage, resilience, generosity, and forgiveness. In addressing these themes, the poems also raise questions about art, politics, citizenship, and moral responsibility. The anthology brings together some of the most compelling poetic voices from different regions of Ukraine. Young and old, female and male, somber and ironic, tragic and playful, filled with extraordinary terror and ordinary human delights, the voices recreate the human sounds of war in its tragic complexity.Trade ReviewFeatured in the TLS (June 22 2018)"Maksymchuk and Rosochinsky note in their introduction that poetry has often been used in the service of political power.""...Through their collection, they "sought to patch together the pieces of this disintegrating world".""The kind of poetry included in these collections is the antithesis of propaganda; these poetic dialogues are a valuable reminder that there is nothing immutable about Russian-Ukrainian enmity." "The words and images create an impression of a shimmering landscape that keeps shifting and changing. It is these moments that move us most – the moments when things no longer make sense, but are about to start making sense again. Meanings change, old words acquire new connotations, language itself wrings out of the usual course and meanders. In principle, there is nothing strange about language evolving to describe the changing reality. What’s uncanny is how quickly this happens. It’s like watching a blossom burst out of a bud, open and close rapidly a dozen of times, wilt away, and disappear, all in a matter of seconds. War puts language change in fast-forward." - Poetry International Online“These are poems in which the spirit of creative imagination, free expression, emotional clarity, and ethical courage reigns supreme.” – Stephanie Sandler, Harvard UniversityTable of Contents Preface Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky Introduction: “Barometers” Ilya Kaminsky ANASTASIA AFANASIEVA she says we don’t have the right kind of basement in our building You whose inner void from Cold She Speaks On TV the news showed from The Plain Sense of Things Untitled Can there be poetry after VASYL HOLOBORODKO No Return I Fly Away in the Shape of a Dandelion Seed The Dragon Hillforts I Pick up my Footprints BORYS HUMENYUK Our platoon commander is a strange fellow These seagulls over the battlefield When HAIL rocket launchers are firing Not a poem in forty days An old mulberry tree near Mariupol When you clean your weapon A Testament YURI IZDRYK Darkness Invisible Make Love ALEKSANDR KABANOV This is a post on Facebook, and this, a block post in the East How I love — out of harm’s way A Former Dictator He came first wearing a t-shirt inscribed “Je suis Christ” In the garden of Gethsemane on the Dnieper river A Russian tourist is on vacation Fear is a form of the good Once upon a time, a Jew says to his prisoner, his Hellenic foe KATERYNA KALYTKO They won’t compose any songs, because the children of their children April 6 This loneliness could have a name, an Esther or a Miriam Home is still possible there, where they hang laundry out to dry He Writes Can great things happen to ordinary people? LYUDMYLA KHERSONSKA Did you know that if you hide under a blanket and pull it over your head How to describe a human other than he’s alone The whole soldier doesn’t suffer A country in the shape of a puddle, on the map Buried in a human neck, a bullet looks like a eye, sewn in that’s it: you yourself choose how you live I planted a camellia in the yard One night, a humanitarian convoy arrived in her dream When a country of — overall — nice people Leave me alone, I’m crying. I’m crying, let me be the enemy never ends every seventh child of ten — he’s a shame you really don’t remember Grandpa — but let’s say you do BORIS KHERSONSKY explosions are the new normal, you grow used to them all for the battlefront which doesn’t really exist people carry explosives around the city way too long the artillery and the tanks stayed silent in their hangars when wars are over we just collapse modern warfare is too large for the streets my brother brought war to our crippled home Bessarabia, Galicia, 1913–1939 Pronouncements MARIANNA KIYANOVSKA I believed before in a tent like in a nest we swallowed an air like earth I wake up, sigh, and head off to war The eye, a bulb that maps its own bed Their tissue is coarse, like veins in a petal Things swell closed. It’s delicious to feel how fully Naked agony begets a poison of poisons HALYNA KRUK A Woman Named Hope like a blood clot, something catches him in the rye someone stands between you and death like a bullet, the Lord saves those who save themselves OKSANA LUTSYSHYNA eastern europe is a pit of death and decaying plums don’t touch live flesh he asks — don’t help me I Dream of Explosions VASYL MAKHNO February Elegy War Generation On War On Apollinaire MARJANA SAVKA We wrote poems Forgive me, darling, I’m not a fighter january pulled him apart OSTAP SLYVYNSKY Lovers on a Bicycle Lieutenant Alina 1918 Kicking the Ball in the Dark Story (2) Latifa A Scene from 2014 Orpheus LYUBA YAKIMCHUK Died of Old Age How I Killed Caterpillar Decomposition He Says Everything Will Be Fine Eyebrows Funeral Services Crow, Wheels Knife SERHIY ZHADAN from Stones“We speak of the cities we lived in . . .” “Now we remember: janitors and the night-sellers of bread . . .” from Why I’m not on Social MediaNeedleHeadphonesSectRhinocerosThey buried him last winter Three Years Now We’ve Been Talking about the War“A guy I know volunteered . . .”“Three years now we’ve been talking about the war . . .” “So that’s what their family is like now . . .” “Sun, terrace, lots of green . . .”“The street. A woman zigzags the street . . .” “Village street – gas line’s broken . . .”“At least now, my friend says . . .” Thirty-Two Days Without Alcohol Take Only What Is Most Important A city where she ended up hiding Afterword: “On Decomposition and Rotten Plums: Language of War in Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry” Polina Barskova Authors Translators Glossary Geographical Locations and Places of Significance Notes to Poems Acknowledgements Acknowledgement of Prior Publications

Read more less

Book SynopsisBy the author of The Handmaid's Tale and DearlyTHE DOOR is Margaret Atwood's first book of poetry since the 1995 MORNING IN THE BURNED HOUSE. Its lucid yet urgent poems range in tone from lyric to ironic to meditative to prophetic, and in subject from the personal to the political viewed in its broadest sense. They investigate the mysterious writing of poetry itself, as well as the passage of time and our shared sense of mortality. As the New York Times has said, 'Atwood's poems are short, glistening with terse, bright images. . . ' A brave and compassionate book, THE DOOR interrogates the certainties that we build our lives on.'One of the best books by one of the best poets writing in English' TLSTrade ReviewOn the strength of The Door, we should regard Atwood as a poet first and foremost - just one who happens to be a highly regarded novelist * SUNDAY HERALD *One of the best books by one of the best poets writing in English, written in a sparse, elegaic tone that combines illuminating intelligence with caustic humour and wisdom * Alberto Manguel, TLS *Margaret Atwood is not only a riveting novelist, she is also a witty and inventive poet * THE TIMES *

Read more less

Book SynopsisA gorgeous reissue of one of the most beloved classics of the twentieth century, published in celebration of Norton’s 100th anniversaryTrade Review"The Norton centenary edition of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet is a beautiful hardback of an essential text and a great gift to any aspiring writer." -- Anne Enright - The Observer

Read more less