Modern and contemporary poetry

Book SynopsisThe Welsh poet Andrew McNeillie brings together in this generous and timely volume his seven collections of poems – including his most recent, Making Ends Meet, and his Forward-Prize-shortlisted Carcanet collection Nevermore (2000). McNeillie's poems possess the same precision and ear for other voices which have made him a noted nature writer and an influential editor of the handsomely designed eco-literature magazine Archipelago, and like it, take as their focus the 'unnameable archipelago' of Britain and Ireland, at its wilder margins, with close observation of place, community, and hands-on outdoor experience. His celebrated memoir An Aran Keening (2001) is about a year's stay on one of the islands of that Archipelago. His publishing house Clutag Press produces beautiful limited editions of work by some of his favourite writers – Hill and Heaney among them. He is a witty writer and an ironist, but he is also a visionary in the sense that his poems sharpen vision of the environment and the crucial minutiae of the natural world we partly inhabit.Trade Review'McNeillie is a crucial member of a stellar generation of artists [...] devoted to the cause of the environment' - Bernard O'Donoghue

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2023. Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2023. A The Irish Times Book of the Year. In his disquieting third collection The Ink Cloud Reader, Kit Fan takes enormous risks linguistically, formally and visually to process the news of a sudden illness and the threat of mortality, set against the larger chaos of his beloved city Hong Kong and our broken planet. These shape-shifting poems are sensitive to anxiety and to beauty, questioning the turbulent climate of our time while celebrating the power of ink - of reading and writing.Trade Review'In The Ink Cloud Reader, Kit Fan's moving, wise and fluid poems grapple with the forces "converting loss to some form / of chaos". The book's vivid portrait of a marriage, quickened by sickness and the threat of separation, presents love as a play of shadow and light. Fan gets stranger, more daring, with each successive book: he is an essential poet, and one I will always return to.' - Sarah Howe; 'The compressed narratives in The Ink Cloud Reader demonstrate both lyric intensity and a remarkable dramatic reach. In this impressive third collection, Kit Fan's restless, explorative, compositional impulse is evident from first to last [...] The poems in this collection - personal, political, edgy, sometimes provocative - have a unifying voice both intriguing and wholly original.' - David Harsent; 'Kit Fan's poems are a kind of lyric vortex: imagistic fictions that wrap themselves around a hard, lyrical, personal centre, something like the complexity of a seed. This collection holds at its core the tension of what to say and how to say it, gloriously in celebration of ambivalence, and questioning.' - Rachael Allen

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Book SynopsisMichael Edwards returned to the English tongue for his last book of poems, At the Brasserie Lipp (2019), after years as a French-language author. English revived many nerves of memory, and in Another Art of Poetry he explores them further, in ten chapters, each consisting of continuously numbered sections. There are 194 sections, so we can read the book as a continuous sequence, as ten discrete poems, or as single lyrics and epistles interspersed. There is something Augustan about the approach, humorous, alert, like a series of letters and reflections spoken to us. The formal variety of the sections reminds us how well Edwards knows his Eliot, Williams, Pound, his David Jones; he understands modernism and the other resources that inform the grateful poets who value our European and wider traditions. ('The godsend of influence.') Originality has to do with origins. 'Everything has been said,' he begins, 'and we come / just at the right moment.' His English re-visions once familiar landscapes in Wivenhoe, in Paris and elsewhere; it finds his antecedents, it restores access to belief and transcendence. Doorstones, an additional full collection, bridges the gap between At the Brasserie Lipp and this ars poetica.Trade Review'At the Brasserie Lipp, I am convinced, represents contemporary English poetry at its best' - Igor Vishnevetsky, Russian poet and film-maker

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Book Synopsis'Partial Shade' is the common gardening term for plants that in fact need a measure of sunshine. In John Birtwhistle's poems, there is a continual play of light and shadow – and even glimpses of 'full sun'. This selection from his own work does not follow chronology. It is an entirely fresh ordering, in which poems converse and argue with each other across the years. Lines about politics, parenting, mortality, art (and love, 'that bookish theme') are plaited together, intimate yet distinct. Partial Shade is a new book for new readers. It makes available poems from out-of-print collections, as well as substantial new poems. The rhythm varies from lyric and narrative poems to 'haiku-like miniatures: agile, mobile and eventful' (Hugh Haughton). 'John Birtwhistle is a marvellously versatile intellectual gadfly of a poet. No sooner do we think that we know his manner, his theme, than he is off elsewhere, teasing, amusing, throwing out possibilities like sweets strewn along a woodland path.' (Michael Glover) The poetry is distinguished by deep feeling conveyed with visual precision, careful phrasing and formal clarity. Peter Jay writes of 'These lucid, witty, tender poems, full of felicitous surprises and unexpected turns of imagination', whilst Imtiaz Dharker finds them 'So rich in scope and style, with surprising shifts and echoes'.Trade Review'an ambitious and original poet, not afraid to take chances' - John Heath-Stubbs

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Book SynopsisIn Tristram Fane Saunders' first collection, readers encounter a poet whose ingenious forms dazzle, even while exploring darker themes. Drawing on delicious, unconventional rhymes and rhythms, Before We Go Any Further conjures a contemporary London as it maps the ways we try to communicate with each other across real and invented distances. Sphinxes and sea-creatures, sleepwalkers and surrealists visit poems about art and friendship, poems that are 'trying to tilt toward love', but 'can't help tugging/at the invisibly thin/line between true and honest’. They discover wry humour in that struggle.Trade Review'Tristram Fane Saunders is a joyfully idiosyncratic new voice in contemporary poetry; cultured, wry, formally adept, and adroitly musical. But what I love most is the deep compassion beneath the play. Many of these poems seek remedy for their suffering beloveds, only to be openly frustrated by their own limitations. These moments of radical kindness and vulnerability completely floored me, and make this a collection to cherish.' - Fiona Benson; 'Before We Go Any Further would be a striking debut on the strength of its formal confidence and original phrasemaking alone; but what separates it from the competition is its shamelessly bold return to a poetry of the imagination, to poetry's old tradition of making it new. These poems see it as their business to make connections, shed light and extend their empathies into the world; that they do so with such originality and flair makes for one of the most purely enjoyable and invigorating first collections I've read in a long time.' - Don Paterson

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Book SynopsisWhen his partner suddenly died, life changed utterly for Paul Stephenson. Hard Drive is the outcome of his revisiting a world he thought he knew, but which had been upended. In poems that are affectionate, self-examining, sometimes funny and often surprised by grief in the oddest corners, the poet takes us through rooms, routines, and rituals of bereavement, the memory of love, a shared life and separation. A noted formalist, with a flair for experiment, pattern and the use of constraints, Stephenson has written a remarkable first book, moving and, despite everything, a hopeful record of a gay relationship. It is also a landmark elegy collection.Trade Review'Hard Drive approaches the elegy through a kaleidoscopic, inventive and genuinely moving use of form... Stephenson looks death in the eyes, and holds his nerve like few others.' - Seán Hewitt; 'A brilliant and innovative formal poet, Stephenson here applies his great gifts, with heart-breaking clarity and bravery, to the most unfaceable of subjects. The result is a beautiful hymn to the human capacity for love.' - Jonathan Edwards; 'This is poetry for anyone who has ever lost someone... poetry that celebrates and mourns those deep connections that we make in life.' - Niall Campbell; 'Paul Stephenson brings all the tender mechanisms of language to sustain the weight of grief: this is an extraordinarily moving and accomplished collection.' - Penelope Shuttle

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Book SynopsisA Poetry Book Society Winter Recommendation 2023. A Sunday Times Book of the Year. In Child Ballad, David Wheatley's sixth collection, he explores a world transformed by the experience of parenthood. Conducting his children through landscapes of Northern Scotland, he follows pathways laid down by departed Irish missionaries and by wolves. He maps a rich territory of rivers, trees and mountains. Also present are histories, some evidenced, some no longer visible and yet to be inferred. Stylistically, Child Ballad is multifaceted, drawing on influences from the Scottish ballad tradition and the Gaelic bards, on French symbolism and on the American Objectivists. Wheatley is an Irish poet living and teaching in Scotland: as a cultural corridor, his Scotland is a space of migrations and palimpsests, different traditions held in dynamic balance and fusion. Writing across geographical and historical distances as he does, Wheatley develops an aesthetic of complex intimacy, alert to questions of memory and loss, communicating the ache of the here and now. He sees through the eyes of young children and the world looks very different in its gifts and threats. Wheatley provides intimate descriptions of parenthood as well as of a Northern Scottish natural world. He deploys an ambitious range of poetic styles and forms. His poems put deep roots down into history and geology, and with translation into other languages. Themes of migration and politics are never far away. Child Ballad sings of midlife, of resettlement and marriage as well as of parenthood.

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Book SynopsisMargaret Tait (1918–1999) was a pioneering filmmaker for whom words and images made the world real. 'In a documentary', she wrote, real things 'lose their reality... and there's no poetry in that. In poetry, something else happens.' If film, for Tait, was a poetic medium, her poems are works of craft and observation that are generous and independent in their vision of the world, poems that make seeing happen. Sarah Neely, Professor in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow, draws on Tait’s three poetry collections, her book of short stories, her magazine articles and unpublished notebooks to make available for the first time a collection of the full range of Tait's writing. Her introduction discusses Tait as filmmaker and writer in the context of mid-twentieth-century Scottish culture, and a comprehensive list of bibliographic and film resources provides an indispensible guide for further exploration.

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Book SynopsisA Poetry Book Society Recommendation Spring 2024. In her second collection, Mann wrestles with the questions and possibilities raised when trans identity, faith and the limits of myth and language intersect and are tested. Eleanor Among the Saints is a study in the queer joy found in counter-factuals and fantasy, shaped through the prism of the disputed story of Eleanor Rykener, a medieval trans woman, seamstress and sex worker.Trade Review'All poetry has something to do with bodies being transformed - whether in violence and grief, or in hope, in embrace, in miracle. Rachel Mann's brilliant collection is about these transformations, realised for us here with exhilarating verbal energy and emotional subtlety, a poetry that is solid and fluid at the same time, as bodies are.' - Rowan Williams;'Rachel Mann weaves an intricate web of language to examine the intimate relationship between the transforming, transformative body, between sexuality and spirituality, between religious ecstasy, fear and love. When Eleanor 'John' Rykener - a trans person living in medieval England - says 'I am not code for another's sins' she becomes utterly contemporary and timeless at the same time and we would all do well to listen.' - Kim Moore;'Nobody else could have written this: poems formed in the space where divinity, the body, trans identity and history fold together. A singular, sensational collection.' - Andrew McMillan

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Book SynopsisThe fascinating history of poetry anthologies and their influence on British society and culture over the last four centuries. For hundreds of years, anthologies have shaped the way we encounter literature. Eighteenth-century children and young women were introduced to the 'safe' bits of Shakespeare or Milton through censored collections; Victorian working-class men and women enrolled at adult learning institutions to be taught from The Golden Treasury; First World War soldiers nursed copies of The Oxford Book of English Verse in the trenches; pop-loving teenagers growing up in the 1960s got their first taste of the counterculture from the bestselling The Mersey Sound. But anthologies aren't just part of literary history. Over the centuries, they have influenced the course of British social change, redrawing the map of 'high' and 'low' culture, generating conversations around politics, morality, class, gender and belief. The Treasuries, by the literary scholar and journalist Clare Bucknell, reveals the extraordinary amount we can learn about our history from the anthologies that brought readers together and changed the way they thought.Trade ReviewAnthologies are the sleepers of the bookshelf, loaded with the hidden ideals and prejudices of their compilers. Clare Bucknell reads expertly between their lines to reveal a remarkable alternative history of literature. -- Rosemary HillThe delight of this book is its expert toggling of scale. Bucknell dissects large issues - politics, class, taste, education - via small vignettes: Palgrave collecting his poems with scissors, war poems falling like bombs, poetry on prescription. Her panoramic history throws up unexpected parallels - the Exclusion Crisis and the Spanish Civil War, Keats and working men’s eduction, ballads and pop. Treasuries is smart and learned but unpatronising: it sparkles with appreciation for the anthologist and their always-partial act of selection. -- Emma Smith * author of Portable Magic *Impressive in its coverage of social history, teeming with anecdotes, The Treasuries arrives just as Britain is once more rearranging its literary heritage and 'retelling favourite stories about itself at a moment of national crisis'. -- Peter ConradClare Bucknell is a compelling storyteller as well as a deep and cheerful scholar. A riveting read, The Treasuries changes how a reader approaches the designing and sometimes devious anthologists and the books they sell us. -- Michael SchmidtThis book is a wonderful celebration and examination of anthologies as the cornerstone of our literary culture. -- Ian McMillanA dazzling book — the more so because it is its author’s first... Bucknell’s book enhances its subject at every turn, and promises well for her future as a critic. * John Carey, The Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisThe fascinating history of poetry anthologies and their influence on British society and culture over the last four centuries. For centuries, poetry anthologies shaped the way that generations of British readers encountered literature. Eighteenth-century young women were introduced to the permissible bits of Shakespeare and Swift in censored collections. Working-class Victorians enrolled to be taught from The Golden Treasury at adult learning colleges. Pop-loving teenagers in the 1960s got their first taste of the counterculture from the bestselling The Mersey Sound. InThe Treasuries, Clare Bucknell reveals anthologies to be a unique window into social history. This is the story of some of the most widely read books ever published, and the cultural conversations – around politics, gender, class and nationhood – they sparked.Trade ReviewAnthologies are the sleepers of the bookshelf, loaded with the hidden ideals and prejudices of their compilers. Clare Bucknell reads expertly between their lines to reveal a remarkable alternative history of literature. -- Rosemary HillThe delight of this book is its expert toggling of scale. Bucknell dissects large issues - politics, class, taste, education - via small vignettes: Palgrave collecting his poems with scissors, war poems falling like bombs, poetry on prescription. Her panoramic history throws up unexpected parallels - the Exclusion Crisis and the Spanish Civil War, Keats and working men’s eduction, ballads and pop. Treasuries is smart and learned but unpatronising: it sparkles with appreciation for the anthologist and their always-partial act of selection. -- Emma Smith * author of Portable Magic *Impressive in its coverage of social history, teeming with anecdotes, The Treasuries arrives just as Britain is once more rearranging its literary heritage and 'retelling favourite stories about itself at a moment of national crisis'. -- Peter ConradClare Bucknell is a compelling storyteller as well as a deep and cheerful scholar. A riveting read, The Treasuries changes how a reader approaches the designing and sometimes devious anthologists and the books they sell us. -- Michael SchmidtThis book is a wonderful celebration and examination of anthologies as the cornerstone of our literary culture. -- Ian McMillan

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Book SynopsisA celebrated French bestseller, this novel in verse that captures the mundane and the beautiful, the blood and sweat, of working on the factory floor in the processing plants and abattoirs of Brittany. Unable to find work in his field, Joseph Ponthus enlists with a temp agency and starts to pick up casual shifts in the fish processing plants and abattoirs of Brittany. Day after day he records with infinite precision the nature of work on the production line: the noise, the weariness, the dreams stolen by the repetitive nature of exhausting rituals and physical suffering. But he finds solace in a life previously lived. Shelling prawns, he dreams of Alexandre Dumas. Pushing cattle carcasses, he recalls Apollinaire. And, in the grace of the blank spaces created by his insistent return to a new line of text – mirroring his continued return to the production line – we discover the woman he loves, the happiness of a Sunday, Pok Pok the dog, the smell of the sea. In this celebrated French bestseller, translated by Stephanie Smee, Ponthus captures the mundane, the beautiful and the strange, writing with an elegance and humour that sit in poignant contrast with the blood and sweat of the factory floor. On the Line is a poet's ode to manual labour, and to the human spirit that makes it bearable. Praise for On the Line: 'Poetic and political, lyrical and realistic, Joseph Ponthus' spirited elegy is at once surprising, captivating and affecting' Télérama 'It is not every day that one witnesses the birth of a writer' France 5 La Grande Librairie 'A work that is powerful, clever, benevolent, optimistic even. Essential reading' Causette 'Be prepared for a battering of the senses with vivid, grisly prose' France MagazineTrade ReviewPoetic and political, lyrical and realistic, Joseph Ponthus' spirited elegy is at once surprising, captivating and affecting * Télérama *It is not every day that one witnesses the birth of a writer * France 5 La Grande Librairie *A work that is powerful, clever, benevolent, optimistic even. Essential reading * Causette *Be prepared for a battering of the senses with vivid, grisly prose * France Magazine *A lasting gift to the French – and now the English – literary landscape. You don't need to be a poetry aficionado to be stirred by the understated beauty of Ponthus's writing, and Stephanie Smee's superb translation, nor to be moved by the world that Ponthus paints and probes. A world in which the vicissitudes of factory life are illuminated with wit and wisdom, and joy can be found twinkling where you least expect it * European Literature Network *Writing from real-life experience, Ponthus details the drudgery, exhaustion, frustration, horror, stress, satisfaction and occasional joy found working in an industrial food factory. Using an experimental style that's half verse, half prose, he makes this refrigerated, sanitised, fluorescent-lit world feel beautiful, even romantic. I found myself dropping the book into my lap for minutes at a time just to process just how fucked-up his experience is. This is a powerful – but not preachy or guilt-tripping – window into an ugly, opaque system we're all part of * Broadsheet *

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Book SynopsisAn epic poem touching on issues of racism, intolerance and environmental destructions from Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri. There is much to celebrate in the human journey so far – art in all its forms, advances made in the fields of technology and medicine and, for many of us, the miracle of freedom. But there is also much to regret – racism, intolerance, the destruction of our environment, the reality and the legacy of slavery. In this long, sustained consideration of the state we find ourselves in, Ben Okri invokes the past to explain the present, and sings out a message of hope. The future is still ours to make. This epic poem, an anthem for the twenty-first century, first appeared in The Times in January 1999. Its message could hardly be more relevant to our present condition. Discover this revised edition of an inspiring and extraordinarily tender work. 'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' Ali SmithTrade ReviewPRAISE FOR BEN OKRI: 'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' Ali Smith. 'Where fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace and uncommon power' -- Marlon James on The Freedom Artist

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Book SynopsisPoems of living and loving from Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri. Freedom is the most precious commodity in the world. In this powerful collection, the celebrated novelist, essayist, dramatist and poet, Ben Okri, explores the beauty contained in each one of us – the freedom of our spirit, the child within. He recalls the death of his father, the sacrifices of his mother, the hidden river of Edinburgh, falling in love. He writes about Virgil and Mozambique, about ringing the bell for freedom, the dreams of Calliope and the full moon. He enters the fifth circle, sings of the roses of spring, and aligns the pyramids to the magic stars. This is a rich, joyful, exciting collection for everyone who loves Ben Okri's vibrant style, and a perfect introduction to new readers of his poetry. 'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' Ali Smith 'A work of beauty, grace and uncommon power' Marlon James on The Freedom ArtistTrade ReviewPRAISE FOR BEN OKRI: 'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' Ali Smith. 'Where fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace and uncommon power' -- Marlon James on The Freedom Artist

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Book SynopsisCoffee Days, Whiskey Nights is a collection of poetry, prose, and aphorisms that juxtaposes the hopefulness a brand new day can bring with the lingering thoughts that keep us up into the late-night hours. A lot can happen between the first sip of coffee and the last taste of whiskey, and this book takes a look at the way a single day can change our outlook on everything from relationships with others, to our relationships with ourselves, and everything in between. Ultimately, it illustrates that no matter how hopeless we may feel at the end of a day, a new one is only a few hours away.

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2021Shortlisted for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize 2022PBS Special Commendation Summer 2021Alice Hiller’s debut performs an act of witness and restitution. Working with her childhood and adolescent medical notes, bird of winter creates a redemptive language to speak the darkness of being sexually abused by a family member. Through the excavated histories of Pompeii and Herculaneum, these poems additionally document the grooming that prepares a child for sexual abuse, and the vulnerability which remains afterwards. Calling up the landscapes and relationships which sustained her, as well as the injury she experienced, Hiller reflects the nature and impact of a crime to which millions around the world are subjected – and asks how we may find our ways towards healing.Trade Review'Alice Hiller’s bird of winter is a vital work of poetic witness. It is necessary, alive, resilient. Unflinching in its account of childhood abuse and trauma, it depicts a world ‘harsh as ash over sunshine’ and in its process of recovery, makes of it something beautiful and new.' Karen McCarthy Woolf'bird of winter reminds us that the root of courage, etymological and otherwise, is heart. Prepare, Dear Reader, to feel.'Nuar Alsadir'Alice Hiller’s project is the excavation of a city of grief from beneath the ashes of memory. It does what poetry does best: it makes a new, hard-won truth and a beauty of its absences and denials. Its partial shapes and unstable formal qualities consequently come to live in the reader.It doesn’t redeem, it scorches.'Sasha Dugdale‘This collection bears witness to the resilience of human nature, with poetry giving voice to the silences within that are so hard to talk about. Yet they must be voiced, and Alice Hiller has turned her devastating childhood experiences into a narrative of transformation that everyone should read.’ Mary Mulholland, The Alchemy Spoon‘Between the obscurity and bewilderment of her erasure poems, and her other visually arresting, formally playful work, Hiller never loses sight of the vivid world in which an escape from oppressive interiority is made possible.’ Juliano Zaffino'Alice Hiller’s potent debut collection, Bird of Winter, commands respect and reverence. Composure is required to absorb this essential and courageously intimate exploration of sexual abuse. [...] Hiller’s fearless writing is neither crude nor violent despite indicating unbearable violations. The specifics and long-standing impact of abuse are rarely written with such tender flair. [Her] words are cathartic, proud, persistent and we are compelled to read to further our understanding of a violation perturbingly common. [...] Through dynamic form and the powerful imagery of excavated histories, that offers a deeper awareness of the reality of sexual abuse and the consequent devastation, Hiller reclaims a voice that we are compelled to hear. This is a poet so brave, resolved to gather the ruins of an appalling early childhood and redefine herself as more than a catastrophic moment in time.'Victoria Lothian, Dundee University Review of the Arts'Hiller’s writing is precise, delicate and starkly austere. [...] These accessible poems often reflect the vulnerability of the speaker as a child and make use of white space and fragments of text. The disturbing subject matter is depicted with care and distance through searing image-making. An exceptional début, courageous and devastating in equal measure. This is a profoundly moving and important book, which oscillates between life and death, loss and regeneration, light and dark. The final poem ‘o goddess isis’ epitomises the speaker’s movement towards freedom, to ‘dissolve night’, ‘reveal the sunrise’.' Jennifer Lee Tsai, Mslexia'Through great erudition and a razor-sharp focus on image, this collection raises faultless victimhood from the ash like a phoenix. [...] With exacting erudition, a strong connection to the natural world, and the power of a witness statement, Alice Hiller’s bird of winter is beautiful to hold, a pleasure to open, and a testament of vindication. Hiller exorcises shame through beauty and assembles redemption with acute detail.'David Morgan O’Connor, RHINO'The book is an impressive example of the power of poetic control, in its choice of what information to share with the reader and its simplicity of diction and line. [...] The poems throw off the tethers ofsocially sanctioned silences around abuse till the unpunctuated and carefully punctured lines soar. [...] With their gaze resolutely on the grievous hurt arising from abuse, these poems are a deep reproach to the act of looking away. bird of winter will turn your gaze towards damaging behaviours that we know happen but can’t bear to focus on. Read it.'Claire Crowther, Magma Poetry'Alice Hiller’s debut poetry collection bird of winter is an act of witness, exceptional in its exploration of form, sources and landscape, and deeply humane in purpose. [...] Some poets wait patiently for poems to reach them like gifts from the elements, from air and water. Others build work from their own flesh, blood and bones, in defiance of censorship and silencing. Alice Hiller is a rare poet who uses both approaches to write an extraordinary testimony of trauma that offers fierce resistance, as well as hope to survivors of sexual abuse.'Pauline Rowe, Poets' Directory ‘Hiller offers extraordinary resilience and moments of immense, liberatory tenderness… This is a harrowing book, yes, but ultimately, with its invitation to “billow forth the wrecks we hold”, with its emphasis on resistance and joy, it is a staggeringly beautiful piece of life-affirming work.’ Stephanie Sy-Quia, The Poetry Review

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the Laurel Prize 2022. Shortlisted for the Ledbury Hellens Poetry Prize for Second Collections 2023. ‘Have you looked / have you looked deeply?’ ask these poems, rooted in the human body and its movement through an interconnected living world. Bloom, Sarah Westcott’s second collection, approaches the cultural and physical spaces where human and non-human lives co-exist. These poems are attuned to a tender, bleeding world in which ‘all flesh is grass’ and language is matter. These are poems of resistance: attentive to non-human life, ‘eternal and plaintive … counter-balanced, strange.’ Here are field flowers, walled gardens and lost species, the particularities of ‘undistinguished things … seeds, waterbuts, palpable concerns’. Exploring sacrifice and loss, these poems push at the boundaries where girlhood and flower might bleed. These poems are a hymn to being alive in the twenty-first century - the frailties and vigour of life in all its dazzling form, its ‘looped breath, perpetual singing’.Trade ReviewReviews'Like a deep Summer meadow, "thrumming in wet light", Bloom teems with wild, restless energy: bird song, flowers, birth and death, the body in its ecstasy and decay. Sarah Westcott's beautiful poems pivot upon a strange dazzling curiosity. They urge us to kneel in the long grass and pay tender attention to the spaces within nature and within ourselves where life blooms.' Liz Berry'Sarah Westcott’s poems are an enquiry into perception, in which looking is refracted, and the line between subject and object becomes permeable. They look back to a time when “form and perception were … the same”, and trace the contours and textures of loss, the way longing sets birds “circling”, and green is “inconsolable”. And yet elegy is not the only key: there are celebrations, too, exhilarations of surface, colour, voices on and in the body. Bloom brings the human and its various others – the weathers, weeds, flowers and creatures - into delicate focus, attending to their forms and relationships with tender precision and care.' Mina Gorji‘Sarah Westcott in her second poetry collection Bloom, picks up where she left off with Slant Light; at once fully immersed in the natural world, and yet devastatingly unable to escape the body, its attendant implications of mortality, humanity, in a world that renders us tiny.’ Juliano Zaffino'Westcott blends dynamic, sensual language with the scientific [...] the poet-narrator of Bloom seems to almost bodily flow, meld and join with the natural world. [...] This second of the Westcott’s ‘sister’ collections shows us a powerful nature poet unafraid of a bolder reach in expression, where we are ‘one layer of carbon’ (The Turn) among so many others in nature, but one grounded in the particularity and exactitude of that world.'Ken Evans, The Manchester Review'Wescott create[s] a palimpsest of hymns to the natural world [...] Bloom is a subtle meditation on the underlying connection between humans and Nature with ecological overtones, rooted in passionate, precise observation.'Theresa Sowerby, Orbis Magazine'[Wescott] invokes moments of sanctity which have meaning for her without invoking theology. In this wide context, she reads as both eco-poet and love poet. What makes her an eco-poet (not strident but urgent) is her respect for life. [...] Because she often strikes a note of fine spontaneity, it would be easy to overlook that Westcott is a clever technician and witty with it. Several love-poems here are down-to-earth, high-flown and tender all in one. [...] Awareness of touch, of one texture against another, is an insidious (in a good sense) presence through poems which are invariably sensual at one level or another; she is also, however, making a point about the need to feel, the ‘civilisation’ that comes from a trembling awareness. 'Dilys Wood, Artemis Poetry'Sarah Westcott's keen-eyed second collection, Bloom, deals in surfaces that shift, cut and resist. [...] It is a particular gift of Westcott's poems to connect directly with an animal nature that can slip past intellectual overlay. [...] These are poems that capture a sense of the things that are 'bewildering', 'tender' [...] Wescott reveals the multiplicity of our experience, its many truths. This is a mesmerising volume that invites us to rove, and in so doing, to leave a different track behind.'Lesley Sharpe, The Alchemy Spoon'The poems in this luminous book are tight, fragmented things, varying in shape and typesetting, in a style both abstract and committed: the world placed firmly underfoot even as the work revels in strangeness and uncertainty. [...] There’s something original about Westcott’s nature writing, something unsettling, where clarity of observation is never far from an obsessive sense of derangement. Maybe that’s because hallucination and actually seeing are closer to one another than we might think: our interiors influence our perception of the exterior. [...] The world is always rolling in this collection, brought to life by Westcott’s quick but careful observations: in flux and subjected to harmonious processes, always in bloom.'Daniel Bennett, Wild Court'With humility, reflectiveness, and careful attunement to her surroundings, Westcott calls for her readers to stop and contemplate the wonders of the natural world. Her language is tender and vivid. [...] These poems describe ordinary moments made noteworthy by the poet’s good eye and deft imagery. “All beginnings are naïve,” she writes, and, in this collection, her curiosity proves contagious.'Maggie Wang, Harvard Review'Eerie and sensuous ... Westcott’s poems seek to collapse the differences between human and non-human entities in order to show how human beings can contain multitudes' Dzifa Benson, Magma Poetry‘When we read Westcott we know ourselves, instantly, to be in another world, flowering… She is a deeply instinctive poet, at ease in her own poetical character… Westcott has a way of dissolving boundaries between self and other, self and world, self and time, so that any reader of hers must end up feeling: I want to be this way all the time. The word I want here is an over-used and badly understood one: natural. Reading Bloom makes one ache for that naturalness, but also, and this is rare, gives us a portal, a way of finding it.’ Nichola Deane‘Skilful patterning, sharp observation, sensuous evocativeness and startling leaps of metaphorical imagination give her poems a vivid, immediate impact, absorbing the reader in the experiences they present.’ Edmund Prestwich, London Grip

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Book SynopsisIn a fast-paced world, The Wild Verses invites you to slow down, reflect and to seek solace through poetry and nature.From consoling words of hope and healing to meditations on love and friendship, this beautiful collection has a poem for every feeling. Accompanied by emotive illustrations of animals in the wild, this is a poetry collection to be returned to again and again.The perfect gift book for fans of Donna Ashworth and Charlie Mackesy.Trade ReviewThe Wild Verses... is a wonderful collection of nature poems, with magnificent illustrations by Sarah Maycock. These poems focus on the things which matter most - love, friendship, hope for the future and healing. Children and adults alike will love the images and messages written in rich, beautiful language. -- Emma Dunn and Clare Fulton * The Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisSelected by Seán Hewitt as a Granta Book of the Year In trailblazing poet, essayist, teacher and activist June Jordan's poems, love is a vision of revolutionary solidarity, crossing borders both emotional and literal with an outstretched hand. Haruko traces the faltering arc of a passionate love affair with another woman while Love Poems encompasses relationships with men and women, political resistance, the need for self-care in a demanding, uncaring world and apocalyptic visions of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. A contemporary of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde, June Jordan's spectacular poetry remains profoundly politically potent, lyrically inventive and breathtakingly romantic. First published in 1994, Haruko/ Love Poems is a vitally important modern classic.Trade ReviewPraise for June Jordan: Jordan puts love and delight in her poems, not just vengeance and justice... Writing is an act of faith in a future where meaning is possible. -- Elisa Gabbert * The New York Times *A powerful voice for radical love and justice. June Jordan is a poet for the ages. * Poets.org *A wonderfully direct and heartfelt love poet... the poetry of June Jordan is fully alive, set free in brilliant, timeless flight. -- Carol Rumens * Guardian *A depth of feeling and a vibrancy which just sings out from the page ... lucid, strong, and accessible, singing of sexual desire and resistance against tyrannies * Buzz Books *

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Book SynopsisA classic poem with a timeless message, presented in a small and beautiful gift book. Rose Milligan never intended to publicly share her poem 'Dust If You Must', but a series of events led her to publish it in The Lady magazine in 1998. Her charming message about what we value in life resonated with audiences, and it has since been read on BBC radio, posted on Instagram, printed on tea towels, read at funerals and put to music. Now appearing as a book for the first time, beautifully illustrated throughout by illustrator Hayley Wells, Dust If You Must is a timeless reminder to focus on the things we can enjoy in the world, rather than the things we think we need to do.Trade ReviewDust if you must/But wouldn't it be better/To paint a picture, write a letter/Bake a cake or plant a seed ?/Ponder the difference between 'want' and 'need' -- Excerpt from Dust If You Must by Rose Milligan

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Book Synopsis'High-concept, formally daring, and sonically rich [...] What a tremendous gift to readers to witness a poetics balanced so deftly between intellect and instinct.' - Kayo Chingonyi In myth, the Pillars of Hercules near the Straits of Gibraltar mark the edge of what was then the known world, with the warning Ne plus ultra - No more beyond. Beyond power, beyond the sublime, beyond love, PLUS ULTRA begins where other poetry gives up. Sarah Fletcher's dazzling debut collection pushes at the world, reaching towards the 'beyond' of its title poem to explore questions of power, romance, pain and the sublime. These poems challenge, play and press, but also carry an anxiety around borders: what is 'beyond'? What happens when you reach the boundary and keep going? With a sharp, Plathian interrogative voice Fletcher's poems prowl the bars and night-haunts of Madrid and London, and in rich, mythic language plumb the below-places where discoveries are made, drowned, and left behind.Trade ReviewSarah Fletcher's poems are highly mobile, troubled, troubling, rich and fraught -- Chris Kraus, author * I Love Dick *'PLUS ULTRA is an alarming, accomplished and brilliant first collection. Fletcher's ambition, formal invention, erudition and technical precision offer a compelling scaffold for poems that fizz and flit between vulnerability, wit and a brutal willingness to confront the world, and others, with a dark honesty that is frequently refreshing and, occasionally, genuinely menacing. These are poems that demand the reader's full attention, but that also deliver.' * Ahren Warner *PLUS ULTRA is a wild, exciting, lyrical book, free-associative and narrative at the same time ... Fletcher is a poet of the future, and lucky for us, she's arrived just in time. * Matthew Dickman *Cool, sexy, dangerous and brilliant [...] PLUS ULTRA is essential reading. * Victoria Kennefick *The high-concept, formally daring, and sonically rich poems collected in PLUS ULTRA confirm my long-held suspicion that Sarah Fletcher is engaged in the life-long enterprise of mastering the various things a poetic line can do. What a tremendous gift to readers to witness a poetics balanced so deftly between intellect and instinct. * Kayo Chingonyi *

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Book SynopsisMention Robert Frost and people instantly think of snowy woods and less-traveled paths and rural neighbors meeting to fix their stone fence. But what does Robert Frost have to do with science? You might be surprised. Born in 1874, Frost lived through a remarkable period of scientific progress, including the development of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, the Big Bang theory, the discovery of the structure of DNA and the beginnings of space travel. Possessing a powerful intellect driven by keen curiosity, Frost was highly knowledgeable about the science of his time and infuses his poetry with imagery and language borrowed from science. Frost not only uses the language of science to enrich his poetry in the same way he uses classical, historical, biblical and literary allusions, but he also uses ordinary language to create sophisticated metaphors based on scientific concepts such as evolution and entropy. A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost represents the first systematic attempt to catalogue and explain all of the references to science and natural history in Frost’s poetry. The book, which is organized chronologically, uses language that is accessible to laymen and is supplemented by numerous illustrations, and appendices that should make it a valuable resource for teachers and scholars. Trade Review'What a wonderful idea Virginia Smith, with her strong scientific background, had in providing us with A Scientific Companion to my grandfather’s verses! Always impressed by Rorbert Frost’s deep understanding of his natural surroundings – in botany, archaeology, astronomy, among others – we learn here just how his scientific knowledge enriches the metaphorical language of many of his verses. As a teacher of his poems, I frequently note the need for such a Companion: the heal-all in “Design,” the iris in “Iris by Night” that is not a flower, or the complex interaction of fruit, trees, ancestral primates, and a young girl, in “Wild Grapes,” one of my favorites. Richly illustrated, the volume will help you move ever more deeply into the poet’s layers of meaning while, at the same time, awaken you to the endless mysteries of the universe.'Lesley Lee Francis, author of You Come Too: My Journey With Robert Frost and Robert Frost: An Adventure in Poetry, 1900–1918'More than half a century ago, C. P. Snow lamented that science and the humanities had become so specialized that their practitioners could no longer speak to one another. With the publication of A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost, Virginia Smith proves the exception to the “two cultures” divide. A professor of biochemistry at the United States Naval Academy, Ms. Smith is also an astute reader of Frost’s poetry. In combining her “avocation and vocation,” as Frost advises in “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” Ms. Smith demonstrates the breadth of Frost’s engagement with science and carefully discloses how Frost used the lessons of science—in astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, and natural history—to inform his poetry. In doing so, she provides devotees and scholars with an invaluable primary resource that will surely stimulate new thinking about our most thoughtful and complex American poet.' Robert Bernard Hass, author of Going by Contraries: Robert Frost’s Conflict with Science and co-editor of the Letters of Robert Frost'Any lover of Frost’s poetry will be delighted by Virginia Smith’s A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost. It brings an exciting new perspective to many of the poems we have all long admired. Now with her book as our guide through all the allusions to matters of science that Frost continually turned to in writing his poetry, we can experience and appreciate these poems more fully. Smith has not missed a single one of these allusions, providing us with clarifying details of the significance and history of specific words and phrases in the poems related to the fields of botany, ornithology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, physics, and the technology of his day. But her book is not merely a catalog of Frost’s use of scientific language and imagery; Smith puts her commentaries in the context of where he was living, the books he was reading, the people he knew, and the discussions of the times. Each entry is meticulously documented, drawing on an impressive body of research, often primary sources, including what he had read, courses he had taken, and letters he had written and received. The ninety one illustrations throughout the book further illuminate and enrich our understanding of Frost’s fascination with science. While scholars will surely make use of this book for academic study, I urge the multitude of readers who have made Frost their favorite poet not to pass up this opportunity to get to know his poetry more deeply and enjoy it even more.' Lea Bertani Vozar Newman, author of Robert Frost: The People, Places, and Stories Behind His New England Poetry'Robert Frost was one of the few poets who knew as much about science as he did the humanities. Here at last in one volume Virginia Smith allows readers to see just how deeply informed and rich with scientific knowledge Frost’s poetry could be.' Jonathan N. Barron, director of The Robert Frost Society and author of How Robert Frost Made Realism Matter'The careful research Smith has conducted into Frost’s reading is a great strength of this volume... A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost will help scholars and students alike see new dimensions in Frost’s poetry.’ Steve Knepper, The New England Quarterly 'A professor of chemistry and an active Frost scholar, Virginia F. Smith is uniquely positioned to contribute to these interdisciplinary conversations. In A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost, she draws on her authoritative knowledge of both scientific concepts and of Frost’s life and work to give us an invaluable guide to scientific references in Frost’s poetry. The book not only illuminates these references, it also makes clear the significance of scientific ideas to Frost as both man and poet. Any engaged reader of Frost will benefit from having this Companion at his or her elbow while leafing through the poems.'Marissa Grunes, The Robert Frost ReviewTable of ContentsIntroductionA Boy’s Will North of Boston Mountain Interval New Hampshire West-Running Brook A Further Range A Witness Tree Steeple Bush An Afterword A Masque of Reason In the Clearing Uncollected Poems Works Cited Annotated Bibliography Concordance of Plants Concordance of Animals

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Book SynopsisIf you do not release yourself from what has gone how will you hold onto what is coming?Let go of the things that let you go.An inspirational contemporary collection of words, prose and illustrations providing short, thought-provoking daily prompts for positivity, hope, happiness, and encouragement. Be the Light honours the beauty of our scars and celebrates the strength that lives inside us all.Broken into six themes: Believe in Your Power, Let Yourself Be Seen, You Deserve Happiness, Healing Old Wounds, You Are Enough and Never Underestimate Your Strength, each chapter starts with a short commentary on the theme and is followed by reflective words to encourage the reader to examine their own personal story.Each chapter features short prose and poems alongside Cay's uplifting illustrations.

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Book Synopsis'Moving and hopeful ... will stay with me for a long time' Daisy Buchanan'A fearless, young new voice' Carol Ann Duffy'One of the most exciting debuts I've read in ages' Kaveh Akbar'One of the most startling and original poets of her generation' Joy HarjoThe voice of Tayi Tibble is one of most exciting in poetry today. In Poukahangatus (pronounced 'Pocahontas'), her debut volume, Tibble challenges a dazzling array of mythologies - Greek, Maori, feminist, kiwi - peeling them apart and respinning them in modern terms. Her poems move from rhythmic discussions of the Kardashians, sugar daddies and Twilight to exquisite renderings of precise emotions and the natural world alike. Tibble is also a master narrator of teenage womanhood, its exhilarating highs and devastating lows; her high-camp aesthetics chart the overflowing beauty, irony and ruination of her surroundings.Poem by poem, Tibble carves out a bold new way of engaging history without merely telling it, of straddling modernity and ancestry, desire and exploitation. These are warm, provocative and profoundly original poems, written from a world in which the effects of colonization, land, work and gender are intimately and insidiously connected. Along the way, Tibble scrutinizes perception and asks how she as a Maori woman fits into trends, stereotypes and popular culture. With language that is at once colourful, passionate and laugh-out-loud funny, Poukahangatus announces the presence of a surpassingly daring new poet.Trade ReviewA fearless, young new voice with a huge range, from history to pop culture, with that sense of joy in its own word-music which immediately heralds the start of a poetic and political journey. Along with Hera Lindsay Bird, Tayi Tibble adds excitement to the new poetry coming from New Zealand -- Carol Ann DuffyStartlingly evocative, lush, moving and hopeful - this is a powerful and thrilling new voice that will stay with me for a long time -- Daisy BuchananHurls us into a lush biome of sensual density ... one feels in the presence of a singular, searching mind rigorously excavating its own psychospiritual station. Poukahangatus is one of the most exciting debuts I've read in ages -- Kaveh AkbarTayi Tibble is one of the most startling and original poets of her generation. Her poetry makes doorways of insight into turbulent history. At the end, there we are, all standing together, listening -- Joy HarjoTayi Tibble's Poukahangatus was an incredibly rhythmic and refreshing read! Ripe with dazzling imagery, culture and history, this collection offers readers a tale of identity, cross-generational references and so much more. Tibble's rich language breathes new life into poetry and tethers readers to the history of the Maori people and the lasting impact of colonization. The writing screams, 'I was here before & I'll be back again!' I'd suggest this book to every twenty-something trying to find their way! -- Roya MarshI love your collection [Rangikura], it's so good, I'm so impressed ... You totally encapsulate the heady vibe of being a young woman in New Zealand -- Lorde * Metro NZ *Tibble's luscious, widely praised debut poetry collection [channels] her Maori heritage and the zeitgeist of her childhood ... Tibble transforms tales of mundanity into spellbinding, melodiousencounters. Boys embroiled in a rugby scrum become gritty and vicious ... A game of Cowboys and Indians is incidentally wounding but also depicted as a sharp indictment of the White Savior Complex ... Tibble's running prose poems bubble over with lush imagery and serve as canny time capsules ... Like the stylistic lovechild of Rupi Kaur and Teresia Teaiwa, Tibble is a poet of effervescent verve and great promise -- Diego Báez * Booklist *This chatty, winsome debut by a young New Zealand poet mines family history, Maori myth and the residue of pop culture to fashion a striking sensibility * New York Times Book Review *Tibble's affinity for poetry was literally written in the stars ... Tibble blends past and present, peppering her poems with pop culture references -- Serena Smith * Dazed *

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Book Synopsis'Ruminative and enigmatic . . . powerful' Simon Armitage'Tenderly inquisitive . . . a powerful poetry of witness . . . full of discovery' Alycia Pirmohamed'Majella Kelly offers so much: ecstatic lyricism . . . emotional excavation and virtuosic skill' Kathryn Maris The astonishing poetry debut exploring hidden histories, mythical landscapes and self-discovery in the face of limits on women's bodily autonomyIn 2017, the presence of a mass grave was confirmed in a disused sewage system in Tuam, County Galway. In it were the bodies of infants - wards of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, where from 1925 to 1961 the children of unmarried women were sent to live their lives in the care of nuns. Their deaths were the result of a conservative culture which, under the influence of the Church, took a prurient interest in women's private lives and bodies.In The Speculations of Country People, her hauntingly lyrical debut collection, Majella Kelly reckons with that legacy. She traces the journeys of women in our own day, from controlling relationships to sexual reawakening and new happiness. The speculations of the title are in part those of gossip, the chatter of small communities everywhere; but they are also those of a local, very Irish mythos, in which pagan and Christian - and truth and legend - blend and blur.Here, then, are hares and selkies, a seductive 'master otter' of 'fabulous elegance' who might carry a woman away in the night; here is the last man on Omey Island; here a retired stuntman, dragging his bed of rusty nails along the beach. And here - quiet, against the beauty and loneliness of the Connemara landscape - are the little bones that wash up on shores or stick from the earth to speak of what has been.Trade ReviewThis tenderly inquisitive book . . . oscillate[s] between an intimate interiority . . . and a powerful poetry of witness. Along with its strong, lyrical voice, the book's sections are held together by evocative personifications of the natural world . . . Kelly attends carefully to the histories she writes about . . . [The section on the Tuam Mother and Baby Home] is a poetic inquiry, where skilful and moving language is a tool of investigation. Kelly probes at difficult questions of religion, legacy, grief, and the responsibility of memory and memorial. The poems are lucid with their remembering . . . full of discovery, [The Speculations of Country People gifts] us with the wisdom that the list of places we are from is not fixed, but rather textured with the continuous possibility of finding home in new people and new places -- Alycia PirmohamedMajella Kelly offers so much: ecstatic lyricism, historical fiction, genealogy, cultural observation, emotional excavation and virtuosic skill. Her poems have drive, empathy, pathos and joy -- Kathryn Maris

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 T. S. ELIOT PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZEA GUARDIAN AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A wonder of a collection' Caleb Azumah Nelson'Thrilling ... once-in-a-generation' Jackie Kay'Genius ... tells a thousand stories in stunningly crafted verse' Nikita Gill'Remarkable, textured ... Yomi Sode is a beautiful storyteller' Candice Carty-Williams'Heartbreaking ... This debut is the living heart and soul of contemporary poetry' Pascale Petit'Vivid, beautiful and deeply moving' Rt Hon Diane Abbott MP'Yomi Sode writes with clarity, anger and love' Andrew Graham-Dixon'Searing, shimmering, brilliant' Yrsa Daley-Ward'A must for all lovers of poetry and its power' Roger Robinson'Manorism is a classic' Caleb FemiImpassioned, insightful, electric, Manorism is a poetic examination of the lives of Black British men and boys: propped up and hemmed in by contemporary masculinity, deepened by family, misrepresented in the media, and complicated by the riches, and the costs, of belonging and inheritance. It is also an exploration of the differences of impunity afforded to white and Black people, and to white and Black artists.Caravaggio - originally, unexpectedly - looms large: as a man who moved between spheres of exalted patronage and petty criminality; as a painter who, amid the elegant conventions of late Mannerism, forged his own style of visceral dark and light; and as an individual whose recognized genius was allowed to legitimate and excuse his violence.In this profound and moving debut, Yomi Sode asks: what does it mean to find oneself between worlds - to 'code-switch', adapting one's speech and manners to widely differing cultural contexts? Who is, and who isn't, allowed to be more than their origins? And what do we owe each other? What do we owe ourselves?Trade ReviewManorism is a wonder of a collection. Yomi writes into the space where silence has been enforced, with language so dexterous it sings, with an honesty that is as sure as it is vulnerable. Throughout the collection, he gives language to grief, acute and enormous. He speaks not only to the moments we might falter in the face of our mourning but also to how we might rebuild, how we might not only survive those who pass, but thrive. What a joy it is to hold these words -- Caleb Azumah Nelson, author of OPEN WATERThe mandem, mourning, mores and manners - Yomi Sode's Manorism is a thrilling new world to inhabit. Tender, lyrical, questioning, fierce, these poems make you think about the world we live in and how we treat the black men in it . . . This is one of those books that comes along once in a generation and influences generations to come -- Jackie Kay, author of RED DUST ROAD and former Makar of ScotlandYomi Sode writes with clarity, anger and love. Manorism reminds me of the paintings of Caravaggio. Empathy and chiaroscuro. More shadow than light. But that is the way of the world -- Andrew Graham-Dixon, author of CARAVAGGIO: A LIFE SACRED AND PROFANEVivid, beautiful and deeply moving. Yomi Sode is a gifted storyteller who pours everything into this sharp and brilliant exploration of Black British masculinity in all its complexity -- Rt Hon Diane Abbott MPSearing, shimmering, brilliant. As hard to swallow as it is to put down. -- Yrsa Daley-Ward, author of THE HOWA remarkable, textured education in what it means to be made up of different parts, of light and dark places, and of worlds that we know, and that we don't. Yomi Sode is a beautiful storyteller who pieces it all together -- Candice Carty-Williams, author of PEOPLE PERSONI don't think I've ever read such a heartbreaking collection as this angry but deeply vulnerable and tender portrait of Black masculinity. Manorism rages, yet plays with its urgent themes, mixing Yoruba with colloquial speech in a luscious mix of registers and references, from Caravaggio to Mr Marcus, inventing new ways to describe generational trauma and what it's like to endure racism. This debut is the living heart and soul of contemporary poetry -- Pascale Petit, author of TIGER GIRLIn his juxtapositions of paintings, black urban life and media, he makes us think of what poetry can be: that the book itself is the poem, and each topic a stanza in a bigger epiphany ... A must for all lovers of poetry and its power -- Roger Robinson, author of A PORTABLE PARADISEWhen I speak of justice and anger written with luminous genius, I will forever be speaking of Yomi Sode's Manorism, a glorious, furious collection that tells a thousand stories in stunningly crafted verse. A triumph that everyone should read -- Nikita Gill, author of GREAT GODDESSES and WILD EMBERSManorism is a stunning debut collection. Yomi Sode's poems examine the various lenses observing the black body in Britain, the implications of its passage between class, cultural and racial spaces. His words are indelible . . . rich with images that shake your core and a sharpness in its technicality. Manorism is a classic -- Caleb Femi, author of POORManorism is a work of sincerity that cuts deep. It's a work that is at once comprehensive and incredibly personal. Reading it I felt my heartbeat change pace, faster and slower. The book is about families, society, being Black in Britain, being a cousin, a nephew, a son and the hope for the future that being a father brings. Yomi is a griot, a voice in which we can hear the ancestors, a voice for now and a prophet of future possibilities -- Arike Oke, Executive Director of Knowledge and Collections, BFIThis is a such an important collection. Yomi Sode's debut articulates the most subtle nuances of Black British Masculinity with a breathtaking vulnerability. Truly, Manorism is something new - an interrogation of realities that have been too often ignored, through the lens of experiences that have been pushed into the margins . . . [It] bring[s] the full humanity of Blackness into the centre, through poetry that pushes at boundaries while inviting you in -- Jeffrey Boakye, author of I HEARD WHAT YOU SAID and BLACK, LISTEDManorism. A Black British Diasporic way of being. A sense of place. A posture . . . Yomi Sode interrogates this sociocultural phenomenon, looking at masculinity, intergenerational violence and historical legacy . . . This is a British continuation of the conversation Claudia Rankine started . . . These are necessary poems: poems as prayer songs, poems as testimony -- Malika Booker, author of PEPPER SEEDA brilliant ode to the mandem -- Femi OyeniranManorism is filled with poetry of a breath held, a fist clenched and held behind the back, the knockout beckoning always. An ambitious and adventurous debut, brimming with heart -- Nii Ayikwei Parkes, author of TAIL OF THE BLUE BIRDThe birth of a new poetic storyteller -- Nick Makoha, author of THE DARKYomi is not ramping. This is a rich, nuanced, emotional collection. I read about myself and my people, felt an affinity in the expression of experiences we share and felt feelings only we feel. Thank you for this, Yomi -- Jade LB, author of KEISHA THE SKETBoth sharp-eyed and rich with complex feeling, Manorism is an exquisite collection -- Nadia Owusu, author of AFTERSHOCKSPart-confession, part-conjuring and wholly unique, Yomi Sode's debut collection is unflinching. As he writes, "Our stories are open wounds." ?ode takes us on a visceral journey, spilling secrets nakedly, not allowing us to look away from the hard truth. And we're better for it -- Peter Kahn, author of LITTLE KINGSAn incredibly poignant and layered collection that masterfully graduates from the past, roots us in the present and speaks to the ages all at once. Manorism is a striking, visceral voyage between cultures, languages and histories in ode to the precious lives of Black boys and men -- Sofia AkelI think one day, Yomi Sode's Manorism will be required reading for a generation of young Black men. [This book is h]is widescreen and expansive examination of what it's like to navigate the complexities of British society as a Black man. From the moments of triumph to those of bleak loss, Sode brings poetic brilliance to the collection's entire range of subject matter -- Athian Akec, Youth MP for CamdenA breathtaking and tender exploration of Black boyhood, manhood, fatherhood and grief -- Aniefiok EkpoudomA work of formal experimentation, where lyric essays nestle against play-let structures, in service of a Claudia Rankine-esque determination to bear witness and find frameworks with which we can look at the world properly, fully ... Brilliant ... It's like fireworks going off ... Sode is unflinching and fearless ... Manorism's real gift to us as readers is, ultimately, Sode's deep and unfailing humanity. This is a book in which love can be found -- Rishi Dastidar * Poetry School Blog *Yomi Sode's Manorism has both its feet planted firmly on the ground - but as a collection, it spends much of its existence split between various opposing worlds of imagination: Black and white, past and present, peaceful and chaotic . . . It forces readers to question what violence we consider beautiful, which victims worthy of framing and hanging on a white wall? . . . Manorism cuts to the quick, openly daring readers to look at the blood spilled within its pages . . . [It] gleams like a whittled blade -- Ariana Benson * Magma Poetry *

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Book Synopsis'A tremendous ball of fire hurled into the dark recesses of our world' Ocean Vuong'Radical . . . invites the reader to become an agent in a joint act of recovery' Tracy K. Smith'Psychotropic, visionary songs of love and defiance' Ralf Webb'Deeply informed by love, and a tenderness for the ravages and tumult of existence' Eileen Myles'Queer . . . gorgeous . . . just stunning' Joelle TaylorA captivating, original call for creative freedom from one of the most singular poets of our time'this mechanistic world . . . has required me to FIND MY BODY to FIND MY PLANET in order to find my poetry'Since their inception in 2005, CAConrad's (soma)tic poems have acted as an urgent appeal for an embodied, unfettered creative practice. Rooted in the Sanskrit 'soma', meaning 'to press and be newly born', and the Greek-derived 'somatic', relating to the body, Conrad's (soma)tic poetry reaches out from electrifying, esoteric rituals. Their methods are elaborate, and the results are unexpected: one, for instance, might begin by seeing the poet flood their body with the field calls of extinct animals - and end not only in a consideration of survivor's guilt and the destruction of ecosystems, but also in an elated sense of the presence, close at hand, of the many friends and lovers they lost to AIDS.Conrad draws on these rituals to enter a political, physical and spiritual state of consciousness, meditating on ecology, queerness and grief in powerful, dreamlike poetry that invites us to engage with the essence of things. This new selection is a testimony to poetry's capacity to reconnect us with the present moment and put an end to the alienation we feel: from our bodies, our surroundings, our planet.Trade ReviewCAConrad's poems invite the reader to become an agent in a joint act of recovery, to step outside of passivity and propriety and to become susceptible to the illogical and the mysterious -- Tracy K. SmithIn what is now the classic CAConrad mode of both exuberance and defiance, this book, like much of Conrad's epical body of work, is a tremendous ball of fire hurled into the dark recesses of our worlds (minds?). Luminous, sobering, but not without a capacious kindness in its ethos, this latest is a vibrant achievement from one of America's most legendary living poets -- Ocean VuongConjured in the extreme present, this is a vital addition to the global poetry canon. Through a lifetime of devotion to craft, Conrad has achieved an inventive and astonishing collection: a haunting, a prayer, a connection. They show how the ancient technology of poetry is between all things, living and not. Queer and gorgeous, filled with grief and belonging, a body within a body. Just stunning. I am dumb-struck -- Joelle TaylorCAConrad always argues (from the inside of their poems) for a poetry of radical inclusivity while keeping a very queer shoulder to the wheel. Their kind of queerness strikes me as nonpolarizing, not intentionally but because of the fullness of their exposition, a kind of gigantism that seems to me to be most deeply informed by love, and a tenderness for the ravages and tumult of existence -- Eileen MylesThese are psychotropic, visionary songs of love and defiance. CA celebrates poetry as a connecting force, a spell-work which binds us to the earth, animals, stars, and one another -- Ralf WebbCAConrad's work is as tough and as vulnerable as our bodies, as intricate and blunt as a flattened copper penny or a lily of the valley or the nests we'd build if we were birds. There's a love poem here for Jim Brodey, who once talked about poems bursting apart with 'extreme gracious information'. Right? Gleaming like a mineral in the contemporary nightmare, that's what this book is made of: through and through -- Luke RobertsI've been a fan of CAConrad's work from the beginning. There is always a necessary and vital life force at work in this poetry. This is a wondrous and essential selection of their noble life project -- Peter GizziAt a time when I don't always know how to make sense of what's going on, CAConrad serves as a cleareyed seer -- Jillian Steinhauer

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Book Synopsis'Exquisite . . . readers will find themselves transformed by it' Claire Lynch'Stunning . . . dazzlingly laser-like and movingly original' Lara Feigel'Inventive and searching' Calvin Bedient'I am awestruck . . . a masterpiece' Mary GordonThe stunningly original exploration of pregnancy and childbirth by the acclaimed author of CitizenIn this, the landmark achievement that crowned the first phase of her writing career, Claudia Rankine invites us into the lives of Liv and her husband Erland, as they find themselves propelled into the classic plot: boy loves girl, girl gets pregnant. The couple's journey is charted through dreams, conversations and reflections, in a text like no other, deftly moulding language and crossing genres to arrive at new life: baby Ersatz.Plot is an inventive and engrossing meditation on pregnancy and the changes it heralds: the potential bodily cost, the loss of self, the sense of impending stasis. Each fear compounds Liv's reluctance to bring new life into a bewildering world. A profoundly daring collection, it explodes the emotive capabilities of language and form to achieve an unparalleled understanding of creation and existence.Trade ReviewExquisite . . . This collection is made from language to live on and in. It's the sort of book you read with your body as much as your mind. I'm quite sure readers will find themselves transformed by it -- Claire LynchIt's both stunning and utterly logical that before embarking on the landmark American Trilogy where she would tackle the largest themes of public life with such personal detail and vehemence, Claudia Rankine's writing was grounded in this dazzlingly laser-like and movingly original meditation on not so much motherhood or parenthood as pregnancy itself. Rankine slides from one form to another, and animates everyday domestic life with a grand sense of literary history and sensibility. It's as if this book is pregnant with her entire poetic project -- Lara FeigelPlot is inexhaustibly complex, varied, and difficult-and as fearlessly and even grimly inventive and searching as one can conceive any book of poems as being. It instantly joins the few contemporary works ... whose gravity is synonymous with the passion and integrity of their intelligence -- Calvin Bedient * Verse *To read her work is to be drawn deep into a thought's unfolding, into the eerie landscape of a dream; the dislocation one feels is tempered by the assurance of the writing, the deftness of Rankine's experiments with words and ideas * Indiana Review *I am awestruck. Quite simply, I have never read anything like Plot. Its stupendous intelligence . . . marks it as a masterpiece -- Mary Gordon, author of PAYBACKPlot moves as in a picaresque novel, in which the body schemes and frightens, accompanied by Claudia Rankine's instinct for poetic surprise -- Barbara Guest, author of THE RED GAZEA fiercely gifted poet . . . She knows when to bless and to curse . . . [and] makes you hopeful for American poetry -- Robert Hass, author of SUMMER SNOWA startling and eloquent exploration of states in, about, and around maternity . . . This is an unsettling poetry of the body wrestling itself in the making of thought -- Charles BernsteinSpiraling around the story of "Liv" and "Erland" and their future child, "Ersatz," this book-length poem embeds its loose "plot" in the sensations and anxieties of birth and child-rearing . . . striking . . . This book seems consciously aimed at the nexus of several different feminist avant-garde projects, from the nouveau roman of Monique Wittig to Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee * Publishers Weekly *[Claudia Rankine's] books trace their own sort of movement . . . In Plot, the crisis sharpens, revolving around life and birth-the narrative center is a woman reluctant to give birth to a child who is already growing inside her . . . surprising -- David L. Ulin * Paris Review *

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Book Synopsis'McLane is a Romantic poet out of time' Ange Mlinko'Passionate, erudite, sensuous . . . McLane probes the minutest currents of human feeling' Sarah Howe'My favourite living poet . . . [her work] bristles with life, feeling, argument' Parul SeghalThe witty, searching new collection by National Book Award finalist Maureen N. McLane, musing on the sea, ageing, love and the climate crisisIn her first book of poems since What I'm Looking For: Selected Poems 2005-2017, Maureen N. McLane offers a bravura collection of perceptive poetic meditations. What You Want is a book of landscapes, mindscapes, and shifting moods. Here are poems filled with gulls and harbours, blinking red lights and empty lobster traps, beach roses and rumoured sharks, eels and crows, wind turbines and superhighways. Sensitive, lyrical, alert to seasons and pressures on our shared life, McLane registers and gives form to an ambient unease. From Sappho to Constable, from constellations to microplastics, What You Want is a collection as alive to the cosmos as it is to our moment. This is McLane's cloudy-sky book: a voyage through lambent autumns and shining winters, in which an eye looks out on what it longs for, what it loves, and asks: will it survive the coming heat?

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Book SynopsisA highly anticipated edition of Zaqtan’s work from 2014 to 2020, all in English for the first time. Ghassan Zaqtan is not only one of the most significant Palestinian poets at work today, but one of the most important poets writing in Arabic. Since the publication of his first collection in 1980, Zaqtan’s presence as a poet has evolved with the same branching and cumulative complexity as his poems—an invisible system of roots insistently pushing through the impacted soil of political and national narratives.Strangers in Light Coats is the third collection of Zaqtan’s poetry to appear in English. It brings together poems written between 2014 and 2020 drawn from six volumes of poetry. Catching and holding the smallest particles of observation and experience in their gravity, the poems sprout and grow as though compelled, a trance of process in which fable, myth, and elegy take form only to fall apart and reconfigure, each line picked apart by the next and brought into the new body. Table of ContentsI Do Not Know the Way to AleppoThe Road to the LakesSpeak Stranger, SpeakWhen We Lost the WarGoing To Listen to My Father’s MiraclesDo Not Call to Me with Your Wide Eyes

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Book SynopsisAn experiment with the sonnet form by one of the foremost French poets of his generation. Yves Bonnefoy has wowed the literary world for decades with his diffuse volumes. First published in France in 2008, The Anchor’s Long Chain is an indispensable addition to his oeuvre. Enriching Bonnefoy’s earlier work, the volume, translated by Beverley Bie Brahic, also innovates, including an unprecedented sequence of nineteen sonnets. These sonnets combine the strictness of the form with the freedom to vary line length and create evocative fragments. Compressed, emotionally powerful, and allusive, the poems are also autobiographical—but only in glimpses. Throughout, Bonnefoy conjures up life’s eternal questions with each new poem. Longer, discursive pieces, including the title poem’s meditation on a prehistoric stone circle and a legend about a ship, are also part of this volume, as are a number of poetic prose pieces in which Bonnefoy, like several of his great French predecessors, excels. Long-time fans will find much to praise here, while newer readers will quickly find themselves under the spell of Bonnefoy’s powerful, discursive poetry. Trade Review“There is a folkloric feel to this writing. As if life is a fairytale. The tone is theistic, and there’s always a narrative within the surreal. Yes, all this is Bonnefoy. His prose pieces are sharp and clear while there are transgressions folding dreams within reality.” * Washington Independent Review of Books *Table of ContentsTranslator's Acknowledgements The Disorder The Anchor's Long Chain (Ales Stenar) America Child's Play Child's Play The Long Name The Trees Mouth Agape The Painter Whose Name is the Snow The Divine Names Passerby, Do You Want To Know? Almost Nineteen Sonnets Tomb of L.-B. Alberti Tomb of Charles Baudelaire 'Facesti come quei che va di notte...' The Mocking of Ceres The Tree on Rue Descartes The Invention of the Flute with Seven Pipes Tomb of Giacomo Leopardi Mahler, the Song of the Earth Tomb of Stéphane Mallarmé To the Author of 'The Night' San Giorgio Maggiore On Three Paintings by Poussin Ulysses Sails Past Ithaca San Biagio, at Montepulciano A God A Poet A Stone Tomb of Paul Verlaine One of Wordsworth's Childhood Memories Remarks on the Horizon On Leaving the Garden: A Variation Another Variation

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Book SynopsisWHAT IS ALL THAT RABBLE? What are they rabbiting on about? Disturbing my nap. My parents started reading to me before I was even born. I first entered a poetry competition at the age of 5, and 7 years later... My Life behind the Pen has just begun, A life that started with a wonderful dream. The sun is here, the moon is on the run. I'm 5, po'try fills my head, as it seems. Pictures become words, and words turn to rhymes, Various poems inside can be read, Anywhere, any which way; the good times! There is no right or wrong it can be said. Collection of pieces, written for you, This is my book; I really hope you like. Read and learn poetry then you can do and write, it's easy as riding a bike! The power of poetry - this is it. You may have noticed, you've read a sonnet.

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Book SynopsisJohn chose the title-poem for its simple, believable story. The rest accrued in the usual way. He found those now grouped in City of Flowers particularly moving to write. John’s visits to Italy, and the many Italian stories he heard in Florence, influenced him permanently.

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Book SynopsisA powerful collection of new and recently completed poems by Ben Okri covering topics of the day, such as the refugee crisis, racism, Obama, the Grenfell Tower fire, and the Corona outbreak. In our times of crisis The mind has its powers This book brings together many of Ben Okri's most acclaimed and politically charged poems. Some of them, like 'Grenfell Tower, June 2017', are already familiar. Published in the Financial Times less than ten days after the fire, it was played more than 6 million times on Channel 4's Facebook page, and was retweeted by thousands on Twitter. 'Notre-Dame is Telling Us Something' was first read on BBC Radio 4, in the aftermath of the cathedral's near destruction. It spoke eloquently of the despair that was felt around the world. In 'shaved head poem', Ben Okri wrote of the confusion and anxiety felt as the world grappled with a health crisis unprecedented in our times. 'Breathing the Light' was his response to the events of summer 2020, when a black man died beneath the knee of a white policeman, a tragedy sparking a movement for change. These poems, and others including poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa, Barack Obama, Amnesty and more, make this a uniquely powerful collection that blends anger and tenderness with Ben Okri's inimitable vision.Trade ReviewPRAISE FOR BEN OKRI: 'Ben Okri is that rare thing, a literary and social visionary, a writer for whom all three – literature, culture and vision – are profoundly interwoven' Ali Smith. 'Where fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace and uncommon power' -- Marlon James on The Freedom Artist

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Book Synopsis'A soothing collection to comfort and inspire in those quieter moments of reflection and searching' Cecelia AhernEvery Day is a Fresh Beginning: Meaningful Poems for Life is a stunning collection of poetry chosen by Aoibhín Garrihy to uplift and inspire, delight and comfort. These powerful verses will guide you through the stresses of modern life, touching on themes such as friendship, love, home, parenting, and grief. With lines of classic and contemporary wisdom taken from a wide range of poets including Emily Bronte, W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Anne Casey and Jan Brierton, this anthology will bring joy to every reader.'It's mind-blowing how ordinary words in the hands of poets can create such powerful magic. As a lover of language Aoibhín has gathered the most beautiful collection of poetry. Now I just need her to read it to me every night!' Kathryn ThomasTrade Review'It's mind-blowing how ordinary words in the hands of poets can create such powerful magic. As a lover of language Aoibhín has gathered the most beautiful collection of poetry. Now I just need her to read it to me every night!' -- Kathryn Thomas'A soothing collection to comfort and inspire in those quieter moments of reflection and searching' -- Cecelia Ahern

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Book SynopsisWell-known as a stand up comic and folk musician, Mike Harding is now equally known for his rich and varied poetry.Music, place, landscape, politics, memories and stories have always been Mike Harding’s creative touchstones, never more so than in ‘The Lonely Zoroastrian’, his first collection since the 2020 pandemic and lockdown, both of which feature in some of the earlier poems in this book.Storytelling is the essence of his work whether telling the true story of a lost city buried under the ice cap, the curse an old Ukrainian woman laid on a group of Russian soldiers or stories from his beloved Connemara like Islandman and St Luke’s Little Summer.From his ‘little shed of words’ here is Mike Harding ‘singing about the dark times’.

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Book SynopsisDidn’t Cleopatra look like Elizabeth Taylor? Didn’t Shakespeare look like Shakespeare? Doesn’t Mazzini deserve to have a biscuit named after him? Did Napoleon pass his French exam? Did Nelson really see no ships? Van Gogh…or Van Gogh? And can you spot Hitch’s cameo appearance this time? Potted Portraits is an enjoyable saunter through a portrait gallery of varied personalities from History; revered or reviled, loved or loathed, each led a remarkable life that continues to be of interest today. In a series of light verse biographies which delight in testing the limits of tolerance with their rhymes, puns and general linguistic convolutions, discover a few new things about some familiar characters; or reacquaint yourself with some familiar stories in a new way. Included are some perhaps rather less well-known figures, though no less deserving of attention and rewarding to read about. If you want a little light didacticism, with the reasonable chance of a smile – even a laugh – this is the book for you!

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Book SynopsisIn Emily Bilman’s The Undertow, the reader is taken on an infinite voyage through memories of love and loss. Gustave Flaubert wrote: Only three things are infinite. The sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears. To be caught up in the under-currents of the sea is to be driven deeper than one might feel comfortable and to risk going beyond what the conscious mind can bear and control. We are told that life first began in the sea and perhaps we are involved in its darkness shot through with sudden gleams of light like the glow of precious pearls. Emily Bilman has found that the sonnet form has the power to distil the deepest human experiences. Many of the poems in this book are sonnets alternating between the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean traditions. The small box of the sonnet becomes a stage in which the inner conflicts arising out of life and love are dramatised and resolved. To read The Undertow is to undertake an exhilarating poetic voyage and discover the poet’s quest for light.

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Book SynopsisThe ‘country house poem’ was born in the seventeenth century as a fruitful way of flattering potential patrons. But the genre’s popularity faded – ironically, just as ‘country house society’ was emerging. It was only when the power and influence of the landed classes had all but ebbed away that poets returned to the theme, attracted perhaps by the buildings’ irresistible dereliction, but equally by their often very personal histories. This is the first complete anthology of modern country house poems, and it shows just how far (as Simon Jenkins points out in his Foreword) poems can ‘penetrate the souls of buildings’. Over 160 distinguished poets representing a diversity of class, race, gender, and generation offer fascinating perspectives on stately exteriors and interiors, gardens both wild and cultivated, crumbling ruins and the extraordinary secrets they hide. There are voices of all kinds, whether it’s Edith Sitwell recreating her childhood, W. B. Yeats and Wendy Cope pondering Lissadell, or Simon Armitage’s labourer confronting the Lady who’s ‘got the lot’. We hear from noble landowners and loyal (or rebellious) servants, and from many an inquisitive day-tripper. The book’s dominant note is elegiac, yet comedy, satire, even strains of Gothic can be heard among these potent reflections. Hollow Palaces reminds us how poets can often be the most perceptive of guides to radical changes in society. The book is illustrated by Rosie Greening.

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Book SynopsisEbook available to libraries exclusively as part of the JSTOR Path to Open initiative. The years following the Second World War saw an exponential increase in the translation of contemporary foreign poetry in Italy. The practice was at its most prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s, when publishing houses across the board almost doubled the number of foreign poetry titles in their catalogues. This remarkable phenomenon, however, has received scant critical attention, which has been limited to an aesthetic perspective. Publishing Contemporary Foreign Poetry: Transnational Exchange in the Italian Publishing Field, 1939–1977 is one of the first studies to examine the sociological significance of publishing poetry translations. Drawing on untapped archival materials, it investigates from an interdisciplinary perspective the processes and products of poetry translation, and how they impacted on publishing, cultural, literary, and political dynamics in Italy. It explores the internal reconfiguration of Italian culture, and how Italy sought to position itself in the world, without neglecting the contradictions of national and transnational cultural networks and movements. The book argues that translation was a means to modify power relationships in the field of poetry publishing and the contemporary literary arena; this ultimately changed the map of Italian cultural production and its transnational networks, thus anticipating the further developments provoked by globalisation in the 1980s.Trade Review"An insightful analysis of the way that the translation of foreign poetry helped shape the Italian publishing industry and its power dynamics – enormously well-researched and highly readable."Liz Wren-Owens, Cardiff UniversityTable of ContentsINTRODUCTIONPublishing and Poetry Translation: A Methodological IntroductionCHAPTER 1Publishing, culture, and poetry: a field investigationCHAPTER 2Editors, Habitus and Translation: publishing strategies in poetry translationCHAPTER 3Contemporary foreign poetry anthologies for new cultural and publishing horizonsCHAPTER 4Towards Globalisation, by a way of conclusionAppendix 1Appendix 2Works Cited

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Book SynopsisSergio Raimondi’s work engages in the most complex issues of his time, including globalisation, colonialism, industrialisation and environmental degradation. Yet all his concerns are rigorously analysed through the medium of the poet’s art, steeped in literary tradition and craft. He is widely considered Argentina’s most important and influential contemporary poet, with an international reputation. Many of Raimondi’s poems address what might seem unlikely subjects for poetry: industrial practices, global trade, or labour legislation. Yet among the allusions, the immense research, the unsparing gaze, and the expert skill of the language there’s also room for desert-dry humour, touches of self-deprecation and immense empathy for individuals caught up in seemingly implacable historical processes. This volume includes a generous selection of his poems from Poesía civil (Civil Poetry) and Lexikón (Lexikon) in bilingual Spanish-English facing-pages format. A substantial introduction by the translators places Raimondi’s work in its literary and wider cultural context, and reflects on the challenges faced when bringing his unique poetry into English.Table of ContentsIntroductionSelected PoemsGlossary

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