Poetry / poems by individual poets

Book SynopsisFrom early, rhyming works in Love Poems and Others (1913) to the ground-breaking exploration of free verse in Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923) the poems of D. H. Lawrence challenged convention and inspired later poets.This volume includes extensive selections from these and other editions, and contains some his most famous poems, such as ''Piano'', a nostalgic reflection on lost youth and love for his mother; ''Snake'', exploring human fear of the natural world; the short, cutting comment on sexual politics of ''Can''t Be Borne''; and the quiet philosophical resignation of ''Basta!''. Using the revised poems, but in the order in which they appeared in their original collections, this selection offers a fresh perspective that reveals an innovative poet who gave voice to his most intense emotions.

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2015WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR POETRY 2015WINNER OF THE PEN OPEN BOOK AWARD 2015WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR POETRY 2015''Everywhere were flashes, a siren sounding and a stretched-out roar. Get on the ground. Get on the ground now. Then I just knew.''And you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description.''In this moving, critical and fiercely intelligent collection of prose poems, Claudia Rankine examines the experience of race and racism in Western society through sharp vignettes of everyday discrimination and prejudice, and longer meditations on the violence - whether linguistic or physical - which has impacted the lives of Serena Williams, Zinedine Zidane, Mark Duggan and others.Citizen weaves essays, images and poetry together to form a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in an ostensibly ''post-race'' society.Trade ReviewWonderfully capacious and innovative. In her riffs on the demotic, in her layering of incident, Rankine finds a new way of writing about race in America -- Nick Laird * New York Review of Books *Citizen feels raw ... this documentary-style look at America has catapulted Rankine into the spotlight ... She speaks to the vastly different ways racism and injustice are perpetuated across class lines in America today -- Smitha Khorana * Guardian *Rankine brilliantly pushes poetry's forms ... one is left with a mix of emotions that linger and wend themselves into the subconscious -- Holly Bass * The New York Times *What does it mean to be a black citizen in the US of the early twenty-first century? Claudia Rankine's brilliant, terse and parabolic prose poems have a shock value rarely found in poetry. These tales of everyday life - whether the narrator's or the lives of young black men like Trayvon Martin and James Craig Anderson - dwell on the most normal exteriors and the most ordinary of daily situations so as to expose what is really there: a racism so guarded and carefully masked as to make it all the more insidious ... Citizen is an unforgettable book -- Marjorie PerloffAn especially vital book for this moment in time ... The realization at the end of this book sits heavily upon the heart: "This is how you are a citizen," Rankine writes. "Come on. Let it go. Move on." As Rankine's brilliant, disabusing work, always aware of its ironies, reminds us, "moving on" is not synonymous with "leaving behind" -- Dan Chiasson * New Yorker *

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Book Synopsis'The patron saint of poetry' Carol Ann Duffy For sixty years, Roger McGough has thrilled and delighted generations of readers with his irreverent, intimate and ever-original poetry. The Collected Poems presents the definitive selection of his very best work, from the Mersey-soaked sound of his quintessential Sixties start, through to tender meditations on fatherhood and family, and on to political sendups, pandemic playfulness and brilliant new writing. Here, then, is an unmatched store of warmth, wisdom and feeling from Britain's most beloved poet. 'McGough has done for poetry what champagne does for weddings' Time Out

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Book Synopsis''The Calder valley, west of Halifax, was the last ditch of Elmet, the last British Celtic kingdom to fall to the Angles. For centuries it was considered a more or less uninhabitable wilderness, a notorious refuge for criminals, a hide-out for refugees. Then in the early 1800s it became the cradle for the Industrial Revolution in textiles, and the upper Calder became the hardest-worked river in England. Throughout my lifetime, since 1930, I have watched the mills of the region and their attendant chapels die. Within the last fifteen years the end has come. They are now virtually dead, and the population of the valley and the hillsides, so rooted for so long, is changing rapidly.'' Ted Hughes, Preface to Remains of Elmet (1979)Ted Hughes''s remarkable ''pennine sequence'' celebrates the area where he spent his early childhood. It mixes social, political, religious and historical matter - a tapestry rich in the personal and poetic investment of a landscape that both cre

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Book SynopsisDiscover the joy of expressing what's inside you, with fill-in-the-blank poems that are sparking a creative movement.We all have stories inside us, whether or not we consider ourselves creative'. And with these 50 simple fill-in-the-blank poems, anyone can write poetry, whatever age or ability. By adding just a few words of your own, you create something beautiful and wholly new that comes from within.Discover the magic of putting your feelings into words and be inspired by sample poems submitted by people of all ages and walks of life. Exploring themes like friendship, love, grief, gratitude, and hope, these inclusive, accessible, and deceptively simple poems express powerful emotional truths, written by you.Discover the joy of expressing what's inside you, with fill-in-the-blank poems that are sparking a creative movement

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Book Synopsis*Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize 2018**Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award 2018*'A brilliant debut - a tender, nostalgic and, at times, darkly hilarious exploration of black boyhood, masculinity and grief. A gorgeous and necessary collection from one of my favourite writers' Warsan ShireTranslating as 'initiation', kumukanda is the name given to the rites a young boy from the Luvale tribe must pass through before he is considered a man. The poems of Kayo Chingonyi's remarkable debut explore this passage: between two worlds, ancestral and contemporary; between the living and the dead; between the gulf of who he is and how he is perceived.Underpinned by a love of music, language and literature, here is a powerful exploration of race, identity and masculinity, celebrating what it means to be British and not British, all at once.*Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Prize; Seamus Heaney Centre First Poetry Collection Prize; Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry; Roehampton Poetry Prize; Jhalak Prize 2018*Trade ReviewA brilliant debut – a tender, nostalgic and, at times, darkly hilarious exploration of black boyhood, masculinity and grief. A gorgeous and necessary collection from one of my favourite writers -- Warsan ShireA remarkable year for first collections. The best, for this reader, was Kayo Chingonyi’s Kumukanda… Whether recalling his parents’ deaths or celebrating the art of the mixtape, Chingonyi’s poise is astonishing -- Tristram Fane Saunders * Daily Telegraph *His poems are intelligent and moving and find the perfect balance between intricacy and directness -- Joe Dunthorne * The Observer *Chingonyi thrillingly integrates…rhythms and rhymes with more conventional poetic metrics…with a rare energy, intelligence and sophistication -- Nicholas Wroe * Guardian *[A] wonderful debut… A subtle and affecting, lyrical and powerful collection that explores boyhood, rites of passage, the ancient and the modern world -- Jackie Kay * Observer *The book emerges as being about memory and identity in the best and broadest sense… Chingonyi’s poetic voice and style are both highly entertaining and adaptable mixing form with free verse and jargon with slang… But for all its lyrical elegance and at times mannered diction, this is angry and defiant writing, determined to “master the language”, as “The Cricket Test” has it, of privileged white male canonical literature as if to prove a point… Chingonyi goes one better, using his lyric panache to honour pop references and cultural experiences of personal and communal significance while also turning the tables, casting a wry and intelligent eye on our wider attitudes… These terse, memorable poems are testament to the best of Chingonyi’s gifts. Impassioned, witty, socially and politically engaged…the poems turn irony to impressive effect in dissecting our dubious “post-race moment”… Kumukanda is an authentic and convincing book of poems in its many nuanced portrayals and unflinching reflections; rarely is it content to gloss or deceive… Kumukanda is an intricate and intense collection, heady with feeling but guided by thoughtful reflection -- Ben Wilkinson * Guardian *Navigating the experience of growing up with music, flair and a jaw-dropping formal range, this collection is a thing of beauty -- Maria Crawford * Financial Times *Full of nostalgia and gentleness as well as being sharply observant * Stylist *Chingonyi’s poems are full of questions that need asking. His gift is for pushing poems further than you expected them to go. [A] striking quest of a debut -- Poetry Book of the Month, Kate Kellaway * Observer *Powerful… These poems are essential and urgent and shine a light on British culture in an unique and spellbinding way * Elle, ‘10 'Woke' Works Of Literature You Need To Add To Your Reading List This Year’ *Kumakanda is an essential collection from one of the UK's most exciting poets. Kayo's poetry is beautiful, thoughtful, musical and nostalgic -- Nikesh ShuklaA wonderful debut: music, race, deracination, love and death are all woven into a compelling portrait of a young man growing up, rendered in poems that are elegant yet conversational, fluent yet profoundly skillful, touched with heart-stopping lyricism. For the reader, an initiation not to be missed -- Henry ShukmanWhen James Baldwin described the writer's goal as stringing together sentences that were as clean as a bone, he wasn't to know that poet Kayo Chingonyi's debut collection Kumukanda would achieve exactly that -- Rianna Jade Parker * Vice UK *The title poem Kumukanda is elegant, eloquent and moving... For all the particularity of his subject matters and his openness in exploring them, it’s the fine and sophisticated writing that makes me return to these poems -- Jane Routh * Magma Poetry *Exceedingly powerful; by turns furious, tender and bittersweet, taking as it does the overall theme of in-betweens. Ancestry versus contemporary rites of passage. The ambiguous versus the undeniable. Who you are, and who you choose to be seen as, versus who others perceive you to be -- Clare Mulley * Skinny *

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Book SynopsisIn this exquisite, thoughtful and thought-provoking collection, Jenny Hamlett takes us into an interior world that is too often invisible and misunderstood. Deeply grounded in the natural world, communicated with linguistic dexterity and in images that are fresh and precise, Sorry, I forgot to pack my ears moves across registers, moving between moments of justified anger, bewilderment and humour, to create lasting impact. A mature, brave and insightful collection.

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Book SynopsisThe undisputed pioneer of the horror, detective and science-fiction genres, Edgar Allan Poe was an accomplished poet as well as a celebrated writer of short stories. The present edition contains all of his works in verse, from the major poems of his maturity – such as his famous ballads ‘The Raven’ and ‘Lenore’ – to those he published in his youth and those that were collected immediately after his premature death in 1849. Also included in this volume is a selection of Poe’s essays on poetical composition and prosody, revealing that poetry was at the core of the American master’s vision of literature – something also demonstrated by the significant and enduring body of work he left behind in this field.

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Book SynopsisThe classic poem, Goblin Market (1862) by Christina Rossetti, tells the story of Lizzie and Laura, who are tempted by the fruit sold by the goblin merchants. In this fully illustrated and beautiful volume, illustrator Georgie McAusland brings the words and story to life. SHORTLISTED in the V&A Illustration Awards and the World Illustration Awards. Breathing new life into the Victorian tradition of illustrated poems, this book reads like a picture story book. The stunning illustrations illuminate and drive the narrative forward as in all good story books. It tells the tale of the two sisters drifting apart as Laura succumbs to the forbidden fruit sold by the goblins, but the bonds of sisterhood prove strong. The poem has fascinated for generations and been the subject of various interpretations. This illustrated version brings the words and story alive for a new generation. Christina Rossetti is considered the foremost female poet of her time, and her poetry still resonates with women's lives today, as she entwines themes of sexuality, sisterhood, love and temptation in her work. All of these themes are encapsulated in Goblin Market. The book includes an introduction to the poem by novelist Kirsty Gunn, so all readers – for pleasure or study – can understand its riches. Trade Review‘[A] uniquely different … illustrated interpretation’ * Pre-Raphaelite Society Review *‘This new edition has bold, simple but moving illustrations by Georgie McAusland. If you don’t know Goblin Market, it’s a must-read.‘ * Fortean Times *

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Book SynopsisThis Thing of Blood & Love, Lesley Saunders’ fifth collection with Two Rivers Press, is an intense examination of human culpability, the secrets we half-keep from ourselves, the contradictory selves we inhabit, the histories that live on unreconciled in us, the planet whose imperfect stewards we are; and above all the unfathomable mystery of being (in) a body, incarnated, made flesh – a thing of blood and love that betrays us with its appalling vulnerabilities. The poems in this book display the celebratory delight in language which has continued to impress readers and reviewers of Saunders’ work, though here imbued with a disturbed and disturbing awareness of mortality – the ultimate vulnerability from which in the end we derive our deepest sense of self.Trade ReviewLesley Saunders’ poetry in ‘This Thing of Blood & Love’ operates in a space somewhere between science and mystery, carnality and spirit. In its enigmatic scenes it is sometimes reminiscent of unsettling, dreamlike painting – yet this is not painting, but poetry, linguistically rich, made of language at once sensuous and subtle. It is highly aware of the human body, of the materiality of flesh, and equally of the psyche. It is poetry with a sophisticated, up to the minute quality, knowledgeable about our lifestyles and technologies, and alive to modern sciences of the mind. Saunders is a serious poet with a light touch, who marvels at the constitution of human physical being and the labyrinthine ways of consciousness. She is alert to the apocalypse we have invited to destroy our fragile world. She skates on thin ice, stylishly, gracefully, aware of the risks. Her enigmatic work does not lend itself to summary. It can only be entered by a reader prepared to share an exhilarating dance on the ice. — Jeremy Hooker

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Book SynopsisThis chapbook by Ro Mehrooz is the first time that the work of a single Rohingyan poet has appeared in print in a bilingual edition. The Rohingya people continue to experience genocide at the hands of the Myanmar military, so it is not surprising that Ro's poems are full of anger, anguish and despair, although there are moments of light as he reflects upon the traditions and customs of his people. James Byrne's informative introduction, together with Ro's deeply-affecting poems, paint a stark and unforgettable picture of this war-torn, torture-ravaged and largely forgotten area of Myanmar.

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Book SynopsisBleak but wonderful ... familiar, and of course funny. Alan BennettDark, funny and twisted, but surprisingly tender. A.L. KennedyCouples is a blackly comic sequence of poems that explore the nature of co-dependency of two people who want to be together, but at the same time cannot help but push each other away. The layout of the book is itself a commentary on the phenomenon the poems are placed in their own couples', pairs that face each other across the page. Sometimes they exchange a glance, sometimes they stand side-by-side, staring out into the abyss; only when the book is closed, and they are in darkness, do they truly come together. Originally published on Valentine's Day 2013, the seven-year itch has brought Michael Stewart back to his old flame for a new edition in 2020; reworking the original poems, and adding a dozen more. The result is an unnervingly perceptive volume, to be shared with your other half' at your own risk you may never look at a couple, or each other, the same way again.

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Book SynopsisAngela France’s Terminarchy eloquently considers the troubling terms of existence in an age of climate catastrophe and technological change. How do we negotiate a world where capitalism and greed threaten a fragile earth, where technology seems to promise us connection but might also fuel isolation? Where even finding solace in nature reminds us that the seasons can no longer be trusted? Reframing ecopoetics in her own instinctive, radical, lyrical form. France considers whether, rather than collison-course, there might be a better way to coexist. Where extinction threatens, these wry, alert poems and their earthy voices try to find a way through and look for hope."Angela France travels the living world of our fellow creatures with much empathy, considering the survivals, (for now) and the irrevocable losses. Though the theme is mortal and full of danger, the poems sing, they inhabit delight amid the sorrow. Observational, meditative, earthy, riverine, full of foundational energy; this is a key collection, an essential poetics of gravity and grace." - Penelope Shuttle

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Book SynopsisPoems deal with writing, death and immortality, literature, city life, illness, war, and the past.

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Book SynopsisOne of the great English Romantic poets, William Blake (1757-1827) was an artist, poet, mystic and visionary. His work ranges from the deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innocence and their counterpoint Experience - which juxtapose poems such as ''The Lamb'' and ''The Tyger'', and ''The Blossom'' and ''The Sick Rose'' - to highly elaborate, apocalyptic works, such as The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem. Throughout his life Blake drew on a rich heritage of philosophy, religion and myth, to create a poetic worlds illuminated by his spiritual and revolutionary beliefs that have fascinated, intrigued and enchanted readers for generations.Table of ContentsThe Complete PoemsPrefaceTable of DatesFurther ReadingThe PoemsPoetical SketchesMiscellaneous PoemsKing Edward the ThirdDramatic FragmentsPoems Written in a Copy of Poetical SketchesSongs from "An Island in the Moon"There is No Natural Religion [a, b]All Religions Are OneThe Book of ThelTirielSongs of Innocence and of ExperienceSongs of InnocenceSongs of ExperienceNotebook Poems and Fragments, c. 1789-93The French RevolutionThe Marriage of Heaven and HellA Song of LibertyVisions of the Daughters of AlbionAmericaEuropeThe Song of LosAfricaAsiaThe Book of UrizenThe Book of AhaniaThe Book of LosVala, or The Four ZoasNotes Written on the Pages of The Four ZoasAdditional FragmentsThree Poems, ?c. 1800Poems from LettersNotebook Poems, c. 1800-1806Poems from the Pickering ManuscriptMiltonDedication to Blake's Illustrations to Blair's GraveNotebook Epigrams and Satiric Verses, c. 1808-12Miscellaneous Verses and EpigramsVerse from the Marginalia to Reynolds's DiscoursesVerse from the Advertisement to Blake's Exhibition of Paintings, 1809Epigrams from A Descriptive CatalogueEpigrams from "Public Address"JerusalemThe Everlasting GospelFor the Sexes: The Gates of ParadiseThe Ghost of AbelNotesDictionary of Proper NamesNote to the IndexesIndex of TitlesIndex of First Lines

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Book SynopsisFrom one of the most lauded artists of his generation comes a purging soliloquy: a profound nowt delivered in some spent afterwards. Scorched by senility and nostalgia, and wracked by all kinds of hunger, Ed Atkins’ Old Food lurches from allegory to listicle, from lyric to menu, fetching up a plummeting, idiomatic and crabbed tableau from the cannibalised remains of each form in turn. Written in conjunction with Atkins’ exhibition of the same name, Old Food is a hard Brexit, wadded with historicity, melancholy and a bravura kind of stupidity. Ed Atkins is an artist who makes all kinds of convolutions of self-portraiture. He writes uncomfortably intimate, debunked prophesies; paints travesties; and makes realistic computer generated videos that often feature figures that resemble the artist in the throes of unaccountable psychical crises. Atkins’ artificial realism, whether written or animated, pastiches romanticism to get rendered down to a sentimental blubber – all the better to model those bleak feelings often so inexpressible in real life.Trade Review‘Violent, emetic, immoderate, improper, impure – that’s to say it’s the real thing. Atkins’s prose, which may not be prose, adheres to Aragon’s maxim “Don't think – write.”’ — Jonathan Meades‘Atkins, reflecting on the absence of humans in the exhibition, here favours the visceral impact of associated images and words, pumping the poetry-prose with lines that speak of our primeval instincts, needs and desires, in order to “seek empathic commons”.’ — ArtReview‘Ed Atkins is the artist of ugly feelings – gruesome and smeared and depleted. But everything he does in his videos or paintings, I’ve always thought, he really does as a writer. He uses language as a system where everything gets reprocessed and misshapen – a unique and constant mislaying of tone that’s as dizzying as it’s exhilarating.’ — Adam Thirlwell, author of Lurid & Cute ‘The universe is a rabble of contagion and miasma. The universe is a rabble of spheres, moved by mystical forces. Ed Atkins pokes this condition. He strokes and bursts it. He is the barber who doubles as doctor and a dentist, quick with his knife and flushes of blood. No page of Old Food is dry, it seeps with life, it breathes, bleeds, engorges, sticks you together with spit. Like bacterial cells on an errant loaf, Old Food is language in growth. ’ — Helen Marten, 2016 Turner Prize winner

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Book SynopsisA new selection of Paul Durcan's finest poems, published in celebration of his 80th birthday'He has written immortal poems. I revere him' Michael LongleyFor fifty years the poet Paul Durcan has explored and questioned a world both real and imagined. Steeped in the goings-on of Ireland and preoccupied with its concerns, he has delighted, enriched and unsettled his readers. His prodigious output of more than twenty collections bursts with poems that are courageously personal and passionately spiritual a body of work that contains multitudes. The great enemy of art is the ego' says Durcan. It keeps getting in the way. One needs the ego to disappear so that I become you; I become the people walking up and down the street.'First published in 1967, Durcan remains the most of companionable of poets. His vivacity and ability to surprise has never been clearer than in this new selection of eighty of his finest poems, published in celebration of his 80th birthday. EDITED BY NIALL MACMONAGLEWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY COLM TOIBIN

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Book SynopsisWendy Cope''s first book of poems and parodies, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, went straight into the bestseller lists. Its successor, Serious Concerns has proved even more popular, addressing such topics as ''Bloody Men'', ''Men and Their Boring Arguments'', ''Two Cures for Love'', ''Kindness to Animals'' and ''Tumps'' (Typically Useless Male Poets).

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Book SynopsisDuring his short and restless life, Percy Bysshe Shelley produced a great number of poems, three verse plays and numerous prose works, as well as many essays in which he propounded his philosophical views and radical political ideas. These, together with his highly unconventional itinerant life and his literary connections, make him one of the most important and intriguing figures in British Romanticism. This volume provides a generous selection of his poetry, from the sonnet ‘Ozymandias’ to famous lyrics such as ‘Ode to the West Wind’ and ‘Lines Written among the Euganean Hills’, to the longer poems of his maturity, Adonais and Epipsychidion, all thoroughly annotated and presented in chronological order.

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Book Synopsis**WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2019****WINNER OF THE ROEHAMPTON PRIZE FOR BEST POETRY COLLECTION 2019**Violence hangs over this book like an electric storm. Beginning with a poem about the teenage dawning of sexuality, Vertigo & Ghost pitches quickly into a long sequence of graphic, stunning pieces about Zeus as a serial rapist, for whom woman are prey and sex is weaponised. These are frank, brilliant, devastating poems of vulnerability and rage, and as Zeus is confronted with aggressions both personal and historical, his house comes crumbling down. A disturbing contemporary world is exposed, in which violent acts against women continue to be perpetrated on a daily – hourly – basis. The book shifts, in its second half, to an intimate and lyrical document of depression and family life. It sounds out the complex and ambivalent terrain of early motherhood – its anxieties and claustrophobias as well as its gifts of tenderness and love – reclaiming the sanctuary of domestic private life, and the right to raise children in peace and safety. Vertigo & Ghost is an important, necessary book, hugely impressive in its range and risk, and dramatic in its currency: a collection that speaks out with clarity, grace and bravery against the abuse of power.**SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE****SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 T. S. ELIOT PRIZE** ‘Misogynistic violence, ancient myth and modern rage confront each other in moving and dynamic verse’ Financial TimesTrade ReviewVertigo & Ghost explodes into furious life with a series of poems and fragments about the Greek god Zeus... jagged, staccato poems that shoot down the pages like lightning bolts... an addictive, thrilling, sickening experience. * Guardian *Vertigo & Ghost knocked the breath from me. Such furious, fierce, ecstatic poems, at once brutal and heartachingly tender; I lay awake at night unable to stop thinking about them. Mothers and children, girls and women, their vulnerabilities and sorrows, fears amidst grave danger, their beautiful animal selves. Against a frightening darkness, these "sore jewels" radiate wild white-heat.This extraordinarily moving collection is a bold confrontation of violence against women. Vertigo & Ghost is one of the darkest, bravest and most unsettling collections I have read in a while. * Observer *An exceptional achievement. -- Paul Bailey * Literary Review *[A] tour-de-force... [Vertigo & Ghost] has generated a lot of (justified) buzz... poems of lasting power. * Telegraph *Poetry Book of the Month* *

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Book SynopsisOne of the major twentieth-century European poets, Paul Celan wrote poetry of exceptional linguistic brilliance and intensity drawn from his experiences, particularly of the war years and the loss of his parents in the death camps. In his verse he sought to express ''not only what the experience felt like, but also a sense of living, with comprehension, inside the experience''. WINNER OF THE FIRST EUROPEAN TRANSLATION PRIZE

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Book SynopsisSelected Poems brings together some two hundred poems - the largest collection of Borges'' poetry ever assembled in English, including many never previously translated. The brilliance of the Spanish originals is matched with luminous English versions rendered by a remarkable cast of translators, among them W.S. Merwin, John Updike, Robert Fitzgerald, Mark Strand and Alastair Reid.

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Book SynopsisThe selected poems and prose writings of Edward Thomas, with a Foreword from Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways''I have come to the borders of sleep, The unfathomable deepForest where all must loseTheir way, however straight,Or winding, soon or late;They cannot choose.''Fired by his abiding love of the English landscape, the poetry of Edward Thomas is some of the most astonishing of the twentieth century. A journalist, essayist and critic for many years, he was encouraged to write verse by his friend Robert Frost. He produced a late outburst of poetry of extraordinary beauty and mystery about the subjects closest to his heart: rural England and its inhabitants, landscape, atmosphere, transience, endurance and death. By 1917, when he was killed on the Western Front, he had earned his place as one of England''s most valued poets. This selection brings together his finest verse with his most vivid prose writTrade ReviewThe father of us all -- Ted Hughes

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Book Synopsis''The work of a genuine original ... surreal ... funny ... subversive'' Sunday TimesWhat if a deer did porn? Is it legal to marry a stuffed owl exhibit? And what would Walt Whitman''s tit-pics really look like?Free-wheeling and surreal yet deadly serious, and including the viral hit ''Rape Joke'' (''An oblique mini-masterpiece'' - Guardian), this book shows one of our most original poets at her virtuosic best.''Lockwood has written a book at once angrier, and more fun, more attuned to our times and more bizarre, than most poetry can ever get'' Stephen Burt, The New York Times Book Review, Books of the Year''Lockwood should enter the canon forever . . . her lines left me crying on the subway'' Kat Stoeffel, The Cut''The little hairs on my back rose often while reading Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals . . . That''s biological praise, the most fundamental kind, impossible to fake'' Dwight Garner, The New York TimesTrade ReviewThe poems in [this] collection ... are the work of a genuine original. They are surreal, they are funny, they are subversive. They do what poetry is meant to do: they make you look at things in a different way -- Christina Patterson * Sunday Times *Prismatically witty, sexually slippery, polymorphous, and Millennially mischievous poetry ... I can see [Lockwood] in my mind, post-religion, post-family, a savvy, wounded poet hanging over an electronic abyss ... Can poetry address the massive and systematic degradation of the mental environment? Lockwood, her personae shimmering, her linguistic sensors tingling, is one of the few poets tough enough and shrewd enough to try -- James Parker * The Atlantic *[Lockwood] has written a book at once angrier, and more fun, more attuned to our time and more bizarre, than most poetry can ever get, a book easy to recommend for people who do not read new poetry often - as well as for people who do. -- Stephen Burt * The New York Times Sunday Book Review *The little hairs on my back rose often while reading Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals ... That's biological praise, the most fundamental kind, impossible to fake. -- Dwight Garner * The New York Times *Heroically weird -- Eryn Loeb * Guernica *

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Book Synopsis`Verlaine, possessed by the madnesses of love, brimming over with desires and prayers, the rebel railing against the complacent platitudes of society, of love, of language''. Jean Rousselot Verlaine ranks alongside Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Rimbaud as one of the most outstanding poets of late nineteenth-century France whose work is associated with the early Symbolists, the Decadents, and the Parnassiens. Remarkable not only for his delicacy and exquisitely crafted verse, Verlaine is also the poet of strong emotions and appetites, with an unrivalled gift for the sheer music of poetry, and an inventive approach to its technique. This bilingual edition provides the most comprehensive selection of his poetry yet, offering some 170 poems in lively and fresh translations and providing a lucid introduction which illuminates Verlaine''s poetic form within the context of French Impressionism and the poetry of sensation. Parallel text ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s ClassicTrade ReviewIn his sensitive and discerning introduction, Sorrell finds much of what ws to beomce the quintessentially Verlainaian hallmarks in the book: 'sensuality, a disposition to melancholy and to daydreaming, misty half-tones, and patterns of versification straining to break th stricter rules of French prosody. * Stephen Romer, Times Literary Supplement, Friday 19th May 00. *there has been no really substantial selection of Verlaine's work in English ... One of the pleasures this volume affords ia s prolonged chance to examin yet again, through the prism of translation, the different geniuses of the two langauges. Another is to rediscover, thanks to Sorrell's selection, a swath of Verlaine's later poetry, so often occluded in the classic anthologies. * Stephen Romer, Times Literary Supplement, Friday 19th May 00. *Table of ContentsPremiers vers ; Poemes saturniens ; Fetes galantes ; La Bonne Chanson ; Romances sans paroles ; Sagesse ; Jadis et Naguere ; Amour ; Parallelement ; Dedicaces ; Bonheur ; Chansons pour Elle ; Liturgies intimes ; Odes en son honneur ; Le Livre posthume ; Dan les limbres ; Epigrammes ; Chair ; Invectives ; Biblio-Sonnets ; Poemes divers

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Book Synopsis''Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!-and you, García Lorca, what were you doing by the watermelons?''Profane and prophetic verses about sex, death, revolution and America by the great icon of Beat poetry.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York''s underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

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Book SynopsisWhen Wislawa Szymborksa''s View with a Grain of Sand, also translated by Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh, was published shortly after its author''s award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996, the Polish poet, hitherto all but unknown outside her own country, became an international name. More than 10,000 copies of the book have been sold in Britain alone. Yet it was not so much the fame of the prize, as the directness, vigour, wit and honesty with which Szymborska herself writes - qualities deftly captured by her translators - that brought this about. Transcending national and generational boundaries with her rare combination of moral wisdom and down-to-earth manner of speaking to us, she is unquestionably one of the great poetic spirits of the age. Poems New and Collected adds sixty-four new translations to the text of View with a Grain of Sand and includes, as preface, its author''s Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

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Book SynopsisA wise, rude, sharp poetry collection encompassing a life from childhood to attempted adulthood, from one of the most important poets of the new generation.'She writes with honesty, conviction, humour and love. She points out the absurdities we've grown too used to and lets us see the world with fresh eyes.' – Kae TempestHollie McNish, winner of the Ted Hughes Award for Poetry, has thrilled and entranced audiences the length and breadth of the UK with her compelling and powerful performances. Plum, her debut for Picador Poetry, is a wise, sometimes rude and piercingly candid account of her memories from childhood to attempted adulthood. This is a book about growing up, about flesh, fruit, friendships, work and play – and the urgent need to find a voice for the poems that will somehow do the whole glorious riot of it justice.Throughout Plum, McNish allows her recent poems to be interrupted by earlier writing from her younger selves – voices that speak out from the past with disarming and often very funny results. Plum is a celebration, a salute to a life in which we are always growing, stumbling, falling, changing and discovering new selves to add to our own messy store. It will leave the reader in no doubt as to why McNish is considered one of the most important poets of the new generation.Trade ReviewPlum is certainly brave...The poems are refreshingly funny, angry, contemplative and personal. A sense of wanting the world to be a better place shines out. * The Telegraph *She writes with honesty, conviction, humour and love. She points out the absurdities we've grown too used to and lets us see the world with fresh eyes -- Kate TempestHer rhymes have a driving quality, urgent words pinning down fleeting feelings * Observer *The acclaimed Hollie McNish’s Plum immediately establishes an intimacy between the poet and the reader. A collection recounting McNish’s memories of growing up, Plum is charismatic for its revelations of warmth; hilarious and moving. Frank, rude, and innocent, this likeable voice makes for an entertaining read. * Poetry Book Society *‘[Plum] proves poet’s voice is one that needs to be heard…she continues to let it all hang out in fearless and often amusing style.Much of what McNish has to say urgently needs saying’ * The Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisA prolific and widely published Irish poet, Steve's seventh collection builds on the strength of his previous works, in which everyday experiences and the profound sit side by side with the joys of the creative arts and the darker side to life on Planet Earth.

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

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1855 and extended by the author over the course of more than three decades, Leaves of Grass embodies Walt Whitman’s lifetime ambition to create a new voice that could capture the spirit and vibrancy of the young American nation, while celebrating at the same time “Nature without check with original energy”. Famously written in free verse and brimming with sensuous imagery and an unbridled love of nature and life in all its forms, and containing celebrated poems such as the ebullient ‘Song of Myself’ – described by Jay Parini as the greatest American poem ever written – and the elegiac ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’, Leaves of Grass is not only the finest achievement of a highly unique poet, but a founding text for American literature and modern poetry. Considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and a pioneer of free verse, Walt Whitman (1819–92) was also a prolific writer of essays and articles. Controversial in its time, his sprawling collection Leaves of Grass is regarded as his magnum opus.Trade ReviewWhitman, the great poet, has meant so much to me. Whitman the one man breaking a way ahead. Whitman the one pioneer… Ahead of Whitman, nothing. Ahead of all poets, pioneering into the wilderness of unopened life, Whitman. Beyond him, none. -- D.H. Lawrence

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Book Synopsis'My Rivers' is an event in four cycles: The Loire, The Spree, The Drina and the Beyond the River. The book includes different poetic forms, from long narrative poems to free verse/flash fiction. The style is never overly strict in form, as Sehic always wants this work to be as clear and understandable as possible. It deals with themes of post-war reality and the culture of remembrance in a wider context, along with the tragedy of the Bosnian war seen through larger conflicts and the greater tragedies of the two world wars. The book seeks catharsis, to the extent to which it is possible in a post-conflict society like Bosnia, along with universal themes of intimacy, love, freedom.Trade Review'Sehic's fine eye for detail serves to aestheticize atrocity without ever fetishizing it . . Brilliant, insightful, poetic, and breath-taking" LA Review of Books; "Through his exploration of war and peace, innocence and grief, Sehic has composed a humbling meditation on an existential conundrum that is central to collective and private trauma, but also to more ordinary human experience: how to keep the inner self whole in a world that will assault it in unimaginable ways." Kapka Kassabova, The Guardian

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Book SynopsisThe poems of My Little Book of Exiles sift through layers of diaspora and return, wrestling with the twin experiences of exile and separation. The diasporas of the collection take place in history, family, and the privacy of a mind as it navigates its daily work. In a set of Labor Poems, Alter captures moments of working in the snow of Wisconsin, under floodlights on the Kenai bay of Alaska, or in themachine-roar of construction sites in the Bay Area, where he has worked for two decades as an electrician. Another set of poems confront the vision of the Jewish people''s homecoming to their ancestral land. A philosopher of the "religion of labor"; and an assassinated Prime Minister are some of the figures which weave in with intimate histories of heartbreak and hope.Coming from a home where the Hebrew Bible was a book of bedtime stories, Alter's work is in conversation with texts as varied as the Hebrew Psalms, the poetry of John Keats and Ezra Pound and the songs of Bob Dylan and Bob Marley.The collection concludes with poems exploring the homeland of family made through marriage and fatherhood, the strains and moments of grace that come with them. What can withstand the pressures of distance, the forces from outside and inside that want to pull us apart? The book's strands weave a tapestry of hope even as the poems seek to discover finally what lasts.

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Book Synopsis"I see the hut, its weathered state a focus for an artist's eye; worn and brown amid white-gold sand, a shape to break blue sea and sky ..." Cumbria, Spain, Devon and France - a beautiful poetry collection written on location. Hilda Cochrane sets out on a journey filled with humour and a magical sense of place.

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Book SynopsisNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From Misha Collins, actor, longtime poet, and activist, whose massive online following calls itself his “Army For Good," comes his debut poetry collection, Some Things I Still Can't Tell You. Trademark wit and subtle vulnerability converge in each poem; this book is both a celebration of and aspiration for a life well lived.#1 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER! USA TODAY Bestseller!This book is a compilation of small observations and musings. It's filled with moments of reflection and a love letter to simple joys: passing a simple blade of grass on the sidewalk, the freedom of peeing outdoors late at night, or the way a hand-built ceramic mug feels when it's full of warm tea on a chilly morning. It's a catalog and a compendium that examines the complicated experience of being all too human and interacting with a complex, confounding, breathtaking world ... and a reminder to stop and be awake and alive in yourself.

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Book SynopsisTo accompany Eliot's poems, Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue have provided a commentary that illuminates the creative activity that came to constitute each poem, calling upon drafts, correspondence and other original materials to provide a vivid account of the poet's working processes, his reading, his influences and his revisions.

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Book SynopsisFeminist icon bell hooks reminds us of the full spectrum of feeling we spend in love through her inspiring collection of love poetry, with a new introduction by Cole Arthur Riley, author of Black Liturgies.Written from the heart, When Angels Speak of Love is a book of fifty love poems by bell hooks, one our most beloved public intellectuals, and author of over twenty books, including the bestselling All About Love. Poem after poem, hooks challenges our views and experiences with love—tracing the links between seduction and surrender, the intensity of desire, and the anguish of death. “Love must clean house, choose memories to keep, and memories to let go,” she writes. These verses are expansive yet accessible—encompassing romantic love, to love of family, friends, or oneself. In any iteration, these poems remind us of both the beauty and possibility of love.

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