Poetry / poems by individual poets
Orion Publishing Co Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Book SynopsisThe best-loved, bestselling poem ever publishedTrade Reviewan attractive new edition with a lengthy essay by Tony Briggs, who characterises the poem, memorably, as "the story of the apocalypse told to us by a kind uncle" * DAILY MAIL *a lovely new edition... Professor Briggs does us all a favour by putting before our red and weary eyes FitzGerald and this legacy from an older Iran. -- Libby Purves * TIMES *
£7.59
Orion Publishing Co Walt Whitman
Book SynopsisThe perfect introduction to one of the most influential American poets - includes the controversial 'Leaves of Grass'
£7.59
Dialogue Blues in Stereo
Book SynopsisFrom Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, a stunning collection of early works written from 1921-1927 and curated by award winning poet and National Book Award finalist, Danez Smith
£11.69
Pan Macmillan It Says Here
Book SynopsisIt Says Here is Sean O’Brien’s follow-up to his celebrated collection Europa, and has a vision as rich and wide-ranging as its predecessor. Set against shorter, ruthlessly focused pieces – vicious and scabrous political sketches and satires charting the growth of extremism and the disintegration of democracy – are meditations on the imaginative life, dream and remembrance, time and recurrence. There are elegies for friends and fellow poets; paranoiac, brooding pastorals; other poems lay bare the maddening trials of a historically literate mind as it attempts to navigate a world gone post-content, post-intellectual, and at times post-memory. At the centre of the book is the long poem Hammersmith, a shadowy, cinematic dream-vision of England during and since the Second World War. Here, O’Brien charts a psychogeographic journey through the English countryside and the haunted precincts of London, mapping a labyrinth of love, madness and lost history. The result is a stirring, illuminating document of a time of immense societal flux and upheaval by one of our finest poets and most insightful cultural commentators.'In both technical mastery and his belief in the seriousness of the poetic art, O’Brien is WH Auden’s true inheritor.' Irish TimesTrade ReviewIn both technical mastery and his belief in the seriousness of the poetic art, O’Brien is WH Auden’s true inheritor. * Irish Times *
£9.89
Pan Macmillan Sincerity
Book SynopsisHer final collection as Poet Laureate, a frank, disarming and deeply moving exploration of loss and remembrance in their many forms. Presented in a beautiful, foiled package, this will be the poetry book of the year.
£8.24
Pan Macmillan Collected Poems for Children: Macmillan Classics
Book SynopsisA beautiful paperback edition of Charles Causley's Collected Poems for Children with a foreword by poet Roger McGough and illustrated with line art by John Lawrence. This Macmillan Classics edition is a special gift to treasure, and the perfect start to a lifelong love of poetry.The poems in this collection were chosen and arranged the author. They feature a variety of subjects from funny to sad and seasons to fables – great to read aloud together.To illustrate this book, John travelled to Cornwall to meet Charles Causley. If you look carefully you will find many references to Cornwall and its history and traditions throughout the book.'Church bells ought to greet the arrival of Causley's Collected Poems for Children . . . it is so plum-pudding-rich in delight' – Children's Books History SocietyTrade ReviewChurch bells ought to greet the arrival of Causley's Collected Poems for Children . . . it is so plum-pudding-rich in delight -- Children's Books History SocietyBefore I was made Poet Laureate, I was asked to name my choice of the best poet for the job. Without hesitation I named Charles Causley – this marvelously resourceful, original poet. -- Ted Hughes
£7.59
Pan Macmillan The Stone Age
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2021 Highland Book PrizeJen Hadfield’s new collection is an astonished beholding of the wild landscape of her Shetland home, a tale of hard-won speech, and the balm of the silence it rides upon. The Stone Age builds steadily to a powerful and visionary panpsychism: in Hadfield’s telling, everything – gate and wall, flower and rain, shore and sea, the standing stones whose presences charge the land – has a living consciousness, one which can be engaged with as a personal encounter.The Stone Age is a timely reminder that our neurodiversity is a gift: we do not all see the world the world in the same way, and Hadfield’s lyric line and unashamedly high-stakes wordplay provide nothing less than a portal into a different kind of being. The Stone Age is the work of a singular artist at the height of her powers – one which dramatically extends and enriches the range of our shared experience.
£999.99
Lantern Books,US If but My Gaze Could Heal: A Book of Poems
Book SynopsisColin Greer knows a lot about a lot. His rich life as an educator and author/playwright, imersed in the social and political justice trenches, is reflected in his latest poetry book alongside his wordily wisdom. The author muses on the human condition through verse, taking the lucky reader through the ordinary, the personal, the sublime, and tragic alike. IF BUT MY GAZE COULD HEAL''s 150 poems are thoughtfully broken into five thematic chapters: With or Without Which, Mischief and Melancholy, Stick out your Tongue, Phew!, and What is Hidden and Hidden From.The Reverend Billy Talen, founder of the radical performance group Church of Stop Shopping exclaimed, "reading Gaze made my hair change colour."
£15.19
Lucent Dreaming Dominoes
Book SynopsisDelving into his life and experiences of love, loss, growing up mixed-race in Newport, and more, this is the début poetry collection from award-winning multidisciplinary artist and children's laureate Wales Connor Allen.
£9.50
Cybirdy Publishing Limited 84-19 Rhapsodies & Co from I: 2023
Book SynopsisInspired by the fate of Julia and Winston under the watchful eyes of Big Brother of George Orwell’s 1984, Docteur Cybirdy has compiled an eclectic blend of quotes, briefs and rhapsodies: 84-19 Rhapsodies & Co from I Naming and shaming world leaders, casting light on post-genomic science, and highlighting the main triggers of the inhuman aspect of the Covid era. With courage, Docteur Cybirdy reveals her thoughts and intimate beliefs, prompting an urgent review of the role of post-genomic science in today’s world, while instilling hope for a peaceful and serene future for humanity.
£9.49
Bloodaxe Books Ltd Days of Grace: Selected Poems
Book SynopsisDoris Kareva is one of Estonia's leading poets, admired especially for poems that balance precision and control with passion and bravado. Her achievement, according to Estonian Literature, is in writing poems which are both `plentiful and fragile like a crystal...balancing on the line between the human soul and the universe, between sound and silence'. Days of Grace spans over forty years of her poetic output, showing how the sustained depth and clarity of her poetry lies in her ability to create ambiguity and suggest harmony at the same time, with a multiplicity of meanings generating the opposite of clarity: a form of hinting which at its most illuminating becomes utterly oracle-like. Such is the metaphysical sensitivity of her poetry that its moral charge is sensed almost physically. She has also been called `a priestess of love' who is fearless as well as discreet in her portrayal of love that is so `pure and elevating like mountain air' that she seems to be writing from another time or dimension.Trade Review`There is a fierce austerity and dark humour in the language.' - Ciaran Carson; `McIlfatrick-Ksenofontov's translations capture the barely capturable essence of Doris Kareva's poems which, quite suddenly, make me think of snowflakes, crystalline, and yet on the cusp of disappearance.' - Marius Kociejowski
£10.80
Bloodaxe Books Ltd Tender Spot: Selected Poems
Book SynopsisNaomi Shihab Nye is a wandering poet. For nearly 40 years she has travelled America and the world to read and teach. Born in Missouri to a Palestinian father and an American mother, she grew up in St Louis, Jerusalem and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian- American background, the cultural diversity of Texas, and her experiences in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America and the Middle East, her poetry 'reflects this textured heritage, which endowed her with an openness to the experiences of others and a sense of continuity across borders' (Bill Moyers). Through her empathetic use of poetic language, she reveals the shining nature of our daily lives, whether writing about local life in her inner-city Texan neighbourhood or the daily rituals of Jews and Palestinians in the war-torn Middle East. Probing the fragile connection between language and meaning, she shows how lives are marked by tragedy, inequity and misunderstanding, and that our best chance of surviving losses and shortcomings is to be acutely aware of the sacred in all things.Trade ReviewHer poems combine transcendent liveliness and sparkle along with warmth and human insight. She is a champion of the literature of encouragement and heart. Reading her work enhances life. * William Stafford *Tender yet forceful, funny and commonsensical, reflective and empathic. -- Donna Seaman * Booklist *Table of Contents10 A Big Life by Naomi Shihab Nye 12 Loose Leaf by Naomi Shihab Nye 14 Touching Tender Spots by Robert Bonazzifrom Different Words to Pray (1980) 23 Minnows 24 The Art of Disappearing 25 Kindness 27 Walking Down Blanco Road at Midnight 28 Adiosfrom Hugging the Jukebox (1982) 30 Lights from Other Windows 31 Daily 32 Making a Fist 33 Famous 34 So Much Happiness 35 Hugging the Jukeboxfrom Yellow Glove (1986) 39 Trying to Name What Doesn't Change 40 The Use of Fiction 41 Yellow Glove 43 Two Countries 44 Pakistan with Open Arms 46 Rain 47 Catalogue Army 48 What He Said to His Enemiesfrom Red Suitcase (1994) 51 Travel Alarm 54 From Here to There 55 The Attic and Its Nails 56 Voices 57 His Secret 58 Violin 59 Living with Mistakes 60 Valentine for Ernest Mann 61 What Brings Us Out 63 Saved 64 Shouldersfrom Fuel (1998) 66 Muchas Gracias por Todo 67 Bill's Beans 68 Wedding Cake 70 Because of Libraries We Can Say These Things 71 Elevator 72 Eye Test 73 One Boy Told Me 75 Boy and Mom at the Nutcracker Ballet 76 Always Bring a Pencil 77 Glint 78 Alphabet 80 Hidden 81 Lost 82 Books We Haven't Touched in Years 83 The Rider 84 Fuel 85 Across the Bay 87 Boy and Egg 88 How Far Is It to the Land We Left? 89 Pause 91 Sad Mail 92 Open House 93 Vocabulary of Dearness 94 Pollenfrom 19 varieties of gazelle (2002) 96 Flinn, on the Bus 98 Different Ways to Pray 100 My Father and the Fig Tree 102 What Kind of Fool Am I? 103 The Words Under the Words 105 The Man Who Makes Brooms 106 Lunch in Nablus City Park 108 Red Brocade 109 For the 500th Dead Palestinian, Ibtisam Bozieh 110 Those Whom We Do Not Know 112 Visit 113 The Small Vases from Hebron 115 My Grandmother and the Stars 116 19 Varieties of Gazelle 118 Jerusalem 120 Ducks 122 Peace 124 Stone House 126 Bloodfrom You and Yours (2005) 128 Cross That Line 129 Someone I Love 131 Isle of Mull, Scotland 132 First Day Without You in 99 Years 133 Our Time 134 Fresh 135 The Day 136 For Mohammed Zeid of Gaza, Age 15 137 The Story, Around the Corner 138 During a War 139 The Sweet Arab, the Generous Arab 140 He Said EYE-RACK 141 The Boy Removes All Traces from His Room 142 It is not a game, it was never a game 144 The Light That Shines on Us Now 145 I Feel Sorry for Jesusfrom Transfer (2011) 148 Storyteller 149 Knowing 150 Amir & Anna 151 'The Only Democracy in the Middle East' 152 Maximum Security 153 Remembering William Stafford 154 Real Estate 155 Tiny Cucumbers 156 Swerve 157 Where Are You Now? 158 Hello, Palestine 159 For Aziz, Who Loved Jerusalem 160 Alive 161 The Young Poets of Winnipeg 162 Dear Mediator 163 Eye Contact with a Squirrel 164 Dallas 165 Burlington, Vermont 166 For Mutanabbi Street 167 Mystery 168 Endure 169 Ringing 170 Mom Gives Away Your Ties 171 At the Block Island FerryNew Poems (2008/2015) 174 Ted Kooser Is My President 175 The First Time I Was Old 176 Letters My Prez Is Not Sending 178 What Happened to the Air 179 Parents of Murdered Palestinian Boy Donate His Organs to Israelis 180 Gate A-4 182 One Way or Another 183 Business 184 A Few Questions for Bashar Assad 185 Arabs in Finland 186 Barbershop 187 It's Good to Sit Down with a Racist Every Now and Then 188 Landmine Kills 10 Girls Collecting Firewood 189 Broken 190 Only Pine Nuts Can Stop a War
£11.69
Bloodaxe Books Ltd The Taste of Steel • The Smell of Snow
Book SynopsisPia Tafdrup is one of Denmark’s leading poets. She has published over 20 books in Danish since her first collection appeared in 1981, and her work has been translated into many languages. She received the 1999 Nordic Council Literature Prize – Scandinavia’s most prestigious literary award – for Queen’s Gate, which was published in David McDuff’s English translation by Bloodaxe in 2001. Also in 2001, she was appointed a Knight of the Order of Dannebrog, and in 2006 she received the Nordic Prize from the Swedish Academy. The Taste of Steel and The Smell of Snow are the first two collections in Pia Tafdrup’s new series of books focussing on the human senses. While taste and smell dominate, the poems are equally about the way of the world and the losses that people sustain during the course of their lives – the disappearance of friends and family members, but also the erosion of control of one’s own existence. The themes of ecology, war and conflict are never far away, and there is a constant recognition of the circular nature of life, the interplay of the generations. Pia Tafdrup’s previous series of themed collections was The Salamander Quartet (2002–2012). Written over ten years, its first two parts were The Whales in Paris and Tarkovsky’s Horses, translated by David McDuff and published by Bloodaxe in 2010 as Tarkovsky’s Horses and other poems. This was followed in 2015 by Salamander Sun and other poems, McDuff’s translation of The Migrant Bird’s Compass and Salamander Sun, the third and fourth parts of the quartet.Table of ContentsTHE TASTE OF STEEL I No return 15 Stages on life’s way 16 In eternal pursuit 17 Unposted letter 19 Winter blood 20 Not even in museums is there peace II Meditation 23 Stopping at the sight of swans 24 Plenty of time 25 Taste 27 Undercurrent 28 Loneliness III Off track 30 Earring 31 After frost-white shell of cold 32 Japanese cherries 33 Night country 34 Metal 36 Bodies without root nets 37 Down IV Crossroads 40 Power cut 42 Pont Neuf 44 Daily choice 45 The pets and their people 46 Time and space V War 49 The darkness machine 50 Razed city 51 The journalist’s question 52 The spring’s grave 53 A before and an after 54 View from space VI Waiting 57 Chink 58 A squirrel bids welcome 59 Despair drinks fire 60 Life with pigeons 62 Frog VII Loss 65 The anonymous part of the churchyard 66 Each in our own flame 67 Porous border 70 A display case filled with night 72 On the other side 73 Greeting from the deceased 74 Snow flowers 76 Residue 78 Threshold VIII Words 80 Crime scene 81 Mother tongue 82 Word and soul 83 Searchlight 84 Johan Borgen – a ritual 86 Poets IX Paradox 89 Harvest 90 Separation 91 The taste buds wake up 92 We are born again 93 Animal smell of light 94 Killer whales 96 Early morning THE SMELL OF SNOW I Breathe in, breathe out 101 Spirit 102 Prana 103 Fresh snow 105 Under cirrus clouds 107 Your fragrance wakes me 109 Freezing fog 110 Lovesick bird II Antitheses 112 Noses, a comparative study 114 Seduced by Gregory Pincus 115 Not a gift 116 Tags in the night 118 Cleaning poisons 120 Them or us 121 Digital odours III Meditation 125 Spring inhalation 126 Exchange of smells 127 Danish cat meets Australian stone 128 Smell of tomatoes 129 Smell-trace of a morning 131 Camellia japonica 132 Benchmarks from a long day IV Bloodstreams 137 Wrong number 138 Under the asphalt the Milky Way 139 Garlic 140 Nose to the ground 141 The cream from China V The five seasons. A catalogue of smells 145 Spring 147 Summer 149 Autumn 151 Winter 153 The fifth season VI Flashes of thought 157 Caught in the act 158 Smell blind 159 The meaning of meaninglessness 160 After showers of bullets in paradise 162 Words without smell VII Vanishing 164 The smell can be parted from the body 165 Reflection on snow and ice 167 Intense lethargy 168 Glenmorangie Highland Single Malt 169 The end of icebergs VIII Inner world, outer world 172 The smell greets me 173 Memory bank for smells 174 Insect wing 175 Nausea – a flashback 177 Stink 179 Flower shop 180 The primordial brain IX One breath makes the difference 182 Attack in Copenhagen 183 Welcome, people live here 184 I want to be a tree 185 Twelve breaths 186 The smell of books 188 There has been prismatic rain 189 The stream of smells from below 191 Notes
£11.69
Bloodaxe Books Ltd Outlandish
Book SynopsisJo Clement's first collection confronts Romantic impressions of British Gypsy ethnicity and lyrically lays them to rest. From Wordsworth to Top Gear, her poems invite us to consider notions of otherness, trespass, and craft. She steps between ancient stopping places and mardy council estates to trill elegiac Romanes, English, and birdsong about witches, wild camping, and Silver Cross prams. Compelled by a brutal Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller diasporic legacy, Outlandish tenderly praises the poem-as-protest and illuminates a hidden and threatened culture. Born in Darlington in 1986, Jo Clement received a scholarship to gain a PhD in Creative Writing at Newcastle University. She has published two pamphlets, including Moveable Type (2020). She is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Northumbria University, Editor of Butcher’s Dog poetry magazine, and founded the imprint Wagtail with support from the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC).Trade ReviewIt is very rare to find a young poet with such an alert musical ear, able to listen ahead for the shape of a sound yet to be uttered. -- Sean O'BrienHere is delight – these poems, rich and strange, brim from ‘the skim/of blood that can’t settle’. Jo Clement’s gifts shine and dazzle: amongst the darting, many-layered music of her imagery and sensuous evocation of northerly landscapes gleams a clear-sightedness politically aware and historically acute. Meaning is interrogated as a riverine process and emerges, movingly, in significances found later. Part urban fable, part re-imagining of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller culture, these poems are beautifully made to be read and re-read, savoured for their sharp, apple-bite tenderness, their truth and wisdom, their sheer originality. -- Pippa LittleThis is the word of the weathered hand and of the hard, hale youth; the tattered treasure, the grafter and the fetter-breaking wild. These intoxicating and fine-sprung poems instantly place Clement in the front rank of Traveller writers. May they also relight our wonder at the depths of all unsung Englands. -- Damian Le BasTable of Contents11 Prefatory note 15 The Impression of Water 16 Family Silver 17 Vault 20 Inheritance 21 King Faa 22 Teesdale Erratics 23 Big Fat Gypsy Swindle 24 Cobsong 26 At Eildon 27 Smithsong 28 Market 29 Mass 30 The Sly and Unseen Day 31 Tinker’s Tea 32 Knots 33 Larch 34 The Graver 35 Wild Camp 36 Ironwork, V&A 37 Outlandish 38 Haunt 39 Crown 40 Paisley 41 Vardo 42 A Stopping-Place 43 Craft 44 Pome 45 Pollard 46 Playing Cards 48 Self-portrait as 100 Travellers 49 Wonderful Fish 50 Giftorse 51 Nightjar 52 The Romani Star 53 Le Bûcher 54 Causeway 55 Periwinkle 56 Manes 57 Polished 58 Travelling Light 59 Rite 60 Singing Lesson 62 Homecoming 64 FLASH! 65 Prophet Mark 66 Shoed 67 Dirce (The Bull’s Shadow) 68 Fetlock 69 Groundsheet 70 Aubade 71 Passage 72 Caulbearer 75 Notes and dedications 77 List of illustrations
£10.44
Bloodaxe Books Ltd The Day Before
Book SynopsisAoife Lyall's second collection follows her widely praised debut Mother, Nature. Her book beautifully captures ordinary moments in life that crystallise in the face of crisis and threat, focusing on the earliest weeks and months of the pandemic, exploring first steps, last breaths, milestones, millstones and the world behind the front door.
£10.80
Bloodaxe Books Ltd The Inside of a Stone
Book SynopsisThe key sequence of The Inside of a Stone concentrates on desert landscapes and womanhood and the emotional resonance between the two while reconceptualising their metaphorical relationship. Sexual violence between animals, an alternative Ilsebill from the Grimm fairytale, and Hildegard of Bingen's magical healing are subjects of other poems.
£10.80
Bloodaxe Books Ltd Fantastic Voyage
Book SynopsisBy turns wryly humorous, tender and heartbroken, Fantastic Voyage takes us on journeys into our hidden and ghostly selves, our insides and our other', exploring how the human body gives voice to unspeakable truths. The books's central long poem a meditation on water charts a deeply personal voyage through grief and loss.
£10.80
Bloodaxe Books Ltd Constructing a Witch
Book SynopsisHelen Ivory's collection Constructing a Witch fixes on the monstering and the scapegoating of women and on the fear of ageing femininity. These bewitching poems explore the witch archetype and the witch as human woman. With ten collage illustrations by Helen Ivory.
£11.40
Bloodaxe Books Ltd Beast
Book SynopsisMythic and familial beasts roam the swamps and moors of Pascale Petit's Beast. These spirits of the wild haunt the Camargue of Provence, the limestone Causses and gorges of the Languedoc, Indian tiger forests, the Amazon rainforest, and her home by Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. Some of these remote places are vestiges of earth's pristine habitats.
£11.69
Bloodaxe Books Ltd The Sight of Light â The Sound of Clouds â The Touch of Skin
Book SynopsisThis new translation of three collections from one ofDenmark?s leading poets completes the remarkable Senses Quintet in English.Pia Tafdrup has published over 20 books in Danish since her first collection appeared in 1981, including widely admired sequences of themed collections. The latest of these is a series of five books focussing on the human senses, herSenses Quintet(2014-2022), which the critic Carsten Palmer Schale has called ?a cathedral of the soul? and ?the best collection of poems written in Scandinavia in the past 20 years?.Bloodaxe published David McDuff?s translation of the first two collections in the quintet,The Taste of SteelandThe Smell of Snow, in one volume in 2021. This edition brings together his translations of the third, fourth and fifth parts,The Sight of Light,The Sound of CloudsandThe Touch of Skin.All parts of life are mediated through the five senses in the five books, including the way of the world and the losses that people sustain during the course of their lives ? the disappearance of friends and family members, but also the erosion of control of one?s own existence. The themes of ecology, war and conflict are never far away, and there is a constant recognition of the circular nature of life, the interplay of the generations.
£13.49
Bloodaxe Books Ltd History of the Child
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£12.60
Salt Publishing Sing Me Down from the Dark
Book SynopsisSing Me Down From the Dark explores the highs and lows of a ten-year sojourn in Japan, two international marriages, a homecoming, and the struggles of cross-cultural relationships. It is full of light and dark, as if the writer herself has been caught off guard' in the making of these poems.Trade Reviewt would be a mistake to read these poems as simply some form of confessional autobiography, this is so much more – there is a depth and honesty in the descriptions of behaviours and emotions which speaks far beyond the personal, immersing the reader in the complex and intimate confusions that are at the core of relationships. This is a collection which uses a well-crafted variety of forms, from Ghazal to prose poem, exposing the raw edges of social and cultural expectations of women within marriage and wider social settings. -- Roger Bloor * The Alchemy Spoon *East and the West clash and merge in Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s debut collection. Japanese and European cultures criss-cross and interweave in family relationships, love, sex and food. Identity is in flux in a reality that is often blurred and uncertain. Rituals rule but are often ambiguous and confusing. The protagonist retraces ten years of her life in Japan, her marriage and the birth of her son. The memories are experienced at the threshold of two languages, moving from English to Japanese with the aid of translations. It is a cultural and physical movement from one place to the other that conveys a sense of displacement. -- Carla Scarano D’Antonio * The High Window *Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s debut collection Sing Me Down from the Dark recounts her personal story over a period of time that included two international marriages. The poetic style throughout the book’s six untitled sections is strongly confessional, a style that is blended successfully with strong narrative threads and plenty of formal diversity, including innovative prose poetry, a ghazal (‘Ghazal for my husband, on International Women’s Day’), and a pantoum (‘ダーリンは外国人 “My Darling is a Foreigner”’). -- Tim Murphy * The Friday Poem *Family life in Japan, the unravelling of two marriages, being an outsider: Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana draws on her own life and (spoiler alert!) a new relationship as inspiration for this collection. Energetic, richly detailed and varied in form, they make an absorbing debut. Holding the poems together is the theme of ‘home’: what and where it might be. -- D. A. Prince * Orbis *One key point is Corrin-Tachibana’s acute awareness of the poem as artistic artefact rather than as an object that exists purely at the service of the poet’s own self-expression and sense of self-worth. This quality lifts Sing Me Down From the Dark out from the melee of contemporary poetry. It’s written with a reader in mind – something which might be assumed, but which is often relegated by numerous contemporary poets to an afterthought. -- Matthew Stewart * Wild Court *
£10.44
Vintage Publishing The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi
Book Synopsis*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE.* 'One of the greatest writers of our time' Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieThe Perfect Nine is a glorious epic about the founding of Kenya's Gikuyu people and the ideals of beauty, courage and unity.Gikuyu and Mumbi settled on the peaceful and bounteous foot of Mount Kenya after fleeing war and hunger. When ninety-nine suitors arrive on their land, seeking to marry their famously beautiful daughters, called The Perfect Nine, the parents ask their daughters to choose for themselves, but to choose wisely.First the young women must embark on a treacherous quest with the suitors, to find a magical cure for their youngest sister, Warigia, who cannot walk. As they journey up the mountain, the number of suitors diminishes and the sisters put their sharp minds and bold hearts to the test, conquering fear, doubt, hunger and many menacing ogres, as they attempt to return home. But it is perhaps Warigia's unexpected adventure that will be most challenging of all.Blending folklore, mythology and allegory, Ngugi wa Thiong'o chronicles the adventures of Gikuyu and Mumbi, and how their brave daughters became the matriarchs of the Gikuyu clans, in stunning verse, with all the epic elements of danger, humour and suspense.'A tremendous writer... it's hard to doubt the power of the written word when you hear the story of Ngugi wa Thiong'o' GuardianTrade ReviewOne of the greatest writers of our time -- Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieA vivid, exhilarating tale with a surprisingly modern philosophy that emphasises the importance of tolerance, feminism and respect for the environment -- Anthony Gardner * Mail on Sunday *As pacy and addictive as it is measured. Thick with allegory and adventure...this is a beautifully told epic about the fundamentals of humanity * New Statesman *A beautiful work that not only refuses distinctions between "high art" and traditional storytelling, but supplies that all-too rare human necessity: the sense that life has meaning -- Fiona Sampson * Guardian *The Perfect Nine uses a deceptively simple language that lays bare deep truths. * Financial Times *
£10.44
Vintage Publishing The Ink Dark Moon
Book SynopsisHere is a collection of sexy, brief, fleeting poems about love, lust and longing. They originate from a time in Japanese history where aristocratic women of the Heian court were free to marry and conduct love affairs according to their desires. Education and refinement were so highly valued that the courtly manner of expressing oneself, whether to give condolences for a death, to send back a forgotten fan, or to heighten the anticipation of a lover's visit, was with a poem of just five lines. A convention of secrecy surrounding love affairs fills these verses with palpable emotion.These vivid and erotic poems express love in all its forms, and do so with amazing economy of words, unforgettable imagery and breath-taking modernity.INTRODUCED BY NIKITA GILL'They are full of dreams, of autumns, of lovers known or not yet met, of desire, wonderment, loneliness' Irish Times Translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani, this is an edition that brings the story of the poems to life with a detailed introduction and notes on the translation.Trade ReviewThese poems take us to the back corridors of Heian Period life and reveal the sexual intrigues that so often occurred under the cover of darkness... the seductive, free-spirited erotic environment unfolds through these sensuous poems * Japan Times *A thousand years later we can read poems that remain absolutely accurate and moving descriptions of our most common and central experiences: love and loss, their reflection in the loveliness and evanescence of the natural world, and the effort to understand better the nature of being -- Jane Hirschfield
£10.44
Vintage Publishing Old World
Book SynopsisRobert Crawford is a poet, biographer, critic and literary historian who has published eight full collections of poetry and many prose books, including two major biographies of T.S. Eliot: Young Eliot and Eliot After The Waste Land. Emeritus Wardlaw Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews, he is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
£11.70
Cinnamon Press And Then the Rain Came
Book SynopsisEdward Ragg won the 2012 Cinnamon Press Poetry Award and his debut collection was A Force That Takes (2013). His second volume, Holding Unfailing (2017), charted the rise of modern China, whilst Exploring Rights (2020) confronted ‘post-truth’ culture and the prospects of humankind’s survival. And Then the Rain Came turns to love, physical and mental geographies, well-being and the vitality of the present. Set against the backdrops of the global pandemic and climate crisis, each poem embraces present perception in the awakening motif of rain.Trade ReviewThe manifestations and properties of water are excitingly explored in Edward Ragg’s new collection. Here are living poems where narrative and lyric work together to contemplate the energies implicit in water. The intriguing emphases laid upon the meanings of the word ‘present’ give a unique edge to the poems. Glass, tears, ice, rivers, wine, salinity, tides: all these elements are woven into the texture of this collection, where the illuminations and fluidities of language are beautifully captured. — Penelope Shuttle; In his latest volume Edward Ragg weaves together two deft poetic sequences as a tribute to the power of water and the yearning water can evoke. From the shadows of Durham Cathedral to the Chinese water-town of Tongli, water in this collection is the long-promised rain, the speckled pattern on a window and dew evaporating to a new day. Framed within the challenges of navigating the world in the Covid era, this is a book to read, keep and cherish. — David Tait
£8.99
Cinnamon Press Shake the Kaleidoscope
Book SynopsisMemory, time, love and loss weave through all of G W Colkitto’s poems with a resonance that moves us fluidly from yearning to insight. The master of seeing connections, Shake the Kaleidoscope finds Colkitto taking a view across the whole of life: non-linear, sometimes fragmentary, imbued with whimsy and humour, but above all permeable to the scars and triumphs of loss and love. As the poems range back and forth across the years, one memory provoking another, it is not only the whole of the poet’s life laid out in the pieces of glass to be endlessly rearranged, but the whole of the human condition. Whether examining interior moments or negotiations with the world of work; whether writing astute commentary on political and social inequalities, or simply savouring those small moments of deep joy provoked by the simplest of things, Colkitto holds up a mirror to life—his own, and ours. Shake the Kaleidoscope is a major work from an accomplished poet: lucid, accessible, profound.
£8.99
Cinnamon Press Summer to Summer Looking
Book SynopsisGill McEvoy is a poet who moves through the world with all her senses open. The quality of attention here is profound and pays off in an elegance of phrase and originality of image that makes these poems sing off the page. There is often a playfulness at work in the linguistic dexterity of these pieces, as the poet engages in a car chase with the moon or the flora, fauna and meteorology of October are presented as a weather forecast. There is a connection to land here that is lived and authentic, it is never sentimental, but it brims with hope and generosity even in those moments when we know the longed-for vision' might never appear.
£8.67
Cinnamon Press The Adept
Book SynopsisThe Adept examines the disconnections the divide contemporary society and the individuals within it. Experimenting with character and form, the collection uncovers some of the paradoxes at the heart of modern life and the often tragic confusion wrought by those who preach certainty. A distinctive and compelling debut.
£9.99
Cinnamon Press Streetwise
Book SynopsisThe art of people-watching is one we all engage in, and in Streetwise these observations, suffused with the many ways we imagine the lives of others, take on depth and focus as poet and passers-by interact without a word needing to be said. In nuanced and lyrical pieces, the poet draws on years of experience as an employment lawyer, aware of those turned out onto the street; reflects on personal experience of the paths that lead to medical diagnoses, aware of those whose news was less fortunate, and above all, simply watches with a humane and intelligent perspective. From city streets to the streets of history, from country paths to places of memory, David Burridge follows in the footsteps of the philosopher Rousseau, revealing how much can be discovered by simply walking through a forest or up a hill. A finely layered and compelling reflection on the many routes we take through life, Streetwise is a collection to which readers will return.
£9.99
Carcanet Press Ltd Then the War: And Selected Poems 2007-2020
Book SynopsisWinner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2023. Then the War and Selected Poems, 2007-2020 is two books in one: a representative selection from seven of Carl Phillips's innovative earlier collections and a complete new book of poems, providing a powerful introduction to European readers. A seemingly gentle but resolute attention to the things of this world evokes the joyful and painful elements in the contemporary human condition, characterised by loneliness and an unquenchable thirst for love. He is a poet who knows the rules and bends or breaks them, a master of syntax and prosody, avoiding convention and pursuing the lines of desire. In a starred review of this book, Publishers Weekly said, 'These lyrically rich, insightful poems are full of palpable aching [...] and a human urge to understand. This remarkable compendium is a testament to the spirit of Phillips's work.'Trade Review'The writing dazzles with transcendent metaphors, complex connections and linguistic flourishes' - Washington Post; 'These lyrically rich, insightful poems are full of palpable aching [...] and a human urge to understand. This remarkable compendium is a testament to the spirit of Phillips's work.' - Publishers Weekly
£13.49
Carcanet Press Ltd Collected Poems
Book Synopsis
£24.00
Carcanet Press Ltd Sea-Fever: Selected Poems
Book Synopsis'Sea-Fever' remains one of the most popular poems of the last century, and John Masefield one of the most popular poets, a superb spinner of yarns and ballads of tall ships, exotic seas, of the deep-rooted life of rural England, and of the great narratives of Troy and Arthurian legend. This book includes his most popular poems and a few previously uncollected rarities. All share Masefield's love of particular lives: he draws the reader into his stories with an incomparable music of language. This is a representative selection of the poems, in chronological sequence spanning his long career. The editor also provides a full introduction to his work.
£15.29
Carcanet Press Ltd From Base Materials
Book SynopsisThese poems are apocalyptic and sensory, coming from a place of hurt and love, of the human spirit struggling to transcend 'base matter' and make sense of the world.
£10.79
Carcanet Press Ltd Conjurors
Book SynopsisConjurors presents this poet's best work, much of it for the first time.
£13.49
Legend Press Ltd The Prophet (Hero Classics)
Book Synopsis
£8.54
Graffeg Limited Choose Love
Book SynopsisIn this moving sequence of poems Nicola Davies''s text combines with the superbly evocative illustrations of Petr Horácek to provide insight into the real-life experiences of refugees forced to leave their homes and previous lives behind to face an unknown future.
£15.29
Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd Poeticus Pictoralis II: Nautical & Natural
Book SynopsisPoeticus Pictoralis II Nautical & Natural by Crispin is the 2nd book in the series and is all about combining words in a pleasing poetry-based style to form beautiful vistas and hopefully interesting scenarios in the mind's eye, whilst the original paintings supplement those words and bring pleasure to your actual eye. The subjects are various and range from, robins, blackbirds, hedgehogs and roses to dangerous seas, predatory seagulls and epic adventure. The poetry is succinct, subtle and can be read at a number of depths, depending upon how deep one wishes to go (not unlike the sea). There are 60 separate poems in each of the books and the beauty of that is you can either dip in for a minute or two for a single poem, or you can spend an afternoon of uplifting enjoyment.
£16.20
Luath Press Ltd If This Were Real
Book Synopsis
£8.54
Renard Press Ltd Interlude
Book SynopsisA profound collection that explores Nature and the magic of the in-between, Interlude considers how humans connect with their surrounding landscapes and the creatures with whom we share the planet.
£8.99
Smokestack Books Ferocious
Book Synopsis
£7.59
Cipher Press Limbic
Book SynopsisLimbic is Peter Scalpello's glittering ode to sex, intimacy, and queer discovery. Taking us on slippery nights out fuelled by chemsex, on drunken lads' holidays, and into the quiet violence of small domestic moments, this is a world where tracksuits hide queer desire, where shame masks vulnerability, where wallets hide wraps of crystal meth. From the eager trepidation of teenage sex, to the ecstasy of parties, to the stigma around HIV, Limbic is at once a therapy and a celebration, showing how queer learning can be both soft-edged and brutal at once. An exploration of masculinity, addiction and trauma, this is a revelatory collection of poems; wise, tender, and vital.Trade Review“Limbic is a stunning first collection from a breathtaking poet. Visceral, elegant and uncompromising; an important addition to the queer canon. Buy it a drink and let it talk to you late into the night.” – Joelle Taylor;“A moving collection which, through different forms, different narratives , and different encounters, speaks eloquently and dynamically to the multiplicities our own bodies contain.” – Andrew McMillan; “At once playful and devastating, raw and complex. These poems tear open the relationship between masculinity and sex, queerness, compulsions, addictions... It would be difficult not to be moved by this collection!” – Keith Jarrett; “All the superlatives for Peter Scalpello’s tender poems. I can’t stop thinking about them.” – Niven Govinden; "Peter Scalpello’s Limbic is an extraordinary book. At times riotous and celebratory as he explores queer desire in a complex and nuanced way; at other times introspective and even erased as Scalpello examines the impact of substance use on the self and on sexuality; and at other times bristling with poetic rage and protest! ‘Wounds need air’ he writes, finding a language, both noisy and translucent, to transform these wounds into poems – poems which ultimately transform and transcend themselves, as the poet even becomes his ‘own daddy’!" - Richard Scott
£10.44
Amber Books Ltd Gulistan Illustrated The Rose Garden
£25.49
Anthem Press The European Byron
Book SynopsisByron concealed himself in various literary disguises, a process he called mobility. In this study of influences on Byron's verse and Byron's European impact, I explore these borrowings and transformations as they manifested themselves in his reading. At issue is the very concept of romantic poetic voice. Framing himself in the tradition of the Irish yet cosmopolitan Thomas Moore, Byron adopted continental guises, imitating both Italian writers and political heroes, such as Dante, Machiavelli, and Tasso. In establishing an Italian identity, Byron relied upon the Italian writers he translated (Pulci, Dante), Thomas Moore's Fudge Family in Paris, and Shelley's Julian and Maddalo, as well as Goethe's Faust. This Europeanization of Byron should not conceal the fact that Byron adopted poses from his predecessors, such as Walter Scott, in order to fashion himself as a Scottish poet who also happened to be English. Byron became the writers he read: Moore, Shelley, Wordsworth, Scott, Foscolo, Lady Morgan, and Madame de Stael. Those who imitated Byron, particularly Alexander Pushkin and Adam Mickiewicz, became the best interpreters of his literary example, and explained what it meant to be a Harold in Muscovite Cloak, or a Polish Byron, to be both delimited and emancipated by Byron's example.
£76.00
Peepal Tree Press Ltd IsolarioIslarium
Book SynopsisThese Spanish-English poems focus on the island nature of Venezuela's Caribbean coast. Its rich observation of physical island-scapes is realised in imagery that strikes both with its freshness and rightness, and its speculative concern with the nature of islands in the Western imagination challenges us to new points of view.
£10.44
Gwasg Carreg Gwalch Trochi Cerddi Carwyn Eckley
Book Synopsis
£11.12
Alma Books Ltd Eugene Onegin: Newly Translated and Annotated -
Book SynopsisWhen the world-weary dandy Eugene Onegin moves from St Petersburg to take up residence in the country estate he has inherited, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with his neighbour, the poet Vladimir Lensky. Coldly rejecting the amorous advances of Tatyana and cynically courting her sister Olga – Lensky’s fiancée – Onegin finds himself dragged into a tragedy of his own making. Eugene Onegin – presented here in a sparkling translation by Roger Clarke, along with extensive notes and commentary – was the founding text of modern Russian literature, marking a clean break from the high-flown classical style of its predecessors and introducing the quintessentially Russian hero and heroine, which would remain the archetypes for novelists throughout the nineteenth century.Trade ReviewPushkin’s novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, is the book that has most influenced my life. -- Vikram Seth
£999.99
Alma Books Ltd Chamber Music and Other Poems: Annotated Edition
Book SynopsisUniversally known for his groundbreaking prose – especially for the monumental novel Ulysses and its depictions of Dublin at the turn of the twentieth century – James Joyce started off as a writer of lyrical poetry, a genre which he never abandoned in his lifetime and which informs and enriches the rest of his literary production. This volume, which includes Joyce’s first published book, Chamber Music, as well as his later collection Pomes Penyeach and several other uncollected poems, reveals a lesser-known facet of the great modernist’s artistic career and a glimpse into his poetical sensibility.Trade ReviewHis writing is not about something; it is that something itself. -- Samuel Beckett
£7.99
