Poetry / poems by individual poets
Poetry Wales Press Crowd Sensations: A Novel out of Time
Book Synopsis
£999.99
Poetry Wales Press From the Fortunate Isles: New and Selected Poems
Book Synopsis
£12.34
Poetry Wales Press What it's Like to be Alive: Selected Poems
£12.34
Poetry Wales Press Black Shiver Moss
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£999.99
Poetry Wales Press Way More Than Luck
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£9.49
Poetry Wales Press Twelve Poems for Christmas
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£6.83
Poetry Wales Press Gen
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£9.49
Poetry Wales Press All That Was Wood
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£6.83
Poetry Wales Press The Estate Agent's Daughter
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£9.49
Poetry Wales Press Bloodlines
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£6.83
Poetry Wales Press Lairs
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£9.49
Floris Books Stories, Poems and Meditations
Book SynopsisAlongside his work with the Camphill movement, Karl König was a prolific writer of stories, poems and meditative verses. This book contains: -- A selection of his creative work -- Verses for specific occasions -- Twenty-four poems -- Four stories for children-- Ten other short stories, including Also a Christmas StoryAn extensive introductory essay explores the cultural environments in which König was writing -- including Vienna in the early twentieth century, and the challenging times leading up to the Second World War -- and discusses the creative development of his literary work.Trade Review'There is much beauty in these meditative verses, and the profound sense for esoteric Christianity and the penetration of Rudolf Steiners anthroposophy sounds through these especially, sometimes in pure intimacy, sometimes loud and clear. I would warmly like to recommended this book for all readers, not just for those familiar with the subject. '-- PerspectivesTable of ContentsI Want the Meaning of Life The Lyrical Work of Karl Konig (Introduction by Alfons Limbrunner) Editor's Note (Richard Steel) Meditative Verses Christmas 1944 Guardians of the Services For the Goetheanum Windows For the Children of Lake Farm For the Friends in America Poems For Alfred Bergel Untitled [1920] Untitled [1921] Whitsun To You, Brother Proletarian! For Albert Steffen's Pilgrimage to the Tree of Life Calling Up Untitled [for Tilla 1938] For You For Me For Turner, the Great Painter To Germany Untitled [probably 1940] For the Camphill Community Prater Pound and Dollar Verse for the Human Being Easter Morning St John's Day Whit Sunday Eye and Ear Calendar Verse [1961] Calendar Verse [1962] The Tourmaline Secret One Last Poem? (Richard Steel) Karl Konig's Last Poem Stories for Children Two Addresses for Children Michaelmas Advent Two Parables Arranged for Eurythmy The Treasure in the Field The Pearl in the Shell Short Stories The Bohemian-Moravian Brotherhood The Monk's Dream The Idle Tongue Brother and Sister Athena Parthenos The Three Days Christmas Past, Present and Future A Highland Story One Morning 1352 bc Also a Christmas Story Karl Konig's Christmas Story (a postscript by Richard Steel) Appendix Notes Bibliography Index
£14.24
Gibson Square Books Ltd Green Fingers
Book SynopsisFollowing her previous two bestselling volumes, Liz Cowley returns with a new collection of 140 humorous cameos inspired by gardening quirks in her accessible, witty style the perfect thing to have to hand during a tea-break!Trade Review`Witty, straight from the heart.’ Joanna Lumley
£11.77
Upfront Publishing Fields of Fire
Book SynopsisA reflective look at the Great War of 1914-1918 through modern poetry and verse.
£11.52
Y Lolfa Mostly Welsh
Book SynopsisA collection of poems mostly focused on life in the countryside of Wales. Poems of place many blending in historic, mythological or personal themes. Poems to do with the people and the land; poems which deal with love and loss.
£8.07
Salt Publishing School of Forgery
Book SynopsisPBS Recommendation. The school of forgery is a singular institution, whose principal teachings concern the volatile relationship between fakery and invention. Both you and I are its alumni, and so is the bandit boiled alive in a cauldron of oil. So are the perpetrators of hoaxes, the writers of pornographic dōjinshi, counterfeiters in love with their teachers and teens who dress up as birds to fight tyranny. Its professors proliferate. Its graduates excel in every field. Its campus is the world.This book, part prospectus and part fanzine, is made from stolen or borrowed parts – centos and collages, half-rhymes and homophonics, translations and travesties. Equally inspired by manga luminaries like Naoki Urasawa, animation and adventure stories as it is by earlier poets, the natural world and human history, School of Forgery postulates the poem as knock-off, as reclaimed scrap, and most of all as through-and-through fabrication.Trade ReviewThe structure of School of Forgery is ingenious and impressively intricate. Its slotting architectures are slit, mortised and battened. (...) I stress-tested their timbre by reading poems aloud and yielded a cadence of genuine feeling within the multifaceted, mega-fabricated, louche architecture. -- David Morley * Magma *These are poems with an edge, or rather, multiple sharp edges, poems as elaborate 'fabrications' challenging conventions of form and voice. This is an inspired, integrated debut, endlessly inventive, with a lively intertextuality and a wide frame of reference. The language is both playful and hard-wrought, words at high voltage, words as collector's items. -- PBS Selectors' CommentsA poet of fantastic inversions. -- Alison Brackenbury * Poetry London *Table of Contents Originals Near Extremes 1 The Mark And why do you want to work for the Secret Service? Tongue Torn Page from a Chapter on Ray Guns Dojinshiworld Cloud Swifts Near Extremes 2 Goemon at 50 degrees Mustard Father Popieluszko Send in the Mink Chimney Swifts Near Extremes 3 The Procedure Nell Gwynn Poses for Lely Mimic Octopus Nosejobs Jake Root Beach Swifts Near Extremes 4 Icicle A Chest of Letters The School of Forgery Boy They Never See Themselves Coffee Swifts The Year Long Dress Rehearsal Fakes Tatsunoko Far Dancing and . . . What Robots Murmur Through Broken Sleep Snowbeasts The Laughing Body Second-Hand Kite Feathers The Not-Who-They-Say-They-Are Sonnets 7-Kyoku Adcock Modulations (Symbolic, Fantastic, Historic, Personal) Death Daydream Season All Year Dress Rehearsing Notes & Admissions
£9.99
Salt Publishing Cracked Skull Cinema
Book SynopsisPoetry Wales: Poetry Books of 2019Cracked Skull Cinema offers poems on culture and society, colonialism and its legacies, media and power. Set between these are homages and reflections on middle age, on life’s loves and losses.Trade ReviewBeing focussed and aware is not without pain, suffering and sacrifice for the narrator of these poems. The final poem ‘Lullaby’ concludes ‘we understood the cost of what eluded us.’ These poems are full of careful, taut observations and considerations, all within ‘the eager crosshairs of truth’s opportune rifle.’ If at times I longed for some linguistic carnage to shake things up, this is nonetheless a sure-footed, agile and wise group of poems. -- Rupert Loydell * Stride Magazine *Briggs' Cracked Skull Cinema is replete with dynamic poetic forms and musicality. Rather than invoking a detached speaker or catalogue of observations, Briggs engage with his subjects, colouring them with intriguing language and reflections that move beyond the sphere of the internalised self... Cracked Skull Cinema contains multitudes. Through the tesserae of social commentary, humours quips, and artefacts of popular culture come moments of lucid beauty. -- Sarah-Jean Zubair * Poetry London *Cracked Skull Cinema opens, in fact, with a near-dystopia (near in the sense, that the world it atomises is only not quite with us already) where ‘good little Puritan boys / from the suburbs who’ve snagged their trews // on the thorns of privilege ... haven’t a clue / how to unhook themselves.’ That word ‘privilege’ recurs in ‘Reader Response’, where we’re introduced to ‘those who see darkly through veils of privilege, / /who cannot see the world as it is, / /cannot cope with too much reality’. Anyone who has been trying to ‘see the world as it is’ through their own ‘veils of privilege’ (or indeed lack of it) in recent times will, of course, not find it difficult to identify specific candidates for the privileges kind that Briggs is referring to, yet the echoes of Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians (‘for now we see through a glass, darkly’) and Eliot’s Four Quartets (‘Humankind cannot bear very much reality’) take these lines beyond the topical and connect immediately political situations with wider-ranging concerns, both philosophical and psychological. * Raceme *
£9.49
Salt Publishing Hawthorn City
Book SynopsisGardens, grotesqueries, historical landscapes, destruction and darkness, all collide in Tony Williams’ explosive new collectionTony Williams is roaming the earth. The poems in Hawthorn City record the tales we tell ourselves to make a home in the lives we find ourselves living. They are songs to family, to stone and outlawry and refusal, and to the fevered memory which reaches back beyond birth, past early modern witches and shepherds’ songs, past medieval chronicles and Icelandic sagas, to the ancient city-states, homely and hellish, which part of the modern imagination still inhabits. Travelling darker and deeper towards the state which is both origin and grave, this grotesque comedy of a book intensifies into a bizarre, baroque vision of the world and our place in it.Trade ReviewTony Williams’s Hawthorn City is also a revelation. This powerful collection, Williams’s fourth, takes the reader to a world of Medieval chroniclers, old farmers’ songs, early modern witches, and Icelandic sagas, where the ordinary mingles with the extraordinary.The poet’s use of tightly metered verse and a language both rich and imaginative takes the reader to strange and expansive landscapes [. . .] Williams’s poetic world reminds me of Borges's intellectual labyrinths and ancient libraries. His erudition is never dense or academic but, rather, always unusual, an adventure of the spirit from which the reader can always leave surprised and enriched. -- Leo Boix * Magma Poetry *
£9.49
Salt Publishing The Night Jar
Book SynopsisDynamic first collection from this popular Scottish poet, The Night Jar lifts the lid on a fizzing range of personas, dramas and states of mind – presenting them for our delight: ‘I collect the materials of the small hours, / all that gorgeous paraphernalia.’ Peterkin explores the expectations and limits of being human with lashings of wit and sometimes a disquieting note of threat. Mad cap, extravagant, urban and questioning, this is a collection no one will forget.Trade ReviewA lively, ambitious first collection with, already, a voice of its own and plenty to say. -- Sheenagh PughLouise Peterkin’s The Night Jar contains poems that are incantatory and dreamlike but always bordering on nightmares … What is most striking about Peterkin’s approach is that often she draws her cues for poems from popular culture or fairy tales. This is nothing new, but most poets are praised for seeing the extraordinary in the quotidian (vide Larkin). Peterkin inverts this; she sees the mundanity in the fantasy, often to great comic effect. -- Richie McCaffery * Northwords *
£9.49
Salt Publishing Heat Wave
Book SynopsisHeat Wave is a form of poetic cabaret,‘What good is sitting, alone in your room?/ come hear the music play!’ If a cabaret is full of high jinks it can also land punches – truth can be masked by the burlesque and the grotesque: ‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant’.Luke Kennard has said of Stannard’s writing, ‘I know of few other poets who can write of cruelty, hysteria and disappointment with such levity and grace.’ Will Eaves speaks of a ‘comic vitality’. Heat Wave seeks to unsettle and wrong-foot; it refuses to adopt a sententious or holier than thou attitudes regarding the many crises which confront us. The poems subvert as well as entertain. Critics have noted ‘a tonal control and simultaneous considerations of matters mordant and gleeful.’ The reader might weep and laugh on the same page. The lyrical and the demotic might walk hand in hand.Trade ReviewThis is a brilliant collection, endlessly rich, strange and funny, blessed with a unique voice that is both instantly unmistakable, and yet capable of boundless elasticity. Locked down on Brexit Island, Heat Wave is the most perfectly unreliable companion anyone could wish for. -- Alan Bilton * Ambit Magazine *
£9.99
Salt Publishing The Jazz Age: An Entertainment
Book SynopsisIf you can imagine William Blake playing Scrabble with Joni Mitchell, Catherine of Aragon booking into the Holiday Inn, or Cassius Clay meeting the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, you’re ready for the dreamworld created by Aidan Semmens in The Jazz Age. After five books of intense – some would say difficult – poetry, he has produced something more accessible, surprising, and fun. In a series of prose vignettes he casts an array of historical figures into times and places other than their own, playing on anachronism and dislocation to surreal, witty, frequently comic, occasionally poignant or disturbing effect. Each brief episode is crystalline, the whole piece theatrical, enjoyably absurd. You might identify a questioning of belief systems, of social hierarchy, of human individuality and inter-relationship – but essentially this is, as it is billed, entertainment.
£10.44
Salt Publishing To An Occupier Burning Holes
Book SynopsisFormally-innovative, wildly-inventive, comic, surreal and poignant – Evans’s poetry is a restless delight as he tackles almost any subject from lost invoices, hearing aids, fruit flies, migration, bin lorries, bullet-pierced road signs, to love’s strains and pleasures. As entertaining as they are impressive, these poems are in and of the physical world, brimming with ideas and passion and sharing it all with real panache.Trade ReviewThis is poetry with energy and vision, displaying a forensic accuracy of metaphor and image to deliver writing which disturbs, delights and moves the reader, often all at once. -- David Harmer * Orbis *To An Occupier Burning Holes is above all a well-observed collection, in which Evans seems to “really see” what he writes about, yet here he acknowledges the limits of language and poetry. Within these confines, though, this is a poet who uses his considerable craft to treat of themes and issues in a carefully personal way. Overall, an individual and distinctive collection. -- Tim Murphy * The Friday Poem *There’s a difficulty in reviewing a collection of poems in which the perspective shifts between an ostensibly dispassionate survey of international crises and the intimacy of human and family relationships, especially when the poet also displays considerable formal variety in response to the themes he explores. Yet the world as it is now seems to demand our attention, while our nearest connections, if we are fortunate, draw out our capacity for warmth and, inevitably, grief at loss. Ken Evans’ new collection spans this wide range and a review can give only a small flavour of the variety within. -- Kathleen Bell * The High Window *
£10.44
Salt Publishing Woof! Woof! Woof!
Book SynopsisIn a radical departure in style and tone, Rob A. Mackenzie’s new collection, Woof! Woof! Woof!, offers biting satire and sweeping social commentary. From the murk of political engagement in an age of offence sensibility, to the bleached-out culture of munificent late-capitalism, Mackenzie’s experimental poems take the reader on an engaging and engaged descent into the sort of purgatory we may never choose to escape from, yet his impish wit offers us all a large dose of saving grace. Sardonic, at times morally exhausted, the poems offer a clear-sighted challenge to the risk of isolationism and powerless relativism.
£10.44
Salt Publishing Shapeshifting for Beginners
Book SynopsisEmma Simon's wide-ranging, work explores how strange and surreal the everyday can be and how real life and stories tend to bleed into one another. These poems mysterious, mythic, magical remain deeply accessible, while being witty and serious. An unforgettable debut collection.
£10.44
Salt Publishing White Noise Machine
Book SynopsisWhere Richard Skinner’s previous pamphlets, Invisible Sun and Dream into Play, were primarily concerned with the play of light and playfulness respectively, White Noise Machine is mainly concerned with sound. A white noise machine is a device that produces a noise that calms the listener, which in many cases sounds like a rushing waterfall or wind blowing through trees, and other serene or nature-like sounds and Skinner has used this idea to try to create this effect in many of the poems.
£10.44
Bonnier Books UK Wild Hope
£11.39
Cinnamon Press Backwards forwards across the sea
Book SynopsisYvonne Baker has the ability to conjure a world that is at once recognisable and fresh. In this two-part collection we travel with those whose migration brings new worlds and loss in equal amounts. Who do we become in a different place separated from a land that still calls us? Who do we become if we remain behind? Baker interrogates these questions in sequences alive with vivid details, illuminated with affection and empathy. Here lives flutter down in fragments, a shelter is built of story, and unwritten rules for the poor are exposed. Here Irish aunts and other saints leap from the page, ready with an umbrella, making a holy show of themselves, or finding peace in the deep waters of the heart. Themes of belonging, memory and what haunts us run through all of Yvonne Baker's work, and her gift is to bring new perspectives to the questions we ask about what forms us, how we navigate a shifting world and how we remember those we love yet never fully know. At the heart of this collecti
£9.99
Cinnamon Press Domestic Damage
Book SynopsisIn Domestic Damage, Jenny Morris explores a range of dysfunctional environments, strange relationships and experiences on the margins. Her work is lyrical, her imagery compressed and precise and her observation razor-sharp. The results are intelligent poems that see life sideways, that are not afraid to look into the shadows and the dark, but always with a compassionate gaze. Imaginative and poignant, but never sentimental; unflinching in the face of the gruesome, but never gratuitous, this is poetry that questions and reveals without judging; a mature and accomplished collection.
£999.99
Cinnamon Press Stranger
Book SynopsisIn Stranger we journey from people to places, visiting creatures, objects and conditions, all of which are odd, slightly off-kilter, seen from a unusual perspective… Linguistically deft and formally inventive, the poems challenge us to reflect on the stranger in our midst, conceptions of social and personal estrangement, the strangeness of everyday life and what we might take as apparitions. With sections introduced by translations of Chinese Sung Dynasty poetry, the poems move between brief aperçus to longer meditations. Original, haunting, alive to our current global situation, even at their most oneiric, these are inventive poems brimming with integrity from a distinctive voice.
£999.99
Cinnamon Press Parramisha
Book SynopsisWhat’s written about us by non-Roma is a stereotypical image that’s both romantic and vilified. In writing our own Parramisha-story we are obligated to deconstruct those prevailing narratives readily available in popular culture and that have unjustly treated us. Parramisha challenges the reader to reconstruct a new image as a life affirming narrative of our wholeness as a Romani identity.Trade ReviewThis is a an evocative debut collection from Frances Roberts Reilly, where everyday objects and belongings are transformed into all things magical, a true delight. Parramish... will transport you to the heart of Welsh Romany life as it traces the Tatcho Romany Drom, the True Heart's Path and brings the voices of old Gypsy souls back to life. — Raine Geoghegan; This deeply felt collection is an exemplar of how a Romani heritage may be celebrated ... as a wellspring of cultural innovation and adaptation within diverse contemporary society. — Thomas Acton, OBE, Emeritus Professor of Romani Studies
£9.99
Cinnamon Press Mother and Son
Book SynopsisHow does a family survive when their sixteen-year-old son is diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, a condition that comes with episodic paranoid schizophrenia: hallucinations, delusions…? When the family is that of Marie Dullaghan and her son Aidan, the willingness to negotiate the strangest behaviour, and resilience to live with the shadow that suicidal ideation might become a knock on the door whenever Aidan took off, was extraordinary. And just as extraordinary was the fact that Aidan somehow made his way through A levels and a BA in Fine Art, while his mother did her own degree in photography. With a degree show to prepare for, Marie began to reconstruct some of the worst and most bizarre moments with Aidan’s help. The conversations and healing that came from this adventure in art were remarkable. The images, always more art than biography, became a sequence of re-imagined narratives going beyond any pretence of historical accuracy to give viewers a rare and authentic insight into this journey of mother and son. The powerful images were shown at exhibitions and then put away. Until, Marie revisited them whilst in lockdown in Malaysia, this time through the medium of poetry. The resulting book opens a deep and poignant conversation around mental health. Moving across the emotional range of despair, terror and bewilderment, it becomes a testimony to healing, empathy and hope. Mother and Son is a triumph of both art and poetry, but most of all a triumph of the human spirit.
£999.99
Cinnamon Press Daughter
Book SynopsisComposed in three movements—preludes, variations and fugue—Daughter is an exploration of what being the daughter means for the poet and her parents, recognising that there is so much of our parents’ lives that is barely glimpsed, that is pieced together from stories. What was it like to live through the Second World War beside the Thames in London? How can the writer celebrate her parents’ lives and mourn their deaths through her own development as a poet? How can she express love for those she thinks of constantly? For Patricia Helen Wooldridge, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s A Sketch of the Past, the answers are acts of imagination, merging memoir with poetry. Lyrical, seasonal, walking in landscape, soaring with birds and full of flowers, Daughter paints the world of parents and poet through a collage of memories. Tender, poignant, balancing the enormity of loss with the vastness of love and, crucially, demonstrating the grace of poetry to meld past and present, this is an exquisite and heart-felt collection.
£999.99
Dar Arab So That the Butterfly Won't Die
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£11.17
Acair Beum-Sgèithe
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£12.95
Acair Turas
Book Synopsis
£11.78
Acair Somhairle MacGillEain Na Bhriathran Fhèin
Book Synopsis
£16.10
Legend Press Ltd Coffee Days, Whiskey Nights
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.
£9.49
Renard Press Ltd The Bab Ballads: A New Selection
Book Synopsis'"What?" said the reverend gent, "Dance through my hours of leisure? Smoke? Bathe myself with scent? Play croquet? Oh, with pleasure!"' Today W.S. Gilbert is best known for the comic operas he produced in collaboration with Arthur Sullivan, but another of his great - and numerous - literary contributions were his humorous ballads, written and illustrated under the pseudonym 'Bab'. Combining his trademark absurdist wit with keenly observed character studies, the ballads are a satirical tour de force that lambast society figures. This new selection, chosen and introduced by Andrew Crowther, Secretary of the W.S. Gilbert Society, brings together the very best of the ballads and presents the 'Bab' works for a new readership.Table of Contents‘W.S. Gilbert: A Brief Introduction’, ‘Introduction’, ‘Preface to The Bab Ballads (1869)’, The Bab Ballads: ‘Captain Reece’, ‘The Rival Curates’, ‘General John’, ‘Haunted’, ‘The Troubadour’, ‘Ferdinando and Elvira’, ‘Babette’s Love’, ‘To My Bride’, ‘Sir Macklin’, ‘The Yarn of the Nancy Bell’, ‘The Bishop of Rum-Ti-Foo’, ‘The Precocious Baby’, ‘Thomas Winterbottom Hance’, ‘A Discontented Sugar Broker’, ‘The Ghost, the Gallant, the Gael and the Goblin’, ‘At a Pantomime’, ‘Thomson Green and Harriet Hale’, ‘The Story of Prince Agib’, ‘Ellen McJones Aberdeen’, ‘Peter the Wag’, ‘Joe Golightly’, ‘Gentle Alice Brown’, ‘Mister William’, ‘The Bumboat Woman’s Story’, ‘Pasha Bailey Ben’, ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Flare’, ‘Lost Mr Blake’, ‘The Baby’s Vengeance’, ‘Annie Protheroe’, ‘Gregory Parable, LL D’, ‘Brave Alum Bey’, ‘Sir Barnaby Bampton Boo’, ‘The Modest Couple’, ‘My Dream’, ‘The Haughty Actor’, ‘The Two Majors’, ‘Emily, John, James and I’, ‘The Perils of Invisibility’, ‘The Fairy Curate’, ‘The Way of Wooing’, ‘Etiquette’, Notes, ‘The Selected Ballads in Chronological Order’
£8.99
Bookvault Publishing The Paternity Haiku
£10.03
The 87 Press Fleshed Out For All The Corners Of The Slip
Book Synopsis"This major new work is thought, spirit and sense (in every sense) ‘fleshed out’ in ‘all the corners’ by being unmade – as poetry, as music, as (black and white) images, and as attention to the interconnected circuitries the One has with the social, historical and environmental ‘to / link us outside’." - Emily CritchleyFor fans of: Nathaniel Mackey, Fred Moten, Will Alexander, D. S. Mariott This is a book of poems and an essay infused with the tempos of Grime music and black radical thought.
£12.34
Taproot Press Plague Clothes: Poems from the Covid-recovery
Book SynopsisOriginally written as a series of Facebook status updates during the recovery from Covid-19, Robert Alan Jamieson's Plague Clothes is an immediate and intimate account of one person's battle with the virus that emphasises the universality of our struggle during the pandemic. Moving seamlessly between sharp satire, confessional and philosophical enquiry, Jamieson takes aim at Western government, laments the current ecological crisis, and challenges our treatment of the so-called 'old and vulnerable', carried all the way by a rare voice of wisdom and protest at a time when ageism in society risks reducing an entire generation to statistics. Published in beautiful hardback with seventeen black and white photographs. Longlisted for the 2020 Highland Book Prize.
£999.99
Taproot Press Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds: Li Bai an Du Fu
Book SynopsisThe latest book by the Sarah Maguire Prize-winning poet and translator Brian Holton, Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds is a collection of Scots translations of poetry by Li Bai and Du Fu, two of the most renowned poets of Ancient China. By bringing two of the world’s great poets – from the oldest continuous literary tradition in the world – into the library of Scots writing, Brian Holton creates a text as valuable in its own way to the literary tradition as Lorimer’s wonderful ‘New Testament in Scots’. Published in stunning hardback with calligraphy by Chinese artist Chi Zhang, Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds was the beneficiary of a Scottish Book Trust Scots Publication Grant.Trade Review‘What a wonderful book this is. Brian Holton is the living master of literary Scots, and though 1300 years separate their times from ours, Holton’s translations of Li Bai and Du Fu speak to our own age. They are perennial poems of love and war and exile, youth and age, by turns wistful, moving, vivacious and sad. Brian Holton’s Scots is playful and unforced. Translating directly from the Chinese, he demonstrates the vigour and subtlety of which Scots is capable, relishing a language as well-resourced and malleable as any other. These are beautiful lyric poems.’ Kathleen Jamie; ‘It is a singular stroke of imaginative genius to translate the poems of Du Fu and Li Bai into Scots, one which, perhaps, only Brian Holton is capable of. His longtime familiarity with and comprehensive knowledge of these ancient yet still-intimate texts, together with his deep knowledge of the border ballad tradition and its foundational role in Scottish literature, has created a curious and compelling hybrid realm, in which the reader’s imagination dwells as vividly as in a work of historical fiction, Ossianic forgery, or compelling fantasy.' Bill Herbert; 'Published in a fine pocketbook-sized bilingual hardback edition Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds brings into synthetic Scots the work of two great 8th century lyric poets, Li Bai and Du Fu. Holton is a scholar of and specialist in the Chinese language, and the work is a really welcome addition to the repertoire of published literature in the Scots language. The poems are delight to read and that has no doubt been facilitated by the particular ease and grace with which that countrified peasant nature of Scots (as noted above) can carry the lyrics from 8th century China. Holton speaks of the ‘hamelieness’ of Scots in reference to this point, and one can’t but feel that modern English might indeed strike a tone to knowingly distant from the culture here to bring these ancient Chinese poems alive. The important point about Holton’s expertise in both languages – Chinese and Scots – here, is that these are not adaptations, whereby some anonymous translator has put the Chinese into some basic English (or Scots) and Holton as poet has then jazzed them up. What we have here are ‘versions’, as Holton calls them, calling on a citation from fellow poet Don Paterson to define such ‘versions’ as ‘trying to be poems in their own right’.' Bella Caledonia
£999.99
Flapjack Press Fighting Talk: A COVID-19 Poetry Diary
Book SynopsisComposed throughout the initial phase of the UK's coronavirus lockdown, 'National Reading Hero' Paul Cookson's poetry diary covers the period of 23rd March to 3rd July 2020. Compassionate, societal, political and principled, and laced with the author's renowned humour, here is an extraordinary collection for extraordinary times and a reflective discourse on the mood of a nation. "Paul Cookson is a poet for all seasons and all occasions. He's never going to let a worldwide pandemic curb his creativity. COVID-19 will give up before he does. This book takes you on a Corolla-Coaster of emotions, but don't worry - with Paul you are in safe and well washed hands." - Henry Normal; "Paul somehow manages to season his cogent observations of COVID-19 with a dash of humour that makes you want to dip in again and again. He has you wishing you could drop in and join him for his daily cup of tea." - Valerie Bloom; "Witty and wise, astute and acerbic, Paul Cookson and Chris Riddell are a dream team for these nightmarish times." - Tony WalshTrade ReviewPraise for Paul Cookson's work: "Every day should have a Paul Cookson moment." - Simon Mayo; "Simple, direct and poetic. Caring, compassionate and funny." - Ian McMillan; "Hilarious." - The Times; "Wordsmithery of the highest order and wittiest bent." - Mark Radcliffe
£999.99
Flapjack Press Vitriol Works
Book SynopsisGeneviève’s last poetry collection was split into two sections, ‘Lost’ and ‘Found’, outlining that everybody fits into one of those categories. This one, written in the 2016-2020 mega-mystery-box of xenophobia and destruction, comes all in one chunk, as now is the time when almost everybody is just terrified. Vitriol Works is a sublimely subversive collection of hard-hitting honesty exploring social and sexual politics, identity and alienation, and searching for meaning within an un-governed, post-Brexit, pandemic-enduring nation.Trade Review"As complex as it is accessible, and as passionate as it is nihilistic, this is a work of profound intelligence and insight." - Clare Shaw, poet, playwright & writer; "Gritty, lyrical and packed with dark humour." - Sophie Sparham, spoken word artist & writer; "A rallying call to all of us left behind by the inequalities of society - the perfect amalgamation of the personal and the universal." - Kevin P. Gilday, spoken word artist & writer; "Poetry to make your fists itch." - Joelle Taylor, poet, playwright & author; "She has the ability to tell a hard truth with a finesse and style that you can't (and won't want to) look away from." - Dave Viney, spoken word artist & playwright; "A rallying cry, a withering put-down and the best song you ever heard all at once. Northern Gothic at its finest." - AJ McKenna, spoken word artist
£999.99
Flapjack Press Job Lot of Rhymes
Book SynopsisA collection of poetry and lyrics spanning three decades of Cherry B's performance work. Political, societal and inclusive, this is uncompromising and passionate punk 'n' roll poetics firing from the belly of social conscience. Illustrated by Fe Duncan.Trade Review"She speaks the words many women of all ages feel, covers subjects that delight us by being brought to attention even when they are uncomfortable truths." - Jennie Russell-Smith, Rebellion Festivals; "Her work is earthy, confrontational, poignant and thought provoking. She is going from strength to strength." - Attila the Stockbroker, poet & musician; "A glorious romp through social and sexual politics. Cherry B had me chuckling one moment and prickling with injustice the next. I love her positive energy and shrewd observations, a wonderful read." - Carol Hodge, musical artist
£10.00
Flapjack Press How I Made My Millions
Book SynopsisJourneying from coming of age, coming to Manchester and coming to terms with life, Rob Steventon wrangles humour from the more preposterous - and disgraceful - aspects of modern society. Political, radical and filled with social commentary, astute wit and comic observation, How I Made My Millions proves that accessible poetry is not the sole property of advertising companies.Trade Review"His words are inventive, surprising, political, accessible and really laugh-out-loud funny." - Dominic Berry, Glastonbury Festival poet-in-residence; "Rob tells his generation's story with style, wisdom and humour." - Attila the Stockbroker, poet & musician; "A vital new voice in stand-up poetry. Young, angry and most importantly, very funny." - Kate Fox, stand-up poet; "Relatable, funny and poignant poetics. A brilliant addition to the UK poetry scene." - Dave Viney, spoken word artist; "It's no coincidence that performance poetry became more popular once Rob got involved." - Thick Richard, spoken word artist
£999.99
Flapjack Press Speaking in Tongues
Book SynopsisLaura’s third collection with Flapjack Press is a rallying call for action and challenges inequality, oppression and division with passion, objectivity, empathy and humour. This is socially conscious and uncompromising poetry, which explores the slippery and inconclusive condition of language, the power of ideology and the process of myth-making, addressing the wellbeing of a diverse nation governed by a political and social elite and their culpability.Trade Review"This is Taylor at her best. Her energy, anger and passion are apparent in every word. Her writing is urgent, powerful and her punches land. A must-have collection. Buy this book." Emma Purshouse, poet laureate for Wolverhampton; "Poems to have a beer with, to sit round a fire and keep warm with, to rage against the system with, to take to the streets with." Steph Pike, poet; "Tongues of fire in a time of plague. Raging against conspiracy theorists, defending the vulnerable, the homeless, the old, the hardest hit in the worst of times. A supremely clever working-class poet." Attila the Stockbroker, poet & musician; "If there was an equivalent of Masterchef for cooking words into exquisitely tasty and surprising dishes, then Taylor would win it. Hot. Flavourful. Authentic. Instant pleasure with a long, lingering aftertaste." Janine Booth, poet & writer; "At times forceful, at others lyrical ... crosses from personal to political and cross-examines who we were and who we have become." Winston Plowes, poet; "This is Taylor's best yet. Her language is lush and confident, and her range is limitless ... wise, honest, funny, angry, mature and assured. This book is the tonic we all need." Cathy Thomas-Bryant, poet & writer
£999.99
The Melos Press Fleet
Book Synopsis
£999.99
