Poetry / poems by individual poets

Book SynopsisThe Bag Apron: The Poet and His Community is part of UCD Press's The Poet's Chair series, publishing the public lectures of the Ireland Professors of Poetry. The Ireland Chair of Poetry was established in 1998 following the award of the Nobel Prize of Literature to Seamus Heaney and is supported by Queen's University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Counci 1/An Chomhairle Ealafon. Other poets in the series include Nuala N1 Dhomhnaill, Paul Durcan, Michael Longley, Harry Clifton and Paula Meehan. In his volume of The Poet's Chair, John Montague speaks of finding his own voice and of 'wandering around the world to discover the self you were born with'. He also shares his thoughts on the long poem format and the relationship between words and music, investigates the challenges of translation in poetry, and speaks about his relationship with Samuel Beckett, whom he knew in Paris.Trade Review'Beautifully printed and bound, this substantial series of published lectures pays testament to the rich diversity of contemporary Irish poetry and its criticism. It also offers the opportunity to consider how several important Irish poets have variously gone about the challenge of professing poetry in the public sphere.' Tom Walker, Irish Literary Supplement, Spring 2019 ||| ''Collectively these three books could be said to form a self-created imaginative conscience , and should be required reading for every serious student of poetry.' Michael O'Loughlin, The Irish Times, March 2018Table of ContentsForeword; The Bag Apron or The Poet and His Community; Short Thoughts on the Long Poem; The Challenge of Translation; Samuel Beckett, Neighbour; Biographical Note; Acknowledgements; Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn The World Unmade Frank Ormsby explores the poetic diversity of Northern Ireland, with a particular focus on the poetry of the Troubles. He draws on his own experience as editor of a literary magazine and a number of anthologies. He also explores the structuring of his next collection, The Tumbling Paddy, which extends the range of his most recent poems. He retains a sharp eye for the absurdities and fragilities of history, as well as its impact on the present. The Ireland Chair of Poetry was established in 1998 following the award of the Nobel Prize of Literature to Seamus Heaney and is supported by Queen's University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Council 1/An Chomhairle Ealaion. Other poets in the series include Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, John Montague, Paul Durcan, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Michael Longley, Harry Clifton and Paula Meehan.Trade Review‘There are some poems that come out almost fully formed, but there are others that I have struggled with, and still more that eventually spring from a single line or image that I have stored away.’ - RTÉ Culture, 8 November 2023.; ‘Ormsby says his “poems are populated with whole communities of isolated people”, which touches upon one meaning of poetry in itself, in this enjoyable, slim book.’ – Irish Times, 30 Nov 2023.

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Book SynopsisA collection of 154 sonnets reflecting on love, death, marriage and economic theory, each taking its inspiration from Shakespeare's 154. These poems have wit and a kick coming from a middle-aged woman in the middle of Scotland in the twenty-first century.Trade Review“…every poem in the book is a response to each one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, all 154 of them. Each of Reid’s sonnets follows Shakespeare’s original in metre, line endings and rhyme but the sonnets’ subject matter is bang up to date…” – Financial Times

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Book SynopsisDeclaration on Freedom for Writers and Readers is an anthology of poetry and prose exploring freedom of expression. The year 2020 marks the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath in which the Scottish nobility appealed to the Pope to support the nation’s fight for freedom from ‘the rule of the English’. The need to hear and understand each other is as urgent now as it ever was. This project was conceived and realised by Scottish PEN which, for nearly 100 years, has been campaigning for freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas across borders. Declarations includes many voices, featuring some of Scotland’s leading writers such as Karen Campbell, A C Clarke, Carl MacDougall, and James Robertson, as well as writers from overseas.Trade Review'In these difficult times, PEN said the need to hear and understand each other is as vital as it ever was. PEN International has been campaigning for freedom of expression for almost 100 years.' -- The National * The National *'This rich anthology won’t merely be relevant to the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, the poems and prose will remain relevant until humanity accepts the individual’s right to freedom. Sadly, thus, this book will remain relevant for many years to come.' -- Liv Niven * Gitanjali and Beyond *A brilliant collection. I particularly enjoyed the letters towards the end. An anthology that takes you deep into Scottish history, heritage, and culture, and then takes you across the world. -- Anonymous * Goodreads *It is a celebration of freedom of expression - an assertion of our fundamental right to speak and to write, to read and to listen, to call power to account in the face of injustice. -- Anonymous * Goodreads *Table of ContentsContents Preface by T M Devine Introduction Mario Relich, Alasdair Gray on the Declaration of Arbroath: a personal view Jim Aitken, Abbot Bernard’s vision Donald Adamson, The wirth o freedom* Alex Nye, The price of freedom David McVey, From Bannockburn to Arbroath Gerry Loose, Isle of Bute Declaration Christiane Oetter, My forefathers tell me G W Colkitto, You say Declaration of Arbroath Christie Williamson, So long Donald S Murray, A different declaration Sylvia Anne Telfer, Declaration from the Castle of Perseverance Mairi Murphy, In praise of argument A C Clarke, Correspondences Karen Campbell, Saorsa Solomon Jessie, Show me Colin Robinson, Resistant Louise Eldridge, Unvanquished Lawrence Schimel, The freedom to write Chris Wright, They told me Anne Murray, Images of freedom Greg Chatterton, Bushveld suburbia David Bleiman, The ugly truth Mary McCabe, Maide-Crochaidh – Hanging stick Rosemary Hector, Babel Jock Stein, Tones of destiny* Linda Lewin, The fig tree Seth Crook, Declaration of naming rights Elaine Webster, Freedom of speech Finola Scott, The set o declaration M T Taylor, Witness Jenni Calder, A 20th-century tale Charlie Gracie, Asylum accommodation survey, Glasgow Miriam Vaswani, An old word for frost Steve Harvey, A figure of speech Gavin Baird, A meaningful declaration James Robertson, Early days Carl MacDougall, Even now Helen Boden, A declaration of hush Beth McDonough, My son asserts his unwritable need of hazes Judyth Hill, Song for the dark times Anne Connolly, Engraved Richard (Spike) Munro, Thought police Loretta Mulholland, The Thammasat massacre Elspeth Brown, Declaration of Dunbar* Kirsten MacQuarrie, No honest woman Julian Colton, Selkirk fog Ian Crockatt, Master class David Manderson, Declaration: language, freedom, voice Jane Archer, Letter to Behrouz Bouchani Kirsty Logan, Letter to Stella Nyanzi Chris McQueer, Letter to Galal El-Behairy Ricky Monahan Brown, Letter to Lydia Cacho Chitra Ramaswamy, Letter to Varavara Rao James Robertson, Letter to Ahmet Altan Zoe Wicomb, Letter to Shakthika Sathkumara *Award winner

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Book SynopsisThese poems reflect a journey from a past delineated by racism, trauma and violence towards a present life of peace and intense natural beauty. Permeated with nostalgia and loss; songs of an immigrant community alienated in their own land, but pierced with fierce hope, faith in redemption, and a determination that we should all belong.

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Book SynopsisAlan Riach’s The MacDiarmid Memorandum is a work of epic, category-defying scope; blending biography and national history, poetry and prose; an intimate portrait of an old friend and mentor, and a political manifesto calling for revolution. Riach’s poems begin with MacDiarmid’s childhood in Langholm and his first attempts to navigate the Scottish landscape. We travel from the Borders to Shetland, from Edinburgh to rural Lanarkshire. The poems map a nation where nature is inseparable from political history. They explore a peculiarly Scottish kind of consciousness, willing itself to be free yet bowed under the weight of self-suppression. There is confrontation on various fronts. MacDiarmid experienced trauma, divorce, breakdown, wildness and later, domestic affection. At the same time, Scotland endured two world wars, each triggering a continuing renaissance of Scottish artists and intellectuals, struggling to regenerate international recognition and self-determination. Alongside Riach’s poems, the book includes reproductions of paintings by the artists Alexander Moffat and Ruth Nicol, focusing on some of the landscapes, friends and associates MacDiarmid knew most closely through his long life, plus a frontispiece portrait by William Johnstone and a song-setting by Ronald Stevenson.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis‘Bird Sisters exerts a powerful hold, as if to read it is to be haunted by things one half-remembers.’ – Moniza Alvi‘All is strange or estranged in fact, but it is articulated in poems of supple inventive concentration. In that sense Bird Sisters is a book that casts deep shadows.’ – George SzirtesJulia Webb’s Bird Sisters is a surreal journey through sisterhood and the world of the family via the natural world. Fascinated by the ‘otherness’ of things, her poems expose places and relationships that are not always entirely comfortable places to exist. Many of them feature transformations of some kind – both real and metaphorical: a woman wears a dress of live bees or becomes a bird and family members turn into owls and sparrows.In exploring the ways in which both adults and children are casually cruel to one another, often within a mythological framework, Julia Webb blurs the boundaries between fairy tale and reality. These families are terrifying in their complexity and dysfunction, yet utterly compelling and convincing and with dark undercurrents of humour that ensure the poems are never bleak.

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Book Synopsis‘alas, alas for everythingwe lost on the Heath’Criss-crossed with desire-lines and flight paths, Penelope Shuttle and John Greening’s Heath is a wild chorus of poems written in call and response across Hounslow Heath. Through bramble, furze and over wild tracks, we explore the run-out grooves of a rapidly vanishing edgeland that may soon go under the tarmac of the proposed third runway at Heathrow. This is eco-poetry beautifully realised and retold in the form of a contemporary fable, straying from the known routes into the borderlands between the human, natural and the supernatural.

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Book SynopsisThe poems in Threat, Julia Webb’s second collection, train their eagle-eyes on life at the margins, and on family, love, loss, belonging and not belonging. They are not afraid to visit the uncomfortable places where true humanity resides. Threat is an examination of self from multiple perspectives. Its narratives of both past and present tread a fine line between fantasy and reality – these are the lives we have led, the lives we could have led, or the lives we are leading still. Forensically detailed and disturbing, the dark and sometimes brutal undertow of small-town existence seeps to the surface of these unsettling poems.

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Book SynopsisDavid Clarke, winner of the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2013, returns with his second collection, The Europeans. Simultaneously close to home and looking outward beyond these shores, these wry and perceptive poems revel with form and encompass journeys, ideas of nationhood and national identity, and the optimism of a time when Europe and the UK enjoyed a quite different entente cordiale. They are a warning against nostalgia, a lucid and prescient exploration of how we see ourselves and how we are seen."A document for our times. A protest against bigotry and smuggery. A thesis for open borders and equality. In its cumulative effect, The Europeans is a comparative cultural analysis, a social satire and political commentary, a portrait of us and them, here and there, home and away." Paul Stephenson "Clarke’s authoritative new collection offers profound pleasures, and deepening regrets, in a poetic continent where every reader must confront ‘your own untruth’. The Europeans is certainly a book for the present. It is also a book for our uncertain future." - Alison Brackenbury"It includes the best gathering of found Brexit similes I expect to see in my lifetime, and a poem on stately homes that needs to be broadcast before every re-run of Downton Abbey. With targeted humour, an eye for the mobile and the sedentary, repurposing the mundane, David Clarke takes us to estates of all kinds, to both Leeds Central and Milano Centrale."– Alistair Noon

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Book SynopsisThis remarkable debut collection from Geraldine Clarkson contains the uncontainable; wondrous, spellbound and daring poems, happy to roam from South American monasteries to the shorelines of memory. These bold, often witty and always hawk-eyed poems survey matters of faith, tragedy and womanhood.Elaborate, skilful and formally audacious, Clarkson is a poet of extraordinary and kaleidoscopic vision; her writing always richly riotous with detail, her poems possessing the singular ability to move from the maelstrom of feeling to the stilled moment with an assured, quick elegance. "The speaker of these poems is endlessly morphable and endlessly verbal; she can say anything and beguile us into listening: put our screens down and really listen and come to life again in the garden of her diction, her memory, her weird unassailable vision." – Kathleen Ossip"... one of the finest contemporary practitioners of the prose poem. A mind-rattling, heart-shaking debut." – A.B. Jackson

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