Poetry Books

Book Synopsis"It was dusk, when the dark earth stains the blueing air and soothes bird in tall tree and beast in silent lair; I alone amidst all that hush of soil and leaf prepared for the war of the way and the way's great grief, of which an undistracted heart may speak or sing..." Published to coincide with the 700th anniversary of Dante's death, Ned Denny's baroque, line-by-line reimagining – the follow-up to his Seamus Heaney Prize-winning collection Unearthly Toys – shapes the Divine Comedy into nine hundred 144-syllable stanzas. Audacious, provocative and eminently readable, tender and brutal by turns, rooted in sacred doctrine yet with one eye on the profane modern world, this poet's version – in the interpretative tradition of Chapman, Dryden and Pope – is a living, breathing Dante for our times. Hell has never seemed so savage, nor heaven so sublime.Trade Review'Ned Denny's poems are magnificent.' - Marco Sonzogni, Dante Scholar; 'Ned Denny is a gifted troubadour who has crossed the ages' - Bernard O'Donoghue; 'A terrific and complex hybrid of the ancient and modern, shot through with flashes of surrealism and wit... allusive, elusive, dense in its diction and music.' - Nick Laird (on Unearthly Toys)

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Book SynopsisTheophilus Kwek's first UK collection is concerned with the individual and the collective stories that become history. The poems set out from formative moments in the poet's memory, to pivotal moments in the colonial past of Southeast Asia, and finally the political upheavals of the present. Hospitality, precarity, migration – these are some of the themes that recur as the poet makes his own journey from Singapore to Europe and back again. Moving House moves on a big time and space map, from Icelandic tales to the Malayan Emergency, and more contemporary dramas. From the perspective of a Chinese Singaporean shaped by the collective traditions and histories described in this book, writing in Britain, the poems model a sense of openness on the space of the page.Trade Review'Kwek has a keen eye for poetic rupture and moments of collision. With formal dexterity, he shifts through family history and world politics, from British colonial rule to refugee crises and a moving tribute to soldiers killed in peacetime training' - Poetry Book Society Summer Bulletin 2020

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the ASLE-UKI Book Prize for Ecological Writing 2021. A new collection of poetry from one of our most renowned contemporary poets, Pulitzer Prize winner Jorie Graham. In her formidable and clairvoyant new collection, Runaway, Jorie Graham deepens her vision of our futurity. What of us will survive? Identity may be precarious, but perhaps love is not? Keeping pace with the desperate runaway of climate change, social disruption, our new mass migrations, she struggles to reimagine a habitable present - a now - in which we might endure, wary, undaunted, ever-inventive, 'counting silently towards infinity'. Graham's essential voice guides us fluently 'as we pass here now into the next-on world', what future we have surging powerfully through these pages, where the poet implores us 'to the last be human'.Trade ReviewA mesmerising American voice; one wants to hear its continuation' - The New Yorker; 'We should be grateful to Jorie Graham for her own heroics of perception, even if they show up our ordinary insight.' - Gwyneth Lewis, Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Scottish Poetry Book of the Year 2021. Longlisted for the Laurel Prize 2021. A Telegraph Book of the Year 2020. This Selected Poems celebrates Scotland's most distinctive contemporary writer - a vivid minimalist, ruralist and experimentalist.

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Book SynopsisThe Poetry Bug is a book of powerful poems that will capture the imagination of primary school-aged children; it recognises humanity’s never-ending quest to understand ourselves, others and the world around us. Above all else, The Poetry Bug is playful. It recognises that people of all ages are explorers who need to navigate our world through word play, self-expression and humour if we are to understand it at all. In a world of seriousness, standardised tests and conformity, The Poetry Bug brings much-needed light relief that will brighten up even the dullest of days.

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Book SynopsisSennitt Clough's twisty fen-Gothic narratives are filled with macabre imagery and sexual violence. imagine a monstrous fair that has arrived in deepest Cambridgshire, only to discover that the inhabitants are far more frightening than the carnival. Rich in symbolism and mythology, it's a thrilling read that will leave your mind as black as peat.

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Book SynopsisBecky Varley-Winter’s striking debut explores themes of daring, danger and risk in poems that are packed with imagery from the natural world. Complex, hypnotic, memorable – this collection introduces a significant new voice.

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Book SynopsisEverything is Present is a midlife coming of age tale. It features award-winning elegies for the poet's grandparents and great-grandparents who were victims of the Holocaust as well as a sequence for the poet's mother who died on a locked-down ward during the Pandemic. Poems in the book have won the Wigtown Prize and the Ledbury competition.

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of the bestselling Darwin: A Life in Poems, Ruth Padel’s new collection follows in the footsteps of one of the world’s greatest composers, Beethoven, and investigates what his life and music might mean to us todayTwo hundred and fifty years since Beethoven was born, Ruth Padel goes on a personal search for him, retracing his steps through war-torn Europe of the early nineteenth century, delving into his music, letters, diaries and the conversation books he used when deaf, to uncover the man behind the legend. Her quest, exploring the life of one of the most creative artists who ever lived, turns more personal than she expects, taking her into the sources of her own creativity and musicality. From a deeply musical family herself, Padel’s parents met through music, and she grew up playing chamber music on viola – Beethoven’s instrument as a child. Her father’s grandfather, a concert pianist born on the German–Danish border, studied in Leipzig with a friend of Beethoven before immigrating to the UK. The poems in this illuminating biography in verse conjure not only Beethoven’s life and personality, but her own music-making and love both of the European music-making tradition to which her father’s family belongs, and to the continent itself Europe.Trade ReviewHow to uncover from biographical details the mystery that is music? With precision, heart-breaking beauty and lyric insight, Ruth Padel performs a miracle: Beethoven comes alive before us, the son of a drunk, who became a genius, and lost everything, and found his way back to the center. And here we are, following Padel's own genius for composing the music of a story via lyrical means. You will find your heart shored up / by meeting the trapped brilliance of his eyes, she writes. Indeed -- Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf RepublicVividly beautiful * BBC *Poetry, biography, music and memoir collide in this wonderful collection from Ruth Padel... A tender and evocative portrait of the man and his music, and most of all the profound ways it affects listeners and performers * Tatler *Padel's imagery and imagination took me deeper into Beethoven than many biographies I've read... Padel knows her history. But a poet is free to inhabit her subject and elaborate on the record -- Anthony Tommasini * New York Times *What a wonderful and unusual idea. Ruth Padel writes with true passion; her love for, and understanding of, the man and his music shine through each poem -- Steven Isserlis, cellistBeethoven’s music encompasses the entire blinding spectrum of human thought and emotion, from violent to ethereal, from chaos to sublimity. Ruth Padel’s poems encompass that uncontainable spirit to an astounding degree, and preserve the primal shock of our first hearing -- Alex Ross, author of The Rest is Noise, music critic of the New YorkerBreathtaking -- Paul Griffiths * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisA searing new collection from the Forward Prize-winning American poet about the year 2020, the year that the world's gaze turned to Minneapolis Smith''s own home.''Bluff is my book of the year. Absolutely breathtaking'' Joelle Taylor, author of C+NTO: + Othered Poems''You will want to underline almost every line ... One of the best books of poetry I''ve read: buy it for anyone you love'' Hollie McNish, author of Plum''Gripping ... It's as though the world is a scattered puzzle that Danez analyses and bears witness to'' Yomi Sode, author of ManorismWritten during the time the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Minneapolis became the epicentre of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith's powerful reckoning with their responsibility as a poet and with their hometown.Smith brings a startling urgency to these poems, their questions demanding a new language, ne

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Book SynopsisLike amber, these poems capture moments of time, place and feeling' Lemn Sissay, author of My Name is Why'Fiercely imaginative and wonderfully unexpected' Ruth Padel, author of Girl'Don't worry, I'm here in the house where every room has a name, but children's names are often forgotten.'Uplifting and heart-breaking, this lyrical evocation of a childhood on the edge of society marks the arrival of a vital new voice. MINX reveals the vibrant but precarious world of a multi-racial Romani family: a world of grandfathers brewing moonshine in marrows, basement reggae parties, and a mother struggling to support her two daughters on the proceeds of her shadowy profession. Their powerful bond helps the sisters survive when they're taken into care, in a children's home that forcibly separates them. With a verve and playfulness that belies their pain, these poems explore what it means to belong. Through daring experiments with form and narrative, MINX captures how it feels to grow up between a culture whose traditional ways are being lost and a wider society that despises them.

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Book SynopsisBee Journal is a poem-journal of beekeeping that chronicles the life of the hive. It observes the living architecture of the comb, the range and locality of the colony; its flights, flowers, water sources, parasites, lives and deaths. Because of its genesis as a working journal, there is here an unusual intimacy and scrutiny of life and death in nature. The language is dense and clotted, the imagery thrillingly fresh, and the observing eye close, scrupulous and full of wonder.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHORTrade ReviewSean Borodale is without doubt the most exciting new poet I have read since Alice Oswald. His Bee Journal raises the bar for us all and announces a thrilling new voice in British poetry -- Carol Ann DuffyTruly heady and intense poems, honey itself in poetic form, a sustained tour de force of language and thought -- Simon ArmitageThis book is a kind of uncut home-movie of bees. I like its oddness and hurriedness, its way of catching the world exactly as it happens in the split-second before it sets into poetry. These are pre-poems, note-poems dictated by phenomena. Their context is bees, but their subject (intriguingly) is Time... -- Alice OswaldHarbours great energy and abundant imagination...a strikingly original voice * Resurgence *Borodale is an extremely accomplished poet…the most beautiful expression of what it is like to live with bees that you could hope to find…they show a wonderful clarity of thought and expression and a great talent for capturing an impression. The recent rising popularity of beekeeping has spawned a number of popular books on the subject but this towers above them all in ambition and emotional effect. It is an exquisite window into bees and beekeeping -- Ian Douglas * Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisA selection of Oscar Wilde's best and most important plays - sharp, relevant and brilliant to this day. Who would have thought a comedy of manners written more than a hundred years ago would still be so apt and so funny? Oscar Wilde was a genius of play-writing, and his deftness, wit and sharp eye for social satire keep audiences in thrall to this day. Alongside Earnest, discover a biblical tragedy retold, Lady Windemere and her infamous fan and Wilde's take on an ideal husband, in this selection of Wilde's most important plays. ‘[The Importance of Being Earnest] has a strong claim to being the most perfect comedy in the English language’ Daily TelegraphTrade Review[The Importance of Being Earnest] has a strong claim to being the most perfect comedy in the English language * Daily Telegraph *[The Importance of Being Earnest] remains a thing of inimitable brains and beauty; the sharpest of social satires, wrapped in the most perfect of gossamer-light romantic comedies * Scotsman *Oscar Wilde's masterpiece about political chicanery, fraud, blackmail and the hypocrisy of public figures retains an alarming currency * Express (on An Ideal Husband) *

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Book SynopsisA timeless, visionary collection of poems from one of China's most acclaimed poets-now available in English for the first time in a generation and featuring a foreword by his son, contemporary artist and activist Ai WeiweiOne of the most influential poets in Chinese history, Ai Qing is mostly unknown to Western readers, but his work has shaped the nature of poetry in China for decades. Born between the fall of imperial Manchurian rule and the establishment of the Communist People's Republic, Ai Qing was at one time an intimate of Mao Zedong. He would eventually fall out with the leader and be sentenced to hard labor during the Cultural Revolution, when he was exiled to the remote part of the country known as "Little Siberia" with his family, including his son, Ai Weiwei. In his work, Ai Qing tells the story of a China convulsing in change, leaving behind a legacy of feudalism and imperialism but uncertain what the future will hold. Breaking with traditional forms of Chinese poetry, Ai Qing innovatively adapted free verse, writing with a simple sincerity in clear lines that could be understood by everyday readers. Selected Poems of Ai Qing is an extraordinary collection that traces the powerful inner life of this influential poet who crafted poems of protest, who longed for a newer, happier age, and who wrote with a profound lyricism that reaches deep into the heart of the reader.

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Book SynopsisThis beautiful collection of love poems gathers together thousands of years of timeless verse from around the world. From Shakespeare to Rossetti, traditional English classics sit alongside the works of Eastern writers such as Ibn 'Arabi and Rumi, as well as lesser known gems from the indigenous peoples of Africa, Australasia, and the Americas. Exploring the many facets of love – desire, devotion, delirium, joy, and sorrow – this uniquely diverse volume offers us wisdom from across the ages and reminds us of the bonds we all share.

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Book SynopsisPresenting the best poems from the nationwide Places of Poetry project, selected from over 7,500 entries Poetry lives in the veins of Britain, its farms and moors, its motorways and waterways, highlands and beaches. This anthology brings together time-honoured classics with some of the best new writing collected across the nation, from great monuments to forgotten byways. Featuring new writing from Kayo Chingonyi, Gillian Clarke, Zaffar Kunial, Jo Bell and Jen Hadfield, Places of Poetry is a celebration of the strangeness and variety of our islands, their rich history and momentous present.

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Book SynopsisThe Five Quintets is a mammoth poetic adventure undertaken by the celebrated poet Micheal O’Siadhail, representing the culmination of an extraordinary life’s work. The project is vast in scope, attempting nothing less than an exploration of the predicaments of Western modernity. Drawing on inspiration from T S Eliot’s Four Quartets, The Five Quintets brings the premise of Dante’s Divine Comedy into the current day. As Dante explored humanity though mythical characters, O’Siadhail focuses on the humanity of the creators of today’s dreams of perfection: scientists, artists, economists, politicians, politics, and philosophers and theologians from the past speak with each other in this extraordinarily imaginative work. The result is an unparalleled book of instruction for a troubled age. The Five Quintets retrieves and exhibits human gifts our own age may have lost to create a work ‘whose pulse draws us to love. A book of poetry in the category of the epic, the encyclopedic, and the sacred.’ (Peter Ochs, Professor of Judaic Studies, Virginia).Trade ReviewWhatever you have planned for next weekend, change it and make space to read this swirling work of love for humanity. Your heart and mind and soul will thank you. -- Mary McAleese, President of Ireland 2007-11O’Siadhail has always invited us to taste the rich abundance of life. Now … he spreads a lavish banquet for the ear, the intellect, and above all for the heart. -- Tom WrightThe Five Quintets unfolds slowly, the steady self-revealing of insights that catch the edge of thought —the fruit of a life in languages and words and depth of perception in wisdom. -- Justin WelbyIt brings a vision of hope, an understanding about the evolution of our society in words of grace. Micheal leads us on to a road of peace. -- Jean VanierDaring, moving, and profoundly relevant to anyone seeking personal and public wisdom today. -- David FordMicheal O’Siadhail has done nothing less than give us a poetic account of that strange character called modernity. This is a beautiful book of hope because of O’Siadhail’s unrelenting passion to tell us the truth. -- Stanley Hauerwas

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Book SynopsisRoger Wagner is one of the most significant Christian artists and poets working today. This collection combines his poems and paintings in pairs to explore specific places and familiar biblical narratives, inviting us to see them from new and unexpected angles. Roger's poems and pictures range over a wide terrain. Some are located in particular places in Oxfordshire and Suffolk and in particular moments of spiritual autobiography. Others take their starting point from biblical stories or moments in church history. Together, they show that to grasp spiritual truths we often need to approach them from different directions at the same time.

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Book SynopsisThis is an inspiring, magical and beautifully packaged collection of Celtic poetry compiled by a leading authority on Celtic tradition. Arranged into five thematic chapters, this anthology reflects the uniquely Celtic love of nature, history, love, myth, magic and spirituality. From the earliest times, the language-loving Celts revered their bards: they established a poetic tradition beginning in the 6th century with the intricate magical verse of Taliesin. It continued in the rich medieval works of Dafydd ap Gwilym and Rhys Goch and stayed strong in the 19th and 20th centuries with Gerald Manley Hopkins, and writers such as R.J. Stewart, Robin Williamson and Catherine Fisher. Matthews has chosen the finest works by the most diverse range of poets and translated many of the oldest for this volume. His selection will offer readers a window on to the world of the ancient Celtic peoples, celebrating their culture and the great masterpieces of lyricism and brilliance that have survived the ages.

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Book SynopsisIn this masterful retelling of one of the greatest works of world literature, Alasdair Gray - in his last work - offers an original translation in prosaic English rhyme. Lyrical and modern, this complete edition brings all three parts of Dante's epic journey through Hell and Purgatory and on to Paradise together in a single volume for the first time.Trade ReviewOne of the brightest intellectual and creative lights Scotland has known in modern times -- NICOLA STURGEONA necessary genius -- ALI SMITHGray is a true original, a twentieth century William Blake * * Observer * *One of the most gifted writers to have put pen to paper in the English language -- IRVINE WELSHPraise for Dante's Divine Trilogy: Alasdair Gray has cast a spell over Dante's Hell, creating (and decorating) a verse translation that is modern, lyrical, yet faithful to the original * * New Statesman * *Lucid, lyrical, imaginative * * Times Literary Supplement * *An ancient masterpiece glistens again as his lyricism takes flight, while keeping one foot balanced on solid ground . . . Gray turns Dante's language into clear English, sometimes with a playful comic turn . . . Remarkable * * i * *No other translator has made the narratives so clear or strong, and the distinctive power of the work lies in the clarity of the storytelling . . . This Hell is a magnificent feat of reimagining of one of the greatest of all human creations * * Herald * *Powerfully conveys the appalling nature of a vision which has terrified and enthralled Western men and women down the centuries * * Times Literary Supplement * *

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Book SynopsisThis bilingual edition presents Luis Vélez de Guevara’s 1613 play La Serrana de la Vera (The Mountain Girl from La Vera) for the first time ever in English translation. This long-forgotten tragedy has come back into focus in recent years because of its extraordinary protagonist, Gila, a peasant girl who calls herself a man, takes fierce pride in doing things men do, and falls in love with Queen Isabel. Her betrayal by an army captain who she has humiliated leads to lawlessness, violence and tragedy. Dramatized by the playwright as an heroic rebel, Gila has been variously described as feminist, homosexual, bisexual, lesbian, transsexual, hybrid, queer, and transgender. Highly relevant today, The Mountain Girl from La Vera is also a great piece of theatre, full of dramatic confrontations, colourful vignettes, striking moments of music and spectacle, and plentiful comic relief. This bilingual edition presents the entirety of the play, annotated, along with a Critical Introduction by the translator that contextualizes the work.Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionLa Serrana de la Vera/The Mountain Girl from La Vera

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Book SynopsisFollowing on from her Forward prize-winning collection, Small Hands, Mona Arshi's new book continues in its lyrical and exact exploration of the aftershocks of grief. These extraordinary poems, which see Arshi continuing with her experiments with form, relocate experiences in both past and future feeling, in both the intimacies of ordinariness and the collective experience of myth. Moving and discomfiting, these poems tune, in their acute emotional awareness of individual pain, to the dangers and unsettling violences of the contemporary world. Nevertheless, at the centre of this book is an overarching commitment to hope, in whatever form it takes, to the earth's tiny creatures, and its 'churning, broken song'.Trade Review‘The second collection by this Forward Prize winning poet examines the aftermath of grief with poignant exactitude... Arshi leads us towards light and hope in poems that are both “arboreal and free”.’Poetry Book Society 'Mona Arshi's poems plunge us directly into that hypnotic current to which, normally, we can only distantly allude. 'Life' is one of the euphemisms, or 'being alive'.'Rana Dasgupta‘Mona Arshi’s poems are purely lyrical in the best sense. Each poem carries its own weight and musical pleasure much like a Bach partita…I am in awe of this work.’ Norbert Hirschhorn, London Grip Poetry Review ‘[Arshi] creates micro-worlds of dream-like intensity, surreal distortion, fantasy and myth… Arshi’s rhythms are varied and finely honed, in a way that only extensive quotation could illustrate.’ Edmund Prestwich, Acumen ‘[A] precisely realised, haunting second collection... Arshi’s poems address the persistence of deep grief, and how it bears down upon those who remain.’ Alice Hiller, Magma Poetry‘Beautifully direct, and delivered a kind of instantaneousness that I admired a lot. The diction very clean, too, and the forms involving in their twists and turns.'Andrew Motion'Strength, delicacy and acuity converge in Mona Arshi's new poems, whether she is observing a garden, blooming or blighted, mourning a brother, speaking in the conflicted voice of a heroine of the Mahabharata. A poet to reread in all her complexity.'Marilyn Hacker'Mona Arshi follows her prize-winning first collection Small Hands with another volume of playfulness and poignancy. In Dear Big Gods, the lawyer turned poet wields her delicate word craft so well that she conveys life, death, grief, mystery and remembrance in a handful of beautifully arranged characters on pages to which we will want to return time and again.'Shami Chakrabarti ‘[On ‘Let the Parts of the Flower Speak’] This is a fine ars poetica: it is when Arshi is at her most delicate, serving her lightest touch that the poems go deepest.’ Martina Evans, The Poetry Review‘Arshi can shape words into the smallest of forms, from which seedlings and glowing hearts spring. Each poem in Dear Big Gods is distinct, but sometimes, a seed planted in one poem sprouts up in another.’ Nina Mingya Powles, The Scores 'Dear Big Gods explores aftermath: the continued elegy, prayer, memorial; and a deepening of the presence of the lost one. Grief is personal and specific. Arshi successfully and movingly immerses us in her unique experience of loss. It’s a book for both those who have read Small Hands, and for those new to her writing.'Maria Isakova Bennett, OrbisFor previous work: 'It is a testament to Mona Arshi's talent that, after a decade of not reading any poetry at all, her work had me clambering for old anthologies. Of course, little of what I read afterwards was as elegant, moving, haunting or true. Nothing less than Britain's most promising writer.'Sathnam Sanghera, The Times'Flying and crawling insects appear in Mona Arshi’s second collection, Dear Big Gods, sometimes landing gently on one line, sometimes swarming across whole pages. The natural world infuses this collection, with mentions of birds, insects, flowers, trees, rivers, forests, ponds, earth, and seasonal words, which are threaded throughout. There is a playfully self-conscious scent [...] in several poems, when we are not sure who is speaking, the flowers themselves or the person observing them. [...] These poems brim with new life and growth; with hope. [...] Arshi’s poems spill over with intimate observations and exquisite language that have become her trademark.' Josephine Corcoran, Under the Radar and Nine Arches Press'Arshi's poems - written to address the loss of her brother - are often quicksilver, airily spacious. [She is] refreshingly unafriad of tenderness. [...] This is poetry of raw truthfulness. It is urgently rooted in the practical. [...] Arshi's poems leave a sense that they spring from deep places, below consciousness, but are then brought to the page (and ear) by deliberate and lovely technique.'Alison Brackenbury, Poetry London

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Book SynopsisFollowing the death of his father, the King of Denmark, young prince Hamlet returns home to find his mother married to his uncle: the late king's brother, Claudius. When he is later visited by the ghost of his own dead father, Hamlet learns how he was actually murdered by his own brother, and vows to take revenge. However, Hamlet's contemplative nature works against him, breeding doubt and hesitation at every turn, until the only certainties he has left are madness, betrayal and murder. Alexander Vlahos stars in this three-hour production of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. This release also includes twenty-five minutes of roundtable interviews with the cast as they discuss the production Alexander Vlahos stars in this three-hour production of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. CAST: Alexander Vlahos (Hamlet), Miles Richardson (Claudius), Tracey Childs (Gertrude), Terry Molloy (Polonius), Daniel Brocklebank (Horatio), Deirdre Mullins (Ophelia), Samuel Barnett (Laertes), Jolyon Westhorpe (Rosencrantz), Geoffrey Breton (Guildenstern), Barnaby Edwards (The Ghost), Youssef Kerkour (Barnardo), Alex Jordan (Francisco) and James Joyce (Marcellus).

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Book Synopsis**SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE****SHORTLISTED FOR THE SEAMUS HEANEY FIRST COLLECTION PRIZE**'Fresh, urgent, alive... genius' PATIENCE AGBABIThis assured and arresting first collection moves deftly and with purpose into private, hidden places - a locked shed, the dark of a battery farm, a murky riverbed, a late-night bar - to show, unflinchingly and in cinematic detail, what we might otherwise choose not to see. Sight is both a gift and curse, of course: given or taken away in poems of windows and curtains, torches and blindfolds, and yet here - following in the tradition of Oswald and Heaney - each image is freshly minted through a cool, objective eye.Every poem seeks to inhabit those seemingly small but pivotal moments which have monumental, sometimes mortal, consequences. For Pajak, time is fluid: a blink can be 'slow as an eclipse', our lifetimes are fleeting, our deaths often lingering and seldom peaceful or painless.Vivid and visceral, steadily examining violence, sexual encounters, childhood and ageing (a dying grandmother's 'slow pink eyelids, those quick teaspoon breaths'), cars and cities, and Nature - full of wonder and threat - Slide is always asking pertinent questions: illuminating brutality, frailty and tenderness, the responsibility of those who witness - whether voyeur, bystander or reader. This is a charged, beautifully observed and thrilling debut.Trade ReviewEvery spare word has been stripped ... Slide is the most polished debut here. * Daily Telegraph, *2022 TS Eliot Prize Shortlist* *Mark Pajak's debut does not read like a debut: there is no fumbling beginner's luck, no rough moments or threadbare patches - it's polished craftsmanship throughout is striking... Slide deserves to be a blazing success. * Observer, *Poetry Book of the Month* *[A] poised and visceral debut... Pajak's writing pulses with a rhythmic intensity which compels the reader not to look away. * Guardian *A tremendously empathetic book, it is full of compassion for people and animals, whose pain is felt vividly... Unlike so many hyped debut collections, Slide more than lives up to readers' expectations. * Times Literary Supplement *Mark Pajak's skillful poems keep themselves open, especially to childhood and adolescent experience. Even so, they are far from frail - their insight and imaginative verve make them robust as well as eloquent. -- Carol Ann Duffy

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Book SynopsisOne of Scotland’s most celebrated poets, Robert Crawford has long been a passionate and articulate ambassador for his country and its culture, its people and its landscape. The Scottish Ambassador fuses individual and communal voices in poems that resonate far beyond their points of origin. Engaging with Zoroastrian, Chinese and Greek as well as with Scottish antecedents, Crawford’s poems have an arresting range and a lyrical energy. He negotiates with intensity and wit between a deep sense of human universals and a heartfelt fidelity to individual places. Ranging from Jerusalem to Iona, New York City to Shetland, this is a collection of international range that continually zeroes in on the particular – and the particularly Scottish. At the book’s centre is a series of intimate, funny, eloquent portraits of cities which are at once remarkable public poems and outpourings of love.Trade ReviewCrawford knows when to be piano and when to ring out the forte... This is an exceptionally fine collection, and a model for how to nuance the stylistic shifts. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman *Robert Crawford’s collection [The Scottish Ambassador] is a book of celebrations… The long, unrhymed lines fizz with welcoming particulars and jolly japes. -- Peter Scupham * Literary Review *The book is trying to sing Scotland, but also Scotland as part of a much wider realm… Cultural references range from Madame Butterfly to ancient Assyria. If it's a vision of Scotland, it's a complex, expansive one. -- Susan Mansfield * Scotsman *Vivid, nuanced and joyous… [The Scottish Ambassador is] a marvellous and marvelling collection, at once worldly and homely. * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis**LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2019****SHORTLISTED FOR THE CATHOLIC HERALD BOOK AWARDS 2019**A life of St Francis in verseThroughout her career Ann Wroe has constantly confounded expectations, following her own unique path. Now, in Francis, she turns to verse to tell the life of St Francis of Assisi. This is a sequence only Ann Wroe could write, combining a troubadour's musicality with full grasp of the moment, and a luminous sense of Francis as both myth and man, across history and culture, in nature and community. It is a remarkable and immensely beautiful book.St Francis was one of the most compelling spirits the world has seen. He was also a poet, a musician and a dancer. His world was coloured by troubadour lays, brightened by birdsong, ordered by the bells and chants of the Church and transfigured by the angel-lyres he heard about him. For Ann Wroe, this seems a good reason to write his life in songs. It is also an excuse to record, in songs, the many ways his presence and his music still linger round us. They surprise us in chance encounters in city streets; they waylay us amid the humdrum banalities of working life; they persist in the beauties of nature. Great spirits never leave us. They echo on and on.Trade ReviewThe most beautiful book I have read in a long time. -- Emma Duncan * The Times *This passionate series of engagements with the life of St Francis will stay in my mind for a very long time – I hope forever… This is a poet with a distinctive voice, a command of form and a lightness of touch matched by a depth of heart… Wroe so triumphantly [exercises the imagination] in poem after poem. -- A. N. Wilson * Spectator *[Ann Wroe] turned her formidable gifts to the saint of Assisi in Francis: A Life In Songs. It has a remarkable structure… (of which I am sure the saint himself would approve). It is a book which, written by one individual, manages many voices, and is almost choral in its glory. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman, *Books of the Year* *In our secular age, the book seems literarily heretical – triumphantly unfashionable. But do not imagine it to be conventionally devout. It does what poetry is meant to do, and seldom does: it takes you to another place while making you reflect on what it is to be here… Even as a non-believer, you want to hold on to this writing, as if to a book of prayer. -- Kate Kellaway * Observer *A superb verse biography of St Francis, by the queen of the unexpected life-in-brief… This is a book to press into the hands of anyone who has decided they have given up on “difficult modern poetry”. It’s so quietly traditional, so unashamedly lovely, that it seems almost radical… [Wroe] recalls John Clare in her close attentiveness to the natural world and the way she conveys a sense of spontaneous joy. -- Tristram Fane Saunders * Telegraph **Poetry Book of the Month** *This extraordinary book… is quite haunting… [Francis] is one of the saints who is appealing even in a secular age… this isn’t a book just for the faithful; it’s for lovers of poetry in life and literature... a wonderful little book. -- Melanie McDonagh * Evening Standard *Each poem is beautiful. The book as a whole knocked me for six. -- A.N. Wilson * The Tablet, **Books of the Year** *Ms Wroe's is a rare and beautiful telling. She takes the miracles of St Francis and sings them in four keys. -- Laura Freeman * Economist *The ever-inventive biographer [Ann Wroe] retells the life of Francis of Assisi in deft, lyrical rhyming verse. * Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year *The poems themselves are beautiful and clever… Wroe is at her exquisite best when directly tackling the most sacred of Christian images. -- Kate Maltby * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisThe title of Vicki Feaver’s remarkable new collection derives from Blake’s illustration of a child standing with one foot on a ladder to the moon, crying ‘I want! I want!’ In the title poem it represents her childhood ambition to be a poet; in another, she rejects pressure towards achievement and longs to return to the sensual world of the earth. This startlingly honest book follows the ladder of a life for seventy-five years, in poems that show how much is connected. Unlocking the voice of a silenced, powerless girl, Feaver writes about an apparently stable childhood which, to her, was painfully insecure: tormented with parental expectations and sibling jealousy, torn between mother and grandmother. The eleven-year-old who wanted to become a poet becomes the woman ‘buried under ice with words burning inside’, who becomes the old woman still ‘searching for words’ – fearful now of memory loss and a failing body.I Want! I Want! is the work of a poet looking for a pattern in her life before it’s too late. Urgent, accessible and deeply moving, this is poetry of witness and survival: a vivid testament to the triumph of a poet’s spirit.

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Book Synopsis*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 T. S. ELIOT PRIZE*Following her recent Odes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet gives us a new collection of poems that sing of a woman’s intimate life and political conscience. The atom bomb, Breaking Bad, the cervix, Trayvon Martin, her mother’s return from the dead: the peerless Sharon Olds once again takes up subject matter that is both difficult and ordinary, elusive and everywhere. Each aria is shaped by its unique melody and moral logic, as Olds stands centre stage to account for her own late romance and chance wisdom, and faces the tragic life of our nation and our planet. ‘I cannot say I did not ask / to be born,’ begins one aria, which considers how, with what actions, with what thirst, we each ask for a turn, and receive our portion on earth. Olds delivers these pieces with all the passion, anguish, and solo force that make a great performance, in the process enlarging the soul of her readers. ‘Olds is a supreme poet of the body; I’ll be reading her till I die’ Fiona BensonTrade ReviewSharon Olds goes where many poets would fear to tread and others not dream of treading. Like a curious child, she wanders past No Entry signs on to private land… Arias is a phenomenal achievement, the most moving collection of her career, the most open of books. -- Kate Kellaway * Observer, *Poetry Book of the Month* *On my Christmas list? Sharon Olds’s Arias. Olds is a supreme poet of the body; I’ll be reading her till I die. -- Fiona Benson * Guardian, *Books of the Year* *A generous collection… sexy, pained, conversational, always bringing the reader along for the ride. -- Tristram Fane Saunders * Telegraph *

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Book Synopsis**SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE****SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE**The poems in Ephemeron deal with the short-lived and transitory - whether it's the brief, urgent lives of the first section, 'Insect Love Songs', the abrupt, anguished, physical and emotional changes during secondary school, as remembered in 'Boarding-School Tales', or parenting's day-by-day shifts through love and fear, hurt and healing, in 'Daughter Mother'.The long central section, 'Translations from the Pasiphaë', gathers these themes together in a blistering, unforgettable re-telling of the Greek myth of the Minotaur, as seen from the point of view of the bull-child's mother - the betrayed and violated Pasiphaë. The familiar legend of the dashing male hero slaying the monster in the labyrinth is transformed here into a story of ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary cycle of violence, power and the abuse of power. At the centre lies Pasiphaë calling for her son: 'They took him away from me/and they killed him in the dark, for years.'Telling uncomfortable truths, going deep into male and female drives and desires, our most tender and vulnerable places, and speaking of them in frank, unshrinking ways - these poems are afraid, certainly, but also beautiful, resolute and brave.Trade ReviewBenson retells the Greek myth... in a long-lined, novelistic sequence of rare psychological plausibility: yes, you think, yes, that's exactly how it happened. * Telegraph, *20 Best Poetry Books of 2022* *Benson's third collection Ephemeron is split between nature, motherhood and Greek myth. But few poets write on these themes so brilliantly; Benson's urgent compassion makes us care. * Daily Telegraph *A new collection of Benson's wise and vivid work is a real occasion... exciting...fully inhabited and multi-faceted. * Guardian *There have been a number of impressive reshapings of classical tales in recent years, and it is a bold poet who would risk comparison with Alice Oswald and Anne Carson, but Benson's 'Translations from the Pasiphaë' earns its place alongside their works ... In Ephemeron, Fiona Benson's capacity for capturing bodily sympathy in verse manifests as something like a superpower. * Literary Review *There is a gorgeous, sunbleached quality to much of this writing, which stuns and scorches. It will be a pleasure to see which cycles of myth Benson takes on next. * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis**SHORTLISTED FOR THE T.S. ELIOT PRIZE 2021**A book of loss, looking back, and what binds us to life, by a towering poetic talent, 'one of the poetry stars of his generation' (Los Angeles Times).'We sleep long, / if not sound,' Kevin Young writes early on in this exquisite gathering of poems, 'Till the end / we sing / into the wind.' In scenes and settings that circle family and the generations in the American South - one poem, 'Kith', exploring that strange bedfellow of 'kin' - the speaker and his young son wander among the stones of their ancestors. 'Like heat he seeks them, / my son, thirsting / to learn those / he don't know / are his dead.' Whether it's the fireflies of a Louisiana summer caught in a mason jar (doomed by their collection), or his grandmother, Mama Annie, who latches the screen door when someone steps out for just a moment, all that makes up our flickering, precarious joy, all that we want to protect, is lifted into the light in this moving book. Stones becomes an ode to Young's home places and his dear departed, and to what of them - of us - poetry can save.Trade ReviewOne of the most important poets of his generation... There appears to be no format in which Young does not shine. * Washington Post *Kevin Young perfectly illustrates poetry's enduring vitality. * Entertainment Weekly *Keeping up with him is like trying to keep up with Bob Dylan or Prince in their primes. Even the bootlegs have bootlegs. -- Dwight Garner * New York Times *One of the poetry stars of his generation. * Los Angeles Times *

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Book Synopsis'Fans of Anne Carson, rejoice!... Carson's depth of knowledge about Greek mythology coupled with her poetic sensibility and illustrations is sure to breathe new life into this oft-told story.' Lit HubH of H Playbook is an explosion of thought, in drawings and language, about a Greek tragedy called Herakles by the 5th-century BC poet Euripides. In myth Herakles is an embodiment of manly violence who returns home after years of making war on enemies and monsters (his famous "Labours of Herakles") to find he cannot adapt himself to a life of peacetime domesticity. He goes berserk and murders his whole family. Suicide is his next idea. Amazingly, this does not happen. Due to the intervention of his friend Theseus, Herakles comes to believe he is not, after all, indelibly stained by his own crimes, nor is his life without value. It remains for the reader to judge this redemptive outcome."I think there is no such thing as an innocent landscape," said Anselm Kiefer, painter of forests grown tall on bones.Trade ReviewCarson applies the habits of classical scholarship, the linguistic rigour, the relentless search for evidence, the jigsaw approach to scattered facts, to the trivia of contemporary private life.- * Sam Anderson, New York Magazine *This book is a beautiful one, thoughtfully produced... the bold, bloody red paint makes a powerful impact, evoking the violent outcome of the play. * Minera *Like all of Anne Carson's writing, this book is amazing - I haven't discovered any writing in years that's so marvellously disturbing. I just feel so happy that she's around. -- Alice Munro on AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF REDHer work is full of moments of startling originality and beauty. The poems play with character and plot, myth and magic; they are rich with attitude and wit and the undertow of grief. If she was a prose writer she would instantly be recognised as a genius. -- Colm Tóibín on AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF REDAnne Carson is a daring, learned, unsettling writer. Autobiography of Red, which perhaps comes closest to representing the range of her voice and gifts, is a spellbinding achievement. -- Susan Sontag on AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED

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Book SynopsisInk Tales reinvigorates fairy tales and myths from around the world, breaking barriers and challenging stereotypes throughout. Illustrated by Inkquisitive (Amandeep Singh) in his vibrant signature Indian inks, each story is accessible and visually inspiring. Travel across oceans and discover the vengeful wrath of a River God in Kayo Chingonyi's West African tale. Soar too close to the sun with Inua Ellam's timely story of a young refugee girl. Fly to a mysterious castle inhabited by a cursed prince with Helen Mort's retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Uncover the truth of #Bluebeard with Joelle Taylor's modernised fairy tale. Look to the constellations with Will Harris' futuristic Greek tragedy, and never, ever answer to your name in Malika Booker's Trinidadian recreation of the Dwen. Bedtime Stories for the End of the World is produced in partnership with the ground-breaking poetry podcast of the same name. The six featured poets draw on their own experience, adding a new dimension to an existing tale. 'Bedtime Stories for the End of the World' is a spoken word and poetry podcast about the power of myth and the politics of storytelling. The podcast asks some of the UK's top poets to re-imagine their favourite myths, fairy tales and legends - the stories they want to keep and protect for the future. It also involves an annual live event, creating a tangible and accessible experience for existing and new audiences. Reimagined tales include Icarus, the legend of the Zambezi River God, East of the Sun West of the Moon, Bluebeard, Philoctetes and the Trinidadian folklore figure 'douen'.

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Book Synopsis-----------------------------'Touching and on occasion profoundly moving ... The connections and affinities that fill this book enliven, enlighten and delight.' STEPHEN FRY'Beautifully written and insightful.' RAYNOR WINN'Searle creates a powerful sense of place. You can sniff the air and touch the trees.' MICHAEL PALIN-----------------------------A lyrical journey through life, love and natureWeaving together personal stories, Threads deals with the meanings of intimacy, vulnerability and our affinities with people and places, both wild and tame. It is a deep exploration of the encounters that lend quiet networks of grace to our busy lives.William Henry Searle casts an eye back to episodes spent in close and tender relationships with members of his family, childhood friends, animals and loved ones, in places that range from his father’s scrap metal yards, to the jungles of Borneo, an Oregon river and the Swiss Alps. In thoughtful, elegant prose, Searle celebrates the quiet conversations that nourish us, and the everyday patterns of connection that give meaning to our human existence.-----------------------------'An exceptionally rich celebration of the natural world, by turns rapturous and melancholy, and often – in strikingly original ways – both at the same time.' SIR ANDREW MOTIONTrade ReviewTouching and on occasion profoundly moving ... The connections and affinities that fill this book enliven, enlighten and delight. * Stephen Fry *An exceptionally rich celebration of the natural world, by turns rapturous and melancholy, and often – in strikingly original ways – both at the same time. * Sir Andrew Motion *Beautifully written and insightful. * Raynor Winn *Searle creates a powerful sense of place. You can sniff the air and touch the trees. * Michael Palin *

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Book SynopsisOften described as ‘the father of realism’, Henrik Ibsen was a pioneer of modernist drama. He influenced playwrights as diverse as George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, and is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare.Included in this collection are adaptations of his tragicomic masterpiece The Wild Duck, his complex and compelling play Rosmersholm, the epic drama Brand and the tragedy John Gabriel Borkman. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is relocated to 1879 India in Tanika Gupta’s Audio Drama Award-winning dramatisation, while the provocative and scandalous Ghosts is adapted by Richard Eyre, with the cast of his Olivier Award-winning Almeida Theatre production.Also featured are vibrant dramatisations of Hedda Gabler, whose desperate heroine is trapped in a suffocating marriage; The Lady from the Sea, about a woman torn between security and passion; and An Enemy of the People, in which a whistleblower reveals an inconvenient truth and is vilified for it.The casts of these stunning dramas include David Threlfall, Nicholas Farrell, Helen Baxendale, Indira Varma, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter.

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Book SynopsisYou may take my ballsBut I will lick what remainsAnd then, dear, your faceImagine if your dog could talk to you. Better still, imagine if it could express its innermost feelings in poetic form. This hilarious, insightful book confirms what we've all long suspected - that inside every dog is the soul of a poet. From retrieving sticks to rivalry with cats; from cold winter walks to endlessly chasing tennis balls, no stone of a dog's life is left unturned.With a delightful photo alongside every haiku, this is the perfect gift for any dog lover.

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of What I Lick Before Your Face comes this hilarious companion, Please Stop Touching Me ... and Other Haikus by Cats.Jamie Coleman returns with this brilliant collection of feline flights of fancy. His hilarious haikus take us inside the minds of our most popular pets revealing their inner-most secrets, their disdain for their owners and the poetry that is common to all cats.Featuring over 50 haikus complete with glorious images, this is a hysterical gift for cat lovers, cat haters, and poetry enthusiasts alike.

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Book SynopsisFull of wry intelligence, and a sideways perspective that digs beneath the surface of things, Robin Thomas's second collection is creative, witty and warm. Never predictable, leaning on images from art, the cadences of jazz and remarkable moments, whether from history or life, there is an unswerving pressure on language and a sense of mischief that can turn out to be unnervingly serious. This is accomplished, confident work.

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Book SynopsisLight Airs confirms Mick Evans as an exceptional poet whose linguistic dexterity in making every phrase work on multiple levels is matched by his impressive range of references. Whether the metaphors are of love or change, hubris or the banality of evil, the control and voice is always unerring, the precision always honed and intelligent. There are poems here that will chill and unsettle the reader and poems of exquisite tenderness. What unites them is there is never a complacent, sentimental or glib word. These are poems of depth and passion threaded with humane humour. Pushing at the boundaries of form, Light Airs is an inventive, honest and distinctive collection that will resonate long after reading.

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Book SynopsisFor years Bonnie Thurston has written short poems that focus on a single image or one revelatory idea. They were not sonnets, but were all fourteen lines long. The great sonneteers wrote sequences, often several on one topic and in this Bonnie Thurston follows in their footsteps, leading the reader on a gentle journey from home and through the seasons of the sequence, one that beckons or disturbs the imagination after setting it free to roam through daily experiences that, in the words of , Wordsworth are 'reflected in tranquility'. In these insightful, honed and precise poems you will discover the extraordinariness of the ordinary life and, mirabile dictu, wisdom. This is a collection to savour.

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Book SynopsisBonnie Thurston’s Forgotten Futures: a memoir is a tender heart’s cry and a passionate celebration in one. There is deep poignancy and longing here, but not a mawkish or maudlin word. We travel in two landscapes — the world inhabited with wonder for each small detail, and the internal world of half a couple, observing both the relationship’s moments of grace, joy and intimacy and those of wounding, longing and loss. In supple, accessible language, honed to beauty, these poems resonate with a sense of the sacredness of small things and the transforming power of memory. 'When Love Is Passed' When love is passed to you on a bone china plate like Petits Fours on a doily, accept with gratitude. Life holds enough awful, heavy crockery, and we have all eaten more than our share of sand.

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Book SynopsisIn the initial sequence of this pamphlet, and following short lyrics, the writer explores the experience of living with long-term, and severe mental states. There is no safe haven of medical ‘pathology’ here, but an urgent rite of passage for the damaged and conflicted soul. A form of modern Purgatory—escaping the grasping jaws of Inferno, to find itself stumbling towards a rarefied, yet earthy, Paradiso. Ian Marriott’s marvellous poems inhabit rather than observe nature — in fact they do both — but are as much concerned with the human condition. They work in the area of what Hopkins called instress. The voice is calm, contained and precise, as when he watches a Pond Skater, “So perilous / this thin meniscus — / six legs spread out”. The poems too seem to tremble on the water of their vision. — George SzirtesTrade ReviewIan Marriott's marvellous poems inhabit rather than observe nature - in fact they do both - but are as much concerned with the human condition. They work in the area of what Hopkins called instress. The voice is calm, contained and precise, as when he watches a Pond Skater, "So perilous / this thin meniscus - / six legs spread out" . The poems too seem to tremble on the water of their vision. - George Szirtes

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Book SynopsisLucid, linguistically dextrous, and woven through with Welsh phrases, and words and passages in French, this exquisitely observed sequence of haiku and haibun was written during lockdown, though only refers to Covid elliptically. There is nothing obvious here—instead there are connections—with nature, with relationships, with what is lost and what is saved.

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Book SynopsisIn all of Robin Thomas’s work there is a subtlety and wit so contained that it invites re-reading. It takes full immersion to savour the linguistic dexterity and intelligence at work, to appreciate that humour often belies the absolute seriousness of life. In reminded of something, this balance is particularly delicate and the poignancy superbly controlled and utterly affecting. With a yearning that can only come of love and loss, the poems use the simplest of metaphors in the most lucid language to convey memories and emotions so complex and heart-breaking that they are almost beyond the scope of words—a collection that is profoundly moving and exquisitely realised.Trade ReviewPoems are like rooms. One might feel safe in such a room and, at first sight, the poems of Robin Thomas employ an architecture which is reassuring. […] Yet walls shake and windows crack and the ‘homely’ formal qualities of these well-made poems belie a mystery, a strangeness, a reckoning. — Julian Stannard;Robin Thomas’s is a fragile world, whose unexpected strengths derive from his elastic, unsentimental grasp of reality. It’s not surprising that I find myself smiling with recognition as I read Robin Thomas’ view of the universe … after all, ambiguity and contradiction are embedded in comedy of the most serious kind. — Janice Dempsey;Occasionally I seize upon a single poem sent to me, or discovered by accident, and rejoice in its particular oddness or specialness or combination of the two. Robin Thomas's poetry evokes this response with its extraordinary quirkiness, quaint combination of wild and everyday wisdom, the way the clues are always in the margins, chuckling as they wait to be found or found out. Thomas is the master of irony and juxtaposition, never obvious, always surprising. — Wendy Klein

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