A haiku, an ode, a sonnet, a limerick, an elegy ... more poetry,please.
Poetry Books
Carcanet Press Ltd Meadowlands
Book SynopsisIncludes Penelope's Song in which the author interweaves in a book-length sequence an account of the dissolution of a contemporary marriage with the story of Homer's Odyssey. This collection of poetry also explores the notion of the nostos, the homecoming.
£9.45
Carcanet Press Ltd Canzoniere
Book SynopsisThe "Canzoniere" is among Europe's most influential books of lyrics. The focus of this large collection is Petrarch's lifelong love for the mysterious Laura, but the themes he treats are many and various. Although part of the 14th century world, Petrarch expresses perplexities, uncertainties and hesitancies still understandable at the end of the second millennium. This verse translation of the whole of the "Canzoniere" has notes to suggest the many connections between the poems.
£13.46
Carcanet Press Ltd Beowulf: A Verse Translation into Modern English
Book SynopsisThis reprint of Morgan's popular and well-respected 1952 modern English translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic captures a taut expression of the poem's themes of danger, voyaging, displacement, loyalty, and loss. Morgan provides a fluid, modern voice from this medieval masterwork while retaining a clear authenticity, making it highly accessible to the contemporary reader.Trade ReviewMr. Morgan is as versatile as he is inventive ... the qualities that most appeal are a capacity for celebration ... and an unsentimental humaneness, a considering sympathy. "Times Literary Supplement"
£8.50
Carcanet Press Ltd Averno
Book SynopsisAverno, a crater lake in southern Italy, was for the Romans the entrance to the underworld, both gateway and impassable barrier between the living and the dead. In Louise Gluck's latest collection, Averno is the only source of heat and light in a world turned to icy winter. Ancient myth is reanimated in the desolation of Persephone's laments for the lost warmth of earthly life. Both epic and intimate in scope, "Averno" explores the enduring drama of love and death.Trade Review'Gluck stands at the centre of time and speaks, not with raw emotion or linguistic abandon, but with the ageless urgency of questions about the soul.' - Partisan Review 'Her writing's emotional and rhetorical intensity are beyond dispute. Not once in six books has she wavered from a formal seriousness, an unhurried sense of control and a starkness of expression that, like a scalpel, slices the mist dwelling between hope and pain.' - Washington Post
£9.45
Carcanet Press Ltd The Meanest Flower
Book SynopsisInspired by Shakespeare's songs, the short poems of Emily Dickinson, and Wordsworth's "Lucy" poems, this collection of songlike poetry is based on the ubiquitous spread of weeds - like the shallow rooting plants, small poems can grow anywhere. In her seventh collection, Khalvati demonstrates a dazzling mastery of traditional forms and experiments with the Ghazal, an ancient Persian form comprised of an unrhymed couplet. Evoking three generations and geographies of women, "The Meanest Flower" reinstates the joyful, audible aspect of the lyric.Trade Review"Any number of other poems could be cited from Khalvati's superb volume that would further attest to her genius for translating in this way what might superficially seem old or recycled idioms into something novel and almost entirely her own (the collection includes villanelles, terze rime, and even a heroic crown of sonnets)." Rafael Campo, "Boston Review"
£9.45
Carcanet Press Ltd Selected Poems: Thomas Kinsella
Book SynopsisThomas Kinsella is among the most distinguished modern poets. His work over fifty years has challenged and enriched the poetic landscape. Rooted in locality, Kinsella's poetry employs myth and modernism in explorations that range from intense lyricism to political satire and social commentary. This representative selection of the poetry he has published from 1956 to 2006 invites readers to explore the range of his poetic world.Trade Review'Thomas Kinsella is the most important and the most compendious Irish poet since Yeats.' - Thomas H. Jackson, 'The Whole Matter: The Poetic Evolution of Thomas Kinsella' 'Among those poets writing in English today there is none surpassing Thomas Kinsella.' - Canadian Journal of Irish Studies
£13.49
Carcanet Press Ltd Palace of Oblivion
Book SynopsisBaroque in its extravagance of language, in its delight in the bizarre and the prodigious, Peter Davidson's collection is a cabinet of curiosities, a world of ruined palaces, ghostly gardens and the fragile marvels of a secret past. It moves between languages and continents, English and Latin, the Spanish Netherlands and Spanish America, the Mediterranean and the north. The title sequence evokes a half-known, half-fantastic, seventeenth century; a shorter sequence transforms contemporary England through the eyes of a spy. The collection ends with a group of elegies and epistles concerned with place and history in northern Scotland. Erudite and witty, "The Palace of Oblivion" is about remembering and inventing out of memory, and provides haunting visions of decay and splendor.
£9.45
Carcanet Press Ltd New Caribbean Poetry
Book SynopsisThere is a greeting used in urban America, 'What's good?', which seems to go beyond a mere 'How are you?' or 'What's happening?' to demand an optimistic response. This anthology seeks to rectify both these oversights by showcasing established Caribbean poets from Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, St Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere.
£11.66
Carcanet Press Ltd A Recipe for Water
Book SynopsisThe drop of water on the tongue, writes Gillian Clarke, 'was the first word in the world', and the language of water is the element in which these poems live. Ocean currents create histories and cultures - the port cities of Cardiff and Mumbai; myths are born where great rivers have their source high in the mountains. A bottle of spring water contains the mineral elements of life; we can read the earth's deep history in arctic ice. We share the rhythms of migrations in the pull of tides and seasons through rivers and estuaries. In her first collection since becoming the National Poet of Wales in 2008, Gillian Clarke explores water as memory and meaning, the bearer of stories that well up from a personal and collective past to return us to the language of the imagination in which we first named the world.Trade Review'Gillian Clarke's poems ring with lucidity and power...her work is personal and archetypal, built out of language as concrete as it is musical.' - Times Literary Supplement 'Clarke's mellifluous new collection [A Recipe for Water] is her first since her appointment as Wales's national poet in 2008. The drop of water on the tongue, she tells us, 'was the first word in the world', and it's through water that these poems give up their stories: history is written into the Arctic's ice; myths well up from river sources; the currents on the ocean wash culture and heritage onto our shores. Watery collections have poured forth from the pens of poets from Sean O'Brien to Maura Dooley in recent years; anticipation is high for Clarke's contribution to the pool'. - Sarah Crown, the Guardian, 3 January 2009Table of ContentsContents First Words A Pocket Dictionary Glas y Dorlan Not Otter The Fox and the Girl Sgwarnop Nettles A T-Mail to Keats Fflam The Ledbury Muse A Recipe for Water Severn A Barge on the Severn Source Sabrina Ice Tide Bore Barrage Migrations Mumbai Man in a Shower At the Banganga Tank In the Taj Laundry Hands Post Script Glacier Reader's Digest Atlas of the World City Afon Taf Architect Coins Llandaf Cathedral Sleepless Subway The Rising Tide Welsh Stadium Wing Number Letting the Light In House of Dreams A Sonnet for Nye Mercury Welsh Gold Horsetail Kites Death's Head Hawkmoth Caterpillar Oradour-sur-Glane Singer Storm over Limousin Landscape with Farm The Accompanist Bach at St Davids Cattle, Hayfield, Storm Gravity Wings Pegging Out Love at Livebait Revival Castell y Bere Old Libraries The Oak Wood Library Chair Quayside Farewell Finisterre December Cae Delyn Advent The Darkest Day Solstice Shepherd
£999.99
Brewin Books 65 Brunswick Road: The Musical
Book SynopsisWhen Tommy Shelby, Steve Knight's principal character in The Peaky Blinders, first rode onto our television screen, viewers were presented with a battle-scarred, but still relatively young veteran, from the Great War. Meanwhile, in the neighbouring, real-life streets of Balsall Heath and Sparkhill, the Wareing family of eight children (and a musicallygifted mother, Lilian) struggled to cope with their invalid father's return to 65 Brunswick Road, fresh from the hell-hole of Gallipoli. Harry Senior, the author's grandfather, having contracted meningitis, returned home as a self centred, ruthless stranger. With a Good Old Days MC introduction, by Comedian, Entertainer and Papal Knight, Don Maclean, it features 12 of the author's newly composed songs. A Power Point display runs throughout, linked by five Edward Elgar compositions – the composer and Shirley's maternal Great Grandfather, Eustace Baylis, having been schoolboy friends. Introductory pages are followed by the main script, interspersed with song scores. All scenes are slide-illustrated, to correspond with the Power Point Disc (included). Music for the show's five 'a cappella' songs is in the Appendices. Add a diverse range of characters, plus shades of Oliver Twist, and we have an exciting new musical – just ripe for performance!
£14.20
Crescent Moon Publishing Life, Life: Selected Poems
Book SynopsisLIFE, LIFE A book of poetry by Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky, translated by Virginia Rounding. Includes many poems used in Arseny's son's films (Andrei Tarkovsky). With a bibliography of both Arseny and Andrei Tarkovsky, and illustrations from Tarkovsky's movies. FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Arseny Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky was was born in June 1907 in Elizavetgrad, later named Kirovograd. He studied at the Academy of Literature in Moscow from 1925 to 1929, and also worked in the editorial office of the journal Gudok. He was well respected as a translator, especially of the Oriental classics, but was little known as a poet for most of his life, being unable to get any of his own work published during the Stalinist era. His poems did not begin to appear in book form until he was over fifty. His son, the film director Andrei Tarkovsky, made extensive use of his father's in some of his films, and certain of his diary entries indicate the esteem in which the poet was held in the Soviet Union towards the end of his life. An entry written after Andrei had given a talk at the Moscow Physical Institute in 1980, for instance, reproduces the following note from a member of the audience: An enormous number of people in this hall admire Arseny Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky as a great Russian poet. Please convey our respects to him.' One of the few recorded public appearances of Arseny Tarkovsky was at the funeral of Anna Akhmatova; he was one of three writers deputed to accompany her coffin from Domodedovo to Leningrad, and he read both at her funeral in Komarovo and at the first evening held in her memory in Moscow. He died in 1989 and is now beginning to be recognised as one of the many significant Russian poets of the twentieth century. From Ignatyevo Forest': The last leaves' embers in total immolation Rise into the sky; this whole forest Seethes with irritation, just as we did That last year we lived together.
£14.86
Crescent Moon Publishing A Season in Hell
Book SynopsisARTHUR RIMBAUD: A SEASON IN HELL edited and translated by Andrew Jary A new translation of Arthur Rimbaud''s extraordinary poetic statement, written in 1873. The sensual, violent and anguished emotion in Rimbaud''s visionary ''alchemy of the word'' remains startling, and continues to inspire poets. Printed with the French text facing the translation. For a time, when he was a teenager until he was 19, art was crucial for the psychic well-being of the restless Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). The young would-be rebel Rimbaud escaped from the bland provincial town of Charleville in Northern France to wander the streets of Paris in poverty. After writing his Illuminations and A Season in Hell, some of the most extraordinary poems of all world literature, Rimbaud renounced it all for a hellish and apparently boring life in Aden. ''Mortel, ange ET demon, autant dire Rimbaud,'' as Rimbaud''s lover, Paul Verlaine wrote (''Mortal, angel AND demon, that is to say Rimbaud''.) Arthur Rimbaud is the tornado of world poetry. He out-blasts just about every other poet. For poets, he is more significant than the so-called ''founding fathers'' or influential philosophers of modern times: Marx, Freud, Nietzsche and Einstein. For poets, he is ''everybody''s favourite hippy'', a Communard, a ''precursor of the current movement of subversion of Western notions of self, society, and discourse'', and a savage mystic. Arthur Rimbaud is one of the most authentically rebellious of modern poets. Other poets have written of rebellion and radical action, but Rimbaud is one of the very few who actually carried it out (and didn''t sound like an idiot when he spoke of it). Picture the young poet in his mid-teens, utterly bored by the living deaths of suburban life, aching to run away to Paris. Though he was dragged back a number of times, Rimbaud''s life after his early teens was never again centred in his homeland. True, he returned to his mother, family and homeland, but his true heartland, his landscape of the soul, was elsewhere. Rimbaud was ever a poet of elsewhere, the other place, displacement. He was always another person: ''Je est un autre (I is an other). He rebelled partly for the joy of rebellion. His early poetry is marked by an extraordinary virulence and anger. Illuminations and A Season in Hell, his major works, are also powered by an immense anger - a cosmic anger, a psycho-cultural-spiritual turmoil. Illustrated, with a newly revised text for this edition. Introduction, bibliography and notes. ISBN 971861713605. www.crmoon.com
£999.99
Auckland University Press Remember Me: Poems to Learn by Heart from Aotearoa New Zealand
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£29.96
Green Books Field Days: An Anthology of Poetry
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£8.50
Green Books The River's Voice: An Anthology of Poetry
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£9.45
Hearing Eye Prague Winter
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£8.50
Greenwich Exchange Ltd Baudelaire: Selected Poems from Les Fleurs Du
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£999.99
Sheldrake Press When Grandmama Fell Off the Boat: The Best of
Book SynopsisWhen Grandmama Fell off the Boat is an anthology of the humorous verse of Harry Graham, one of the early 20th century’s wittiest writers. Graham made his name as the author of Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes, published in 1898 under the pseudonym Col. D. Streamer (he was a Coldstream Guard). He went on to become a successful writer of stage-show lyrics, and in 1923 had five smash-hit musicals running simultaneously in the West End of London. His work was published not only in England but also in America, where he was credited with introducing ‘sick’ verse. The Times in its 1936 obituary compared him with Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and W. S. Gilbert, an epitaph that has stood the test of time. Graham’s secret is his ability to relate common episodes with a sardonic twist. A father irritated by his crying infant finds peace and quiet by popping him in the Frigidaire and a man whose wife elopes with the chauffeur despairs of ever starting the car. His callous and quotable rhymes became the table talk of a generation, influencing emerging writers such as W. H. Auden, George Orwell and Agatha Christie.Trade Review'He is in the great tradition of Lear and Carroll and Gilbert and Belloc. At his best he easily ranks any of these.' - Jeremy Nicholas, The Ruthless Rhymer, BBC Radio 4Table of ContentsForeword by Virginia Graham. Introduction by Miles Kington. The Poems: Indifference, Appreciation, Father, Aunt Eliza, Amiability, The New Profession, Thoughtlessness, Grandpapa, Tender-Heartedness, Mr Jones, Compensation, The Linguist, The Siren, Patience, Holidays, The Neighbours, Perspective, The Homes of London, Necessity, The Last Horsed 'Bus, Lord Gorbals, The Model Motorist, Table Manners, Luncheon, Waste, Dinner, The Men from Blankley's, Providence, Dancing, The Battue of Berlin, The Englishman's Home, The Sportsman, Getting Up, The Ideal Husband, Love's Handicap, Mrs Christopher Columbus, The Trucks of Truro, The New Romance, Good Sport, The Busy Rich, The Morning, Slush, Winter Sports, L'Enfant Glace, Grandmama, The Martyrdom of Fashion, Dressing, Plagues at the Play, Creature Comforts, The Choice, A Plea for Ponto, The Deserted Garden, The Fallen Star, The Cries of London, The Postman and the Lift, The Vacuum Cleaner, The Cry of the Elders, The Motriot, Tragedy, In-Laws, Breakfast, Bishop Prout, The Traveller, If - !, Chance, Opportunity, Waste, The Bath, The Dirt Cure, The Pest, Calculating Clara, Baby, Canon Gloy, The Poet's Life, Envoi. Sources.
£14.36
Avalanche Books Impossible Memories
Book SynopsisThe seventh poetry collection by Chris Tutton.
£8.95
Medieval Institute Publications Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales
Book SynopsisThis volume is the first affordable, modern collection of all eleven of the known Middle English Gawain tales, and aims to make these texts accessible to a wider, contemporary audience. These poems-The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, The Avowyng of Arthur, The Awyntrs off Arthur, The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain, The Greene Knight, The Turke and Sir Gawain, The Marriage of Sir Gawain, The Carle of Carlisle, The Jeaste of Sir Gawain, and King Arthur and King Cornwall-are united by their common concern with the theme of chivalry. Sir Gawain was by far the most popular of Arthur's knights in medieval England, and the verses collected here offer a window not only into English views on Gawain but also attitudes towards the knightly ideal and chivalry. Incorporating glosses and introductions for each text as well as an extensive glossary, this edition is excellent for students of Middle English romance.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Bibliography of Editions and Works Cited The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle The Avowyng of Arthur The Awntyrs off Arthur The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain The Greene Knight The Turke and Sir Gawain The Marriage of Sir Gawain The Carle of Carlisle The Jeaste of Sir Gawain King Arthur and King Cornwall Glossary
£33.25
Biblioasis I Wrote Stone: The Selected Poetry of Ryszard
Book SynopsisBringing together for the first time in English a selection of poems from his two previously published collections, Kapuscinski offers up a thoughtful, philosophical verse, often aphoristic in tone and structure, that is engaged politically, morally, and viscerally with the world around him. Translated from the Polish.Trade Review"Even faced with his oncoming death, a swift bout with cancer, Kapuscinski could not help but retain his tone or reportage. He touches upon the great fear of death with a surprisingly unbiased touch even as the lines are imbued with emotion by the reader, who knows the inevitability and is faced with a posthumous message from beyond."—Bookslut "I Wrote Stone" shows us a chronicler of chaos in one of those moments when he has turned off his journalistic processes and given himself up to something else."—LA Times
£12.34
Nash Pollock Publishing Poems for Thinking
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£14.24
Straw Hat Poetry for Life and Other Chronic Conditions
Book SynopsisUplifting debut poetry collection about the realities and small joys of unexpectedly finding yourself living with a life-changing condition.
£999.99
Two Rivers Press The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Book SynopsisIn May of 1895 Oscar Wilde, the century's most dazzling man of letters, was sentenced to two years with hard labour for 'acts of gross indecency with another male person.' On his release he moved to France, where he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol: an indictment of the prison system and the death penalty, an anguished plea for prison reform, and a passionate expression of sympathy for his fellow prisoners, those 'souls in pain'. The Ballad of Reading Gaol was a success from its first publication, and to this day some of its lines are among the most famous in the English language. Peter Hay's powerful images are retained in this new edition which contains an Afterword by Peter Stoneley, drawing on unpublished material in the prison archives.
£9.49
Smith|Doorstop Books The Butcher's Hands
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£6.95
Parthian Books Poetry 1900-2000
Book SynopsisThe most legendary names in poetry from Wales - David Jones, Idris Davies, Vernon Watkins, RS Thomas, Dylan Thomas and Alun Lewis - are featured here alongside many living greats such as Dannie Abse, Tony Conran, Gillian Carke, Tony Curtis, Robert Minhinnick and Gwyneth Lewis. Every decade of the century is featured, as is almost every part of Wales - urban, industrial and rural - and many of the poems reflect our history from Edwardian times to the post-industrial present. Biographical notes are provided for all the poets. A few lesser names have been selected to suggest continuity and the changing literary scene over the century. Wales now has a rich, vibrant and varied literature in English and this anthology reflects it comprehensive, authoritative and lively way.Trade Review'A wonderful compendium of good poems and poets worth meeting ... But it is also an act of empowerment that reaches beyond individuals and single artistic genres, in a way that only poetry can.' Alan Riach, New Welsh Review 'Meic Stephens, with his huge knowledge of Welsh writers, has done this editing fairly, sensitively and comprehensively.' John Idris Jones,Roundyhouse Poetry Magazine
£17.00
Wrecking Ball Press What Is It Like?
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£10.80
Galileo Publishers In The Cairngorms
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£9.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC King Henry VI Part 3: Third Series
Book SynopsisIn their lively and engaging edition of this sometimes neglected early play, Cox and Rasmussen make a strong claim for it as a remarkable work, revealing a confidence and sureness that very few earlier plays can rival. They show how the young Shakespeare, working closely from his chronicle sources, nevertheless freely shaped his complex material to make it both theatrically effective and poetically innovative. The resulting work creates, in Queen Margaret, one of Shakespeare's strongest female roles and is the source of the popular view of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick as 'kingmaker'. Focusing on the history of the play both in terms of both performance and criticism, the editors open it to a wide and challenging variety of interpretative and editorial paradigms.
£11.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Third Series
Book SynopsisTwo Gentlemen of Verona is commonly agreed to be Shakespeare's first comedy, and probably his first play. A comedy built around the confusions of doubling, cross - dressing and identity, it is also a play about the ideal of male friendship and what happens to those friendships when men fall in love.William Carroll's engaging Introduction focuses on the traditions and sources that stand behind the play and explores Shakespeare's unique and bold treatment of them. Special attention is given to the strong female figure of Julia and the controversial final scene.
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC All's Well That Ends Well
Book SynopsisIn All’s Well That Ends Well, Helen, a lowly ward, risks her life to satisfy her boundless love for Bertram, a count and ward to the King of France. Following him to Paris, she concocts an endangering plan to win the King of France’s favour and induce Bertram’s hand in marriage. In the comprehensive introduction to this new, fully-illustrated Arden edition, Suzanne Gossett takes a transformative look at the play’s critical and performance history by offering fresh perspectives on the conundrum of genre, sexuality and moral dilemmas with masculinity and the structures of family. The authoritative play text is amply annotated to clarify its language and allusions, and two appendices debate the play’s authorship and review its casting. Offering students and scholars alike a wealth of insight and new research, this edition maintains the rigorous standards of the Arden Shakespeare.Trade ReviewThe best edition available with a particularly thoughtful and undogmatic introduction. * Paul Hartle, University of Cambridge, UK *Table of ContentsList of illustrations General editors’ preface Preface Introduction ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL Appendix 1: Casting All's Well That Ends Well Appendix 2: The Authorship Debate Abbreviations and references Index
£67.50
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC King Henry IV Part 2
Book SynopsisMore troubled and troubling than King Henry IV Part 1, the play continues the story of King Henry’s decline and Hal’s reform. Though Part 2 echoes the structure of the earlier play, it is a darker and more unsettling world, in which even Falstaff’s revelry is more tired and cynical, and the once-merry Hal sloughs off his tavern companions to become King Henry V. James C. Bulman's authoritative edition provides a wealth of incisive commentary on this complex history play.Trade ReviewBulman’s commentary notes are exhaustive, and he highlights many previously unnoted moments of chronicle history influence … Bulman’s new Arden edition does not merely give textual scholars a tight text and graduate students an authoritative survey of sources and theatrical history. It also effectively argues that we should reevaluate the position of 2 Henry IV within the canon. This masterful edition was well worth the wait. * Shakespeare Quarterly *Probably the best available edition with a far more up-to-date performance history than any competitor. * Paul Hartle, University of Cambridge, UK *James C. Bulman’s edition of Shakespeare’s King Henry IV, Part 2 includes an extremely informative introduction which breathes new life into this often-neglected play. Bulman expertly navigates the difficult textual terrain—neither the Quarto (which appeared in two issues) nor the Folio provides a fully authoritative copy text—explaining the rationale for his decisions in a detailed but accessible appendix. * Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *[King Henry IV Part 2] provides an exceptionally competent, stimulating, and thorough exploration of all major and many minor disputed problems of this sequel ... In his attention to the text of the play and its background, Bulman offers exceptional quality in addition to the immediately evident quantity. * Berliner Beiträge zur Editionswissenschaft *
£11.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC A Woman Killed With Kindness
Book SynopsisThe most studied of Thomas Heywood's plays, A Woman Killed With Kindness explores the boundaries of marital punishment and the moral weight of mercy. This major new edition of this startling domestic tragedy offers the standard, depth and range associated with all Arden editions. The on-page commentary notes explain the language, references and staging issues posed by the text while the lengthy, illustrated introduction offers a lively overview of the play's historical, performance and critical contexts. This is the ideal edition for study and performance.Table of ContentsIntroduction A Woman Killed With Kindness Appendices Bibliography Index
£15.99
Waterside Press The Man They Couldn't Hang: A Tale of Murder,
Book SynopsisA play in two Acts with an Introduction by the author. The story of John 'Babbacombe' Lee is one of the most bizarre in English criminal history. Lee is the only person to have been reprieved by a Home Secretary after standing on a gallows trap which failed to open. This happened at Exeter Prison in 1885 when the notoriously inept public hangman James Berry gave up after three abortive attempts. Lee spent 23 years in prison before being released. On retirement, Berry from Heckmondwike, Yorkshire, who carried out 131 executions, was the first executioner to write about his experiences in My Experiences As An Executioner. His resulting celebrity led to him taking to the boards, spinning gruesome tales of his former trade and showing audiences his dark souvenirs. Mike Crowley's imaginative play is set in a down-at-heel northern music hall where the proprietor is bent on reviving the venue's glory days by persuading the now released Lee to team up with Berry in a double act. Did John Lee commit the murder for which he was due to hang? Did poetic justice intervene on that fateful day in Exeter to prevent a miscarriage of justice? Will Lee stand on the scaffold once again with the noose around his neck, on stage and for the paying public? And will the truth come out or not as Lee begins to confide in the woman designated as leading lady during rehearsals? 'The Man They Couldn't Hang' by prison writer in residence Mike Crowley is an ideal vehicle for raising issues of crime and punishment. It will be particularly useful for drama groups in and out of prison, and tutors or group leaders seeking innovative ways of involving those they work with in issues of criminal justice and crime and punishment. The play is also suitable for full-scale drama productions.Trade Review'This work would undoubtedly provide a wealth of meaty material for any drama workshop worth its name, whether inside or outside of the prison wall. I hope to have the opportunity to see it performed some time, if only to have a good laugh at a good (or rather bad) hanging': Prison Service Journal.Table of ContentsACT I ACT II
£14.95
Waterside Press Street Crhymes
Book SynopsisJustin Rollins has a remarkable ability. His poems emerge not from agonising over a blank sheet of paper, but in rap-like fashion, in full-flow and in their complete form. This collection takes the reader on a journey on which those familiar with his autobiographical The Lost Boyz will recognise the landmarks. But this is fresh and captivating work. It deals with the everyday effects of disadvantage, the tensions of wealth and poverty, freedom and incarceration with glimpses of a sometimes dark past, motivational now and uncertain though optimistic future. What registers is Rollins' eye for detail, the telling remark, the eccentric, the absurd, clandestine places and parallel realities. Much of this is driven by his years living on the streets chasing excitement to compensate for the lack of a conventional upbringing. The result is a raw journey captured in snapshots of street crimes, survival, pain and the author's travels on the Northern Line. Extracts From 'Street Wise' - Some boys played with toy cars We played with metal bars And set fires On the way to becoming the lads All the traits of a psychopath They visited museums and studied from books We bunked history and became hooked Snotty-nosed kids slowly becoming crooks. From 'Cameron's Kids' - See we wasn't born with riches Luxury food on tap ...I was born guilty Brought up in those flats So when you drive on by Just give us a bib Cameron what would you do If this was your kid?Trade Review'A great read. Very original voice': John Harding, former Chief Probation Officer for Inner London. 'Justin Rollins is THE authentic poetic voice of the streets - He is bringing a message and whether you like it or not it is real. Truly a genuine voice of the lost generation': Noel 'Razor' Smith, Author of A Few Kind Words and A Loaded Gun. 'A very talented wordsmith who paints pictures with topics most don't want to talk about': The Thirst, London-based rock band and peers of the author (see thethirst.co.uk). 'Street Crhymes reveals what goes on in the mind of a young offender, how they really feel and provides some real home truths about life behind bars': David A Williams, Director of Youth Services, London Urban Arts Academy. 'Transformation of a beleaguered mind and body giving rise to and embracing the artistic creative spirit. Resurrection!': Yolande Bavan, Jazz LegendTable of ContentsAbout the Author. Acknowledgements. What others say about Justin Rollins. Dedication. THE DARK STREETS: Streets of Crhyme. Karma. The Devil's Nest. Teenage Flashbacks. Not Perfect. Tales from the Crypt. Graffiti-eyes. Anger Management. Live by the Sword. Street Horses. Gang Bang Slang. Welcome to the Jungle. The Cycle. Music Affects. FOOTPRINTS ON MEMORY LANE: Morden. Welcome to Tooting. A Million Mordens. IT'S ALL POLITICAL: Tragedy. Risen. Clues for Politicians. Funny Money. Cameron's Kids. Needy Streets. 'Bye Phone. Total Eclipse. Handling Hair. Licence to Kill. One Life. It's Gonna Get Dark. Spilling. Slave Ship Mentality. Surviving on Love. A DIFFERENT ENERGY: Echoes. Stranger of Truth. Call the Search Off. Born to Survive. Ego. The Gates. Book of Faces. Trust. Sometimes. Power of Now. A True Champ. Touching Souls. Common Fate. Life's Bridge. LOCK DOWN: I'm a Young Offender. Mirror Kids (or Little Man I). Robbers and Killers. Moving Tomb. Baby Boy. Slammer Life. Up and Down. Help Me Please. Prison Clips. Little Man II. Youngers. If that Match Don't Strike. Too Short. Breather. A POCKET OF POISON: Golden Brown. High. Clear Vision. FINGERPRINTS ON MY HEART: Proud to Know You. I Will Never Forget. Limey. Chantel. To You. Jamin T. The Pack. UNCONDITIONAL: Sweet Child of Mine. Happily Ever After. Pillow talk. A While Ago. My Greatest Auntie. No Ordinary Love. MORE TALES FROM THE DARK STREETS: The Devil Wears Prada. Little Gary. Vice System. Calm After the Storm. Daddy's Running. COLOUR BLIND: Paki. Colour. Confessions of The Sun. Angry Men. Munching History. ALL IN MY HEAD: Lately. Sevens. Nomad. Stay. Self-healing. Searchlight. THE GOOD STREET: The Struggle. Narrow Roads. Shifting Labels. Debris. Discover. One-Way Roads. Before It's Too Late. The Take Off. JUDGE AND JURY: Danger Dog. Falling Feathers. A Write Buzz. Street Wise. Pointing Fingers. Hater. Many Hours to Think. Material Smiles. Small Thing to a Giant. Daddy Where Are You?. Actors. Index of First Lines.
£12.95
Arc Publications Pro Eto: That'S What
Book SynopsisVladimir Mayakovsky was one of the towering literary figures of pre- and post-revolutionary Russia, speaking as much to the working man (he often employed the rough talk of the streets and revolutionary rhetoric in his poetry) as to other poets (his creative fascination with sound and form, linguistic metamorphosis and variation made him a sort of 'poet's poet', the doyen, if not the envy, of his contemporaries, Pasternak among them). His poetry, influenced by Whitman and Verhaeren and strangely akin to modern rock poetry in its erotic thrust, bluesy complaints and cries of pain, not to mention its sardonic humour, is at once aggressive, mocking and tender, and often fantastic or grotesque. Pro Eto - That's What is a long love poem detailing the pain and suffering inflicted on the poet by his lover and her final rejection of him. But as well as being an agonising parable of separation and betrayal, it is also a political work, highly critical of Lenin's reforms of Soviet Socialism. The publication of That's What is something of a landmark for not only is this the first time that this seminal work has appeared in its entirety in translation, but it is illustrated with the 11 inspired photomontages that Alexander Rodchenko designed to interleave and illuminate the text, illustrations which inaugurate a world of new possibilities in combining verbal and visual forms of expression and which are reproduced in colour (as originally conceived) for the first time.Table of Contents'Vladimir Mayakovsky and That's What ' Introduction by John Wakeman; 'Translating Mayakovsky's That's What' Preface by George Hyde; What's This? - That's What (pp 22-3); I. The Ballad of Reading Gaol (pp. 28-29); II. Christmas Eve (pp 66-67); Application on behalf of... (Please, comraade chemist, fill it in yourself) (pp 140-141); Notes (p 164); Biographical Notes (p 168) PHOTOMONTAGES BY ALEXANDER RODCHENKO Untitled (p 6); She lies / in bed. / While he... / On the table is a telephone.(p.31); from the cable / crawled - / scratching jealously - / a monster from troglodytic / times. (p 47); I paw at / my ears / kneading uselessly. / I hear / my own / my very own voice. / The knife / of this voice bores through / my paws. (p 61); So it ever was / And ever shall be / World without end. / The old mare / of the daily grind / canters on serenely. (p 91); And again / the walls / baked hot like the steppe / echo / and sigh / in your ears, in the two-step. (p 113); I catch my balance / waving frantically. (p 131); Four times I try - / four times / resuscitated (p 147); She too / - she used to like animals - / will come to the Public Gardens (p 159); Untitled (p 162); Untitled (p 163)
£10.44
Enitharmon Press Selected Poems
Book SynopsisIn this welcome centenary edition of C. Day Lewis' poems, Jill Balcon has substantially extended her husband's own Penguin selections of 1951 and 1969, including not only his last collection "The Whispering Roots" (1970), but also vers d'occasion written when he was Poet Laureate and a number of the Posthumous Poems. This broad retrospective allows the reader a proper view of the technical variety and range of Day Lewis' work, from the pastoral lyrics of his youth, inspired by Hardy and Yeats, through the political verse of the 1930s, to the reflective and more personal poems of his later years. Day Lewis was fond of quoting Robert Frost's dictum that 'a poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom'. This could equally well describe his own development as a writer: idealistic, sincere and psychologically acute, he bears witness in his poetry to a lifelong commitment to serving literature and its makers.
£13.50
Enitharmon Press The Ancient Mariner
Book SynopsisThe artist and poet David Jones (1895-1974) considered The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to be ''one of the great achievements of English poetry, and not only great but unique''. In 1929 Jones made ten copper engravings for a limited edition of Coleridge''s poem.This new edition (the first in an accessible and affordable format) is prefaced by David Jones''s Introduction. Also included is an Afterword by Thomas Dilworth, with twenty-eight illustrations, discussing the biographical context of the engravings, interpreting them, and illuminating an aspect of the form of the poem which may have influenced the engravings.
£13.50
Arrowhead Press Grasshopper: The Poetry of M A Griffiths
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£10.80
Luath Press Ltd 100 Favourite Scottish Poems
Book Synopsis100 Favourite Scottish Poems brings together the best and best-loved of Scottish poetry. From anonymous medieval ballads to the renowned work of Sir Walter Scott and Edwin Morgan, the cream of the nation's poetry - from the Borders to Shetland - is represented in this carefully chosen anthology. 100 Favourite Scottish Poems includes the Top 20 of the nation's favourite poetic pieces, chosen by BBC Scotland listeners in a recent web poll. Scotland's most famous poets are represented - Robert Burns, Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley MacLean, Muriel Spark, Iain Crichton Smith, Liz Lochhead, plus many more.Trade ReviewBoth wit and wisdom, and that fusion of the two which can touch the heart as well as the mind, distinguishes the work selected by Stewart Conn for his anthology 100 Favourite Scottish Poems (Luath Press and Scottish Poetry Library, £7.99). This lovely little book ranges from Dunbar to Douglas Dunn, taking in just about all the major and most of the minor Scottish poets of the centuries by means of their most memorable writing. THE SCOTSMAN It is... a highly varied collection and one that should fulfill Conn's hopes of whetting the reader's appetite... this is both a taster and a volume of substance. THE HERALD GUIDE a richly diverse collection of poems in English, Scots, Gaelic and Shetlandic (…) They reflect not only the many traditions on which Scottish poetry has drawn, but also the range and variety of contemporary Scottish poetry, which forms the bulk of the collection. NORTHWORDS NOW This book might be better called 50 Favourites and 50 Surprises, and that’s no bad thing! SCOTTISH ARTS COUNCIL
£7.59
Flipped Eye Publishing Limited Say
Book SynopsisIn Say, Sarala Estruch explores the limits of language in the face of overwhelming loss and attempts to forge a language with which to probe subjects that still remain largely taboo: grief, childhood bereavement, the challenges and possibilities of cross-cultural and interracial relationships, mixed-race identity, colonialism and its aftermath. A pamphlet that exists in the spaces left vacant by the silences in the stories that parents and grandparents tell us; Say casts a slant light on the scars our ancestors carry, both those we inherit and those we choose to leave behind.Trade Review"Sarala Estruch’s extraordinary debut flows from the question posed by Audre Lorde: 'What do you need to say?' From these engrossing, wise, surprising poems, we learn about the poet’s struggle to 'coax words from hiding', but also about need: the need to speak, the need to hold back, the need for closeness - whether across the threshold of the page, or across the gulf of death. Say is the work of a spellbinding storyteller, who pieces together a cloth shot through with silences: old griefs, family secrets, the blindspots around race and colonial history from which our culture still turns away. 'Still, I’m not brave enough to ask', the poet regrets of her younger self. These poems shine with that bravery: I will come back to them again and again." -- Sarah Howe; "Sarala Estruch's Say grieves, is grief, gives grief its echo. Here a father is not lost but binds the daughter in an intricate web of mourning for home, language, belonging as well as love. The poems make uncanny crystalisations in a transformative image, a rhythm, a fragment, swelling with empathy. The poet speaks with two voices, wishes them into one, and what is said fractures language in its frame." -- Sandeep Parmar
£5.19
Greenwich Exchange Ltd Papers
Book Synopsis
£12.34
Merlin Unwin Books Nearest Earthly Place to Paradise: The Literary
Book SynopsisExtracts inspired by the Shropshire countryside from writers including John Betjeman, Tom Sharpe, Charles Dickens, DH Lawrence, Samuel Johnson, Wilfred Owen and AE Housman each matched with a stunning specially-commissioned photograph.
£17.00
Classical Comics Importance of Being Earnest the Graphic Novel
Book SynopsisA reduced, simplified dialogue version of the Original Text for a fast-paced read. Two young gentlemen living in 1890's England use imaginary friends to inject some excitement into their seemingly dull lives. Jack Worthing invents a brother, "Ernest", whom he pretends to be in order to visit his beloved Gwendolen in the city. Meanwhile, friend Algy Moncrieff uses the name "Ernest" while visiting Jack's beautiful young ward, Cecily in the country. Much confusion ensues as the two women find out they have been deceived by their "Ernests". Some would call this a society comedy; others, a Victorian farce. Regardless of the term used, this full colour graphic novel captures the era effortlessly. With an intricate attention to detail, wonderful characterisation and dramatically expressive and humorous artwork, this really is a graphic novel to cherish.Table of ContentsDramatis Persona The Importance of Being Earnest Act 1 Act 2 Act 3 Oscar Wilde De Profundis Wilde Timeline The Original Four-Act Play Page Creation
£9.99
Smith|Doorstop Books A Discoverie of Witches
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£11.69
Dedalus Press Inspired Notes: Poems of Tomas Transtromer
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£9.50
Dedalus Press Liffey Swim
Book SynopsisLiffey Swim is the debut collection of poems from Dubliner Jessica Traynor, in which family portraits combine with myth and history to create a strikingly assured and engaging suite of poems. Delivered in a language that is at once fresh and confident, these poems have already earned the poet a number of awards and honours, and mark her out as a distinctive new talent in Irish writing."Her finely lyrical work is informed by wide travel, a meditative intelligence and an acute sense of history, in which Dublin and its three rivers become a living metaphor for the truths and felicities of one woman''s life."- Harry Clifton
£9.02
Association for Scottish Literary Studies An Cuilithionn 1939: The Cuillin 1939 and
Book SynopsisThe work of Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean), the greatest Gaelic poet of the 20th century, has a significance which echoes far beyond the confines of his time, his country and his language. His extended political poem ''An Cuilithionn'' (''The Cuillin''), taking the celebrated mountain range in Skye as a symbol for the international revolutionary movement, has hitherto been known only in an abridgement, made fifty years after its initial conception in 1939 on the eve of World War II. Christopher Whyte''s edition of the original manuscript includes 400 lines never before published, along with MacLean''s own English translation from the time of writing, and an extended commentary. Forty-five other previously unpublished poems by Sorley MacLean also appear here for the first time, with facing English translations.
£11.88
