A haiku, an ode, a sonnet, a limerick, an elegy ... more poetry,please.
Poetry Books
Parthian Books Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim
Book SynopsisMoon jellyfish live a life adrift, relying on the current to take them where they need to go. They are the ultimate survivors and one of the most successful organisms of animal life. So how do they thrive in the open ocean when they can barely swim? Rooted in her island home, Ness Owen's second collection explores what it is to subsist with whatever the tides bring in poems that journey from family to politics, womanhood and language. In the ebb and flow of an ever-changing world, starlings fall from the sky, votes are cast, a village is drowned, a petrified forest is revealed and messages wash up in seaworn bottles on the shoreline, waiting for answers that will not come.
£9.50
Arachne Press A Voice Coming From Then
Book SynopsisJeremy Dixon's first full poetry collection A VOICE COMING FROM THEN starts from his teenage suicide attempt and expands to encompass themes of bullying, queerphobia, acceptance and support. Includes unexpected typography, collage, humour, magic, discotheques and frequent appearances from the Victorian demon, Spring-heeled Jack. Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year English Language Poetry Content warning, some of the poems deal with the themes and the language of physical and verbal bullying, swearing, queerphobia, queerphobic language, attempted suicide and suicide.
£9.49
Arachne Press What Meets the Eye?: The Deaf Perspective
Book SynopsisA tree falls in the forest and I am/ there to make sure no one hears it./Beloved: It’s not that I am/unwilling to be seized by sound,/ everyday I am undone by it. Khando Langri Our poets and authors were given the theme of Movement. They have intepreted this in many ways: movement as communication and connection, mobility, and stillness, being moved emotionally, movement within and after Lockdown, freedom of movement, and being part of a political movement. Poems, short fiction and scripts from UK Deaf, deaf and hard of hearing writers. Our theme is movement. Stories and poems from Alison Campbell, Ayesha B. Gavin, Bryony Parkes, Charlie Swinbourne, Clare-Louise English, Colly Metcalfe, David Callin, Dee Cooke, Diane Dobson, DL Williams, Elizabeth Ward, Emma Lee, Hala Hashem, Janet Hatherley, Jay Caldwell, John Kefala Kerr, John Wilson, Josephine Dickinson, Julie Boden, Khando Langri, Ksenia Balabina, Liam O'Dell, Lianne Herbert, Lynn Buckle, Maggie Arbeid, Marilyn Longstaff, Maryam Ebrahim, Mary-Jayne Russell de Clifford, Melanie Jayne Ashford, Rodney Wood, Sahera Khan, Samantha Baines, Sarah Clarke, Sarah O Adedeji, Sophie Woolley, Terri Jade Donovan.
£9.99
Arachne Press More Patina than Gleam
Book SynopsisThis series of poems, based in post war Edinburgh, tell the story of Linda, fleeing with her 11 year old daughter from England and an abusive relationship. In hiding as a lady’s companion in one of the city’s suburbs, mother and daughter settle into their new life in Elsie’s rackety house, and encounter a variety of characters who will change their lives forever. More Patina than Gleam celebrates outsiders getting by in hard times – the day to day grind of cleaning a house, periods, prejudice, ageing, sexuality and falling in and out of love. The poems are not autobiographical, but Jane Aldous, whose own mother used to say that she could have run away with Jane when she was a baby, has gently torn scraps from her own life to add to the collage.Trade ReviewA novella in seventy sonnets, and a page turner at that – some achievement! Aldous has given us a rare treat. An absorbing narrative of both actual and emotional journeys are given life on the page by her careful attention to setting and detail – we are conscious of being safely steered home by an assured and fluent poetic hand; Joy Howard
£8.99
Arachne Press Birds Knit My Ribs Together
Book Synopsiswhat if / I actually - am - a bird / my cupped hands / opening to release me... Phil Barnett's relationship with birds is so close that his poetry blurs the distinctions between himself and the birds - a kind of ornimorphology where rather than giving the birds human characteristics, the reverse happens, and he imagines himself as a bird. Phil Barnett is a photographer, writer, musician, artist and naturalist, who has a passion for the birds that kept him company through a long hard illness. His photography and poetry have quite a following on social media, which is where we found him, on The Daily Haiku. His skill as a photographer leads to an acute visual sensibility, and his slow recovery moves from a tick sheet his mother had to fill in for him, to extraordinary poetry - full of wit and wonder and spectacular language.Trade ReviewThese poems are windows onto moments of a life steeped in nature. At once perceptive and full of wonder, they captivate with a uniqueness and vibrancy, just as the sudden surprise of birds can startle us from our myopic existence. Jane LovellTable of ContentsBirds Knit my Ribs Together Introduction The pond Dream Thrush Wounds Three Curses To know what it's like Box of letting go Jackdaws to roost Bird watching We give what we can Just sitting Under wings Trepanning unchorused A crack must have opened Plugged by a bird unsprung Butcher bird Terrible curve Nor Woodcock rising Two white horses Floating cork of me Molten roe So close Amber under The news Spans two hills Its own angle The nature dog Coastal footpath Used to be Flux Set the air Stones Open A willow's words When I was water
£9.49
Cambridge Philological Society Munere Mortis: Studies in Greek Literature in
Book SynopsisColin Austin (1941–2010), Professor of Greek at Cambridge and distinguished editor of poetic texts, was renowned for the precision and brilliance of his scholarship. This collection of studies, offered by some of his pupils, aims to honour his memory. The papers combine philology and textual criticism with a strong interest in setting the works under examination in their literary and cultural context. Individual contributions are devoted to the establishment of the text of the comic poet Menander and the epigrammatist Posidippus of Pella, while one chapter offers a new critical edition of and the first detailed commentary on a number of erotic epigrams. Other essays explore poetic, performative and narratological features in Socratic works of Plato and Xenophon. The volume also includes an analysis of the trope of pathetic fallacy in the bucolic poem Epitaph for Bion and a study of the concept of ‘frigidity’ in ancient literary criticism.Table of Contents1. Textual notes on Menander’s Dyskolos – Antonis K. Petrides. 2. From certainty to hypothesis: Menander’s Misoumenos – Efrosyni Stigka. 3. Charisios and the divine in Menander’s Epitrepontes – Eftychia Bathrellou. 4. Socrates orans (Pl. Phdr. 279b8–c3) – Nikos G. Charalabopoulos. 5. The filter and the magnifier: Plato’s and Xenophon’s sympotic narratives – Andrea Capra. 6. Words that chill: ψυχρότης in ancient humour and criticism – Richard L. Hunter. 7. Marginalia posidippea – Valentina Garulli. 8. The erotic ‘newcomers’ of the Sylloge Parisina: a new critical edition and commentary – Lucia Floridi. 9. Αἴλινά μοι στοναχεῖτε: insights into the exploitation of pathetic fallacy in the Epitaph for Bion – Margherita Maria Di Nino.
£54.00
Compass-Publishing UK A final fling before I fall apart
Book SynopsisA collection of poems with illustrations
£6.65
Renard Press Ltd Salome
Book SynopsisSalomé, the haunting one-act tragedy that marks Wilde’s first great success in the theatre, retells the Biblical story in which the stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas demands the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter as a reward for her dancing for her stepfather’s amusement. Written in 1891, and prepared for its first run in 1892, rehearsals of Salomé had to be cancelled when the play was banned by the Lord Chamberlain due to its depiction of religious characters. Undaunted, Wilde moved on to the drawing-room and society comedies he is today best known for, wowing London audiences with Lady Windermere’s Fan and A Woman of No Importance, and it was only in 1894 that Salomé saw the light of day in an English translation, with a series of specially commissioned illustrations by the up-and-coming Aubrey Beardsley.Trade Review'If I craved for entertaining conversation by a first-class raconteur, I should choose Oscar Wilde.' (George Bernard Shaw) 'An extraordinarily illuminating intellect.' (William Rothenstein)Table of ContentsList of the Pictures; Salomé; Note on the Text; Notes; Extra Material: A Brief Introduction to Oscar Wilde, More Information about Oscar Wilde; Appendix: A Note on Salomé by Robert Ross; Notes to the Appendix
£7.99
Renard Press Ltd People: Unfinished Poems
Book SynopsisThe debut poetry collection from a talented, fresh-voiced poet, People: Unfinished Poems is a lyrical, thought-provoking and moving selection that observes and enjoys the beauty and strangeness of people, exploring their connections to themselves, each other and the places in which they live. With particular attention paid to family, friendship, love, belonging and acceptance, the collection is a real celebration of human individuality and connection. Following a late diagnosis of ADHD, one strand of Ruth’s poetry explores and foregrounds the condition; the reader is invited into a mind that is endlessly thinking and never truly at rest. For Ruth, one result of this is intricate patterns and fragments of poetry sprawled across endless notebooks. This collection includes several poems presented in the poet’s own handwriting, decorated in much the same way as her notebooks, giving the reader an intimate insight into some of the artistic and creative aspects of neurodiversity.
£9.49
Tippermuir Books Limited WILLIAM SOUTAR COLLECTED WORKS
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£51.00
Penned in the Margins Improvised Explosive Device
Book SynopsisImprovised Explosive Device is a startlingly innovative exploration of extremism, hate crime and violence by poet Arji Manuelpillai. In this powerful and unsettling first collection, Manuelpillai presents a vision of the contemporary haunted by Melville's image of the whale - the terror beneath the surface of the sea. His uncompromising focus on violence is laced with gallows humour and the surreal, framed against the mundane detritus of modern life: two boys playing Mortal Kombat; a field of old trainers; the lonely glare of laptop light; a suspicious looking package in the back seat of a van. The poems in Improvised Explosive Device emerged through research and interviews with academics, sociologists, and former members of extremist groups and their families - from the English Defence League and the National Front to ISIS and the Tamil Tigers. These complex, unnerving texts ask a series of important questions. What drives a person to commit a radical act of violence? How is that violence mediated through screens and social media? And how does the British government police marginalised groups? Improvised Explosive Device is a brave, surprising and risk-taking book; it will change the way you look at the world. "Refusing glib analysis and easy answers, Improvised Explosive Device is a work of radical empathy, fuelled by honesty and compassion, both for those stirred to violence against minorities, and those who suffer from it." Rishi Dastidar "The project of Arji Manuelpillai's Improvised Explosive Device leans into the mighty disciplines of poetry, sociology, and reportage to formulate an arresting debut which contests the ways we're conditioned to internalise notions of terrorism, nationalism and belonging...a bold and startling new work." Anthony AnaxagorouTrade Review“Refusing glib analysis and easy answers, Improvised Explosive Device is a work of radical empathy, fuelled by honesty and compassion, both for those stirred to violence against minorities, and those who suffer from it. The poems are unflinching, uncomfortable and uncommonly brave, reminders that life is visceral in its pleasures and its pains, and that for some of us belonging is tenuous, a daily fight to carve a space in which we might be safe, thrive – live. It will make many of us seen, for the first time, and kick us to “speak our truth”. More than this Arji Manuelpillai shows us that the real radicalism is to love, love deeply without prejudice.” Rishi Dastidar; “The project of Arji Manuelpillai’s Improvised Explosive Device leans into the mighty disciplines of poetry, sociology, and reportage to formulate an arresting debut which contests the ways we’re conditioned to internalise notions of terrorism, nationalism and belonging. Poems here are bolstered by their proximity to their subjects; formed out of interviews and conversations with people whose stories are either sensationalised or decontextualised. Manuelpillai demonstrates how a poet can artfully draw down into the grit, the discomfort and ignominy of social life to destabilise the public imagination while never forfeiting the virtues of compassion and rigour. What remains is a bold and startling new work.” Anthony Anaxagorou; “One of these poems has a line-break segregating the phrase—before we move on—I have to fight. Arji Manuelpillai’s first collection is a ferociously savvy feat of activist scrutiny, that fights racist hate while also questioning why it, those hatemongers, and arguably all of us, feel at present so perennially up for a fight, so dominated by squalls of ire and outrage.” Vidyan Ravinthiran;“Arji Manuelpillai assures us this is not an Improvised Explosive Device as he packs his poetry in a duffle bag and invites us to accompany him through the everyday encounters - ‘real’ and ‘pixelated’- that illuminate the sometimes click-fast shift from butterfly-watcher to butterfly-killer but also the slow accumulation of the ‘dark spots’ deposited by hate, the ‘raised eyebrow’ of the CCTV outside a block of flats or humiliation carried as an heirloom. Together, his poems create an exquisitely layered, and moving, exploration of what brings individuals - from very different contexts but a shared world - to acts of violence and war. This collection of poetry is not an IED but it tears down the facades of easy explanations and lays bare what lies beneath as powerfully as if it were.” Hilary Pilkington, University of Manchester; Praise for Mutton Rolls: "The poems in this brilliant, playful debut are multifarious though gratifyingly interlinked, addressing the subjects of Sri-Lankan British identity, masculinity, friendship, grief and love. The tone is sometimes satirical, but there is no hiding behind satire in Arji Manuelpillai's work - great tenderness and beauty characterise these poems, and the poet's voice is completely original, entirely his own." - Hannah Lowe
£9.49
UEA Publishing Project 30 Poets: UEA MA Poetry Anthology: 2021
Book SynopsisFeaturing work by: Amna Alamir • Chloe Bettles • Eleanor Burleigh • Hetty Cliss • Abigail Craig • Sam Davidson • Rose Francklin • Gabrielle Griot • Alex Hillman • Maya Hough • P. B. Hughes • Elke Huismans • Alex Innocent • Lauren Kania • Viv Kemp • Prerana Kumar • Sam Newcombe • Mariana Peña Feeney • Christopher Perry • Max Purkiss • George Richards • Jesse Smith • Tim Snell • Kiera Summer • Tristan·E • Alex Wood
£8.99
Verve Poetry Press The Human Body Is A Hive
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£7.12
Verve Poetry Press Hag Stone
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£9.49
Verve Poetry Press Language Is A Queer Thing
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£7.00
Verve Poetry Press Cashy C's: The Musical: Play Script and Poems
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£9.49
Verve Poetry Press Like Flyering For The Revolution: The VERVE
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£9.49
Verve Poetry Press Shhhhhhhh
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£10.44
Verve Poetry Press Matches
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£8.07
Verve Poetry Press What She Said
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£8.54
Burning Eye Books Please Do Not Touch
Book SynopsisWalk around any stately home, museum or National Trust property and you are likely to see the words please do not touch more than a few times. The irony is in most cases the sign is telling you not to touch something that was stolen from another land, something that should have never been touched in the first place. Please Do Not Touch asks important questions about these things, about the world and the lives that they have shaped. How have the ill gotten gains of colonialism shaped our society today? How does the noise of the crimes of the past reverberate into our present day soundscape?Trade Review'This is a beautifully shattering collection. How delicately it unstitches small and personal disasters on the page. How Casey flattens Birmingham and soaks our hands into its soil so we too feel it’s warmth, it’s grit, the seeds that may still germinate one day. Wow.' - Caleb Femi
£9.49
Burning Eye Books That day she'll proclaim her chronicles
Book SynopsisFor centuries poetry has been a form of knowledge and a way of knowing for non centred people. In this collection Muneera recenters her voice and the voices of other people that are often times relegated to the sidelines or misrepresented in mainstream thought. 'That day she'll relate her chronicles' explores belonging, spirituality, gender race and identity as well as themes of girlhood, pop cultural, familial bonds and crushes, against the back drop of London and Bristol streets steeped colonial power structures that still live on. Despite that this collection is a story of love and a labour of love.
£9.49
Burning Eye Books Pantomime Horse, Russian Doll, Egg
Book SynopsisA poem cycle about giving birth. A creative response to the seemingly improbable and yet utterly commonplace act of somehow producing a human from your body. A rollercoaster ride of viscera and vulnerability, exploring the agony and the ecstasy of an everyday accouchement.
£6.99
Burning Eye Books The Pleasure Dome
Book SynopsisTake your little feelings-junkie-self on a dash through the house of fun. Here is hedonism and anhedonia a.k.a 'the inability to feel anything' nothing? explored through lyric poetry and dystopian prose poetry. Here are the Romantic Poets. Here are some bands from the 1980's. Here is a bathroom. Here is a place where the super-rich get to use your organs instead of their own. Obvs. Think escapism, mothers guilt and drink- some of it set in an alternate dimension of distorted mirrors and super-fun balloons. Dilettantes and the discerning brain are welcome here.Trade Review'I wish I'd discovered this enigmatic force five years ago.' John Cooper Clarke
£9.49
Burning Eye Books My Achilles
Book SynopsisMy Achilles looks at the man behind the myth and explores both the strength and vulnerability in embracing all the sides of oneself: the complex and the ugly, the bold and the brilliant. With themes of love, hope and yearning, My Achilles aims to be not just a myth but a legend. So much about queer love and identity has been hidden between parentheses and what is not said. This pamphlet attempts to fill in those gaps, so that they are not destined to be repeated over and over.
£6.99
Burning Eye Books Supervillain Origin Story
Book SynopsisSupervillain Origin Story is a mischievous, seditious, and often incendiary exploration of trauma, loss, and erasure. Drawing strength and forging defiant triumph from the myriad provocations that could spin a soul into darkness, but somehow didn't. Dove's sophomore poetry collection weaves the ethereal from the light falling through cracked panes, taking inspiration from both personal experiences, and the political turmoil of the pandemic era, to create a collection that unsettles as it thrills. Echoing his educational psychologist's advice to "Use your words" Rick Dove picks up diverse narrative strands touching on queer love, reconciling abusive relationships, and demanding social justice, Dove's Supervillain Origin Story, demonstrates effectively just how disruptive words can be. No one was harmed in the creation of this collection...Trade Review"The raw and effortless charisma of Dove is eye-opening, engrossing, and a complete command of the space. An utter pleasure to witness, and a privilege to share in their craft." - Dominic Corr (Corr Reviews, Loud Poets, Edinburgh, February 2022); "Powerful and uncompromising. If you have the opportunity go see and hear for yourselves." - Paul Temme (SproutSpoken Newquay); "Rick Dove featured at the Some-Antics Championship Slam 2021, and showed our slam contenders what they're aiming for. Scathing social commentary packing into heavy hitting poetry, delivered with passion." - Sammy Nour (Poet, Host and Promoter Some-Antics, Leicester); "One to watch" - Roger Robinson
£9.49
Burning Eye Books Angry Yellow Woman
Book SynopsisAngry Yellow Woman is Vera Chok's debut collection. Is Vera a woman, though? And how yellow are they? The anger is real. These playful, searching, and violently sexy pieces expose Vera's immigrant-hobo journey through the landscapes, beds, and bodies of the UK and beyond.
£9.49
Salamander Street Limited Lament for Sheku Bayoh
Book Synopsis'No problem here pal. None at all.ʼ In the early hours of the morning, thirty-one-year-old Sheku Bayoh set out to walk home from his friend’s place after watching a boxing match. Just hours later, he had lost his life in police custody. Lament for Sheku Bayoh is a poetic expression of grief for the human behind the headlines and a non-apologetic reflection on racism in Scotland today. 'Timely and necessary' The Stage, 5 Stars
£11.39
Salamander Street Limited Unmute: Contemporary monologues written by young
Book Synopsis‘I just need someone to hear these words to know what it’s like for me and people like me.’ Unmute is an arresting and essential collection of contemporary monologues written by young people, for young people. In the wake of the pandemic the theatre company LUNG, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and Salamander Street launched a call out for 11-18 year olds in order to find the next generation of socially engaged playwrights. This anthology features fresh and original young writing talent from across the UK. Investigating mental health, sexuality, racism, culture, class, unrequited love and so much more, these remarkable voices unflinchingly tackle some of the most pressing issues young people face today. Packed with fury, honesty and playfulness, this is a collection from a generation that won’t be silenced and will be heard.
£10.99
Salamander Street Limited Cowboys and Lesbians
Book SynopsisWhen repressed British schoolfriends Nina and Noa start writing a parody American coming-of-age romance, the colourful, familiar characters come to life and show them that they might just have a story of their own to tell. Cowboys and Lesbians is a queer romantic comedy which examines the intersection between sexuality and fantasy through the eyes of two closeted teenage girls, highlighting just how much the stories we consume affect the ones we tell about ourselves. CASTING 2 actors (both female, playing later teens) or up to 8 actors Running time: 75-80 minutes ★★★★ "Funny, mischievous, utterly absorbing..’ Clive Davis, The Times "Outrageous, hilarious, and wonderfully wholesome, this queer rom-com is exactly what the title insists and more." - Vi Dang, Playbill "Incredibly tender, fuelled by the hopeful urges of early understandings of queerness and the desperate desire to be kissed" - Kate Wyver, The Guardian ★★★★★ “refreshing, original and laugh out loud hilarious” London Theatre Review ★★★★ “outrageously funny, and gay too - what more could you want?” Watch that Scene ★★★★★ West London Queer Project
£10.44
Octopus Publishing Group Behind Bars: On punishment, prison & release
Book Synopsis***** 'So deeply gripping and inspiring...It will stay with me, always.' - Annie MacmanusIn 2008, 21-year-old Lady Unchained got involved in a fight in a club while trying to protect her sister.Serving 11 months of her prison sentence, her life changed completely. Inside, Lady Unchained began to write, while battling isolation, loneliness and the fear of being wrongly deported. These notes became powerful bars of poetry, capturing first-hand the broken justice system and the racism rooted within it.Wide-awake poetry, Behind Bars traces how Lady Unchained's identity was irrevocably changed during her sentencing, time in prison and release.Behind Bars proves there is life after prison.
£11.39
Tangent Books Heartwood
£10.80
Parthian Books Wild Cherry: Selected Poems
Book SynopsisNigel Jenkins's body of work is remarkable not just for the range of its forms and occasions, but for the variety of its literary, cultural and political commitments. He campaigned for Welsh devolution and international solidarity with the same sense of purpose as he campaigned against nuclear power, militarism and racism. A politically- and culturally committed poet he was unafraid to be satirical, or epic, or polemical, or to be simply and frankly angry. This book contains love poems and poems of desire, lyric poems and public poems for public spaces, occasional poems that transcend their occasions, merciless satires, and poems that borrow epic voices, whether of bravado or lament, and retool them for today's challenges. There are poems written in the spirit of high-intellectual play and urgent poems about environmental degradation, militarism, nuclear folly, imperialism and capitalism. There is beauty and precision, outrage and indignation, savage wit and deep empathy. The book also contains a number of Jenkins's translations from the Welsh - a reflection of his commitment to the bilingualism and biculturalism of his country, and to the idea of a community of poets. A sense of history underpins Nigel Jenkins's writing, but it is the present that propels it. In that sense, his poetry and prose are part of a single, albeit various, oeuvre. They are the work of a writer who believed that poetry has a duty to engage with the world as it is, while holding out the imaginative possibilities of what it can be.
£9.50
Parthian Books Tempo: Excursions in 21st Century Italian Poetry
Book SynopsisThis collection with parallel texts in Italian and English gives the English-reading audience a sense of the great variety of the present poetic scene in Italy with a selection of twenty-one of the most representative contemporary poets. Contemporary Italian poetry offers an extraordinary array of styles, voices, approaches, ways of looking at the world and ways of representing it. This anthology tries to capture the multiplicity of these voices with its selection of the most representative poets from different backgrounds: academics, working-class writers, editors, journalists, performers, travellers and professional translators. The poets who appear are: Antonella Anedda, Franco Buffoni, Dome Bulfaro, Maria Grazia Calandrone, Chandra Livia Candiani, Milo De Angelis, Matteo Fantuzzi, Fabio Franzin, Marco Giovenale, Mariangela Gualtieri, Andrea Inglese, Rosaria Lo Russo, Valerio Magrelli, Guido Mazzoni, Umberto Piersanti, Laura Pugno Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Ida Travi, Luigi Trucillo, Patrizia Valduga, Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto and Lello Voce.Trade Review'a vital window into the soul of our neighbours in this post-Brexit Europe' - Poetry Wales; 'These are excursions I intend to keep making, poets whose work I hope to find more of and enjoy.' - Tears in the Fence; 'a welcome addition to the bookshelves' - World Literature Today
£13.50
Smith|Doorstop Books Too Much Mirch
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£6.24
Smith|Doorstop Books Kin
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£6.24
Smith|Doorstop Books This Is Not An Epiphany
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£6.00
Smith|Doorstop Books Spit Out the Myth: Three Sheffield Poets
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£7.12
Salmon Poetry We Are the Walrus
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£10.45
Salmon Poetry Imagining Alexandria
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£11.40
Two Rivers Press Where Shadow Falls
Book SynopsisWhere Shadow Falls explores the frailties of the human condition, the landscapes in which such frailties emerge, and the dire consequences that can ensue. The language and structure of the poems allows readers to create their own interpretations of events and relationships. Never didactic and often leavened with wit, the poems occupy the liminal space between what’s present and what lies beyond. Nevertheless, they are attentive in their range to such present-day realities as prostitution, prison and political deception. Forgiveness, they discover, may be found in time or place but we can only be ‘…certain that all is other in these uncertain times.’Trade Review‘Where Shadow Falls’ is a fabulous book with a poet who is on top form and a consummate purveyor of the ‘craft or sullen art’ of poetry. Ruth O’Callaghan is equally at ease with beautifully realised ‘observational’ poems and the philosophical, often mixing successfully the two. The personal and the political merge, coalesce and they are underlined with a poet whose sensibilities are wide ranging in their compassion and backlit by a wry, ironic humour that breaks through as the lucky reader experiences in a poetry book, laughter, tears and gasps of admiration. A stunning collection. — JACK CARADOC
£10.44
Two Rivers Press Paradise Takeaway
Book SynopsisParadise Takeaway is a long poem with Luton Airport in it. Part memoir, part invention, it takes us along the bus and train routes of the London metropolitan area, not stopping at the eponymous fast food outlet en route to Aylesbury. On the way you’ll meet the Spirit of Rail, the Lady of Passport Control, a famous German philosopher, and other figures real and unreal. Warning: this book contains Marmite. Somewhere at the back of it all is ‘Germany: A Winter’s Fairy Tale’, Heinrich Heine’s long poem on returning to Germany for the first time after thirteen years in Parisian exile. Drawing on thirty years of trips back from Berlin to the UK, and a lifetime of not always entirely healthy eating, Alistair Noon reflects on what it is to watch a country and a waistline changing. And there isn’t a single mention of You Know What.
£10.44
Crumps Barn Studio My Very Tree: a stunning debut, full of humour
Book Synopsis"Eyes like blue diamonds, a smile that captivates the heart Floating on the clouds I have no wings I am not a bird but I watch from a distance Listen can you hear it, the whisper of the wind Circling around me" My Very Tree is Beverley Gordon's brilliant and original debut poetry collection. Personal and full of the unexpected, this is a lively expression of identity and freedom.Trade Review'I wanted to saviour every word and pace my way through, but I couldn’t put it down ... this collection is relevant and thought provoking, I laughed I smiled and I thought it was deep ... what a great little read' ~ 5 stars
£7.59
University of Wales Press A Map of Love: Twelve Welsh poems of romance,
Book SynopsisA fascinating and exhilarating look at the many ways we love, and are loved. Following on from his bestselling The History of Wales in Twelve Poems, M. Wynn Thomas turns his attention in A Map of Love to poems from Wales and reflects on what they have to say on the age-old subject of love in its many and varied forms. Featuring twelve pieces dating from the fourteenth century to the present, this absorbing collection deliberately veers far from clichéd verses with its poems of regret and of mourning; straight love and gay love; bawdy verses of passion and desire, and gentle meditations on motherhood and marriage. It features anonymous and lesser-known writers as well as household names such as Gillian Clarke and R. S. Thomas, and it includes a previously unpublished poem by Emyr Humphreys. With original illustrations by Ruth Jên Evans throughout, this short but powerful collection will appeal to anyone interested in people and their complex relationships.
£9.49
Eyewear Publishing Death And Exes
Book SynopsisDeath and Exes explores the complexity of grief and the author''s struggle to process loss through consumption; of food, drugs, alcohol, pop culture, sex, and fashion. Buying and imbibing things are often looked at as superficial distractions that keep us from dealing with difficult emotions. In Death and Exes, they are touchstones that help remind us of who we are during the times we feel most untethered and alone. These are poems of mourning, but they are also a celebration of the life affirming power of, among other things, burlesque, RuPaul, Dolly Parton, Hellraiser, and Columbo.
£10.79
Eyewear Publishing Winter, Glossolalia
Book SynopsisIn poems as tautly constructed as they are trenchantly observed, Winter, Glossolalia probes the natureof language to depict the world from which it springs. Paired with humorous, often satirical images,this collection explores human ingenuity and creativity against the material resources of the givenworld, highlighting the possibilities and the limits of artistic making. In that sense, it is both a timelyand enduring book, one that recalls Virgil?s Georgics as readily as it evokes the crisis of anthropogenicclimate change.
£8.09
Eyewear Publishing Optician To The Stars
Book SynopsisIn OPTICIAN TO THE STARS,the British-Canadian Todd Swift, one of theleading poet-editors of his generation, takes a look atlife with and without rose-tinted specs, consideringthe sublunar world in all its beauty and horror. Thecollection favours briefer, more epigrammatic poems,often composed on his iPhone while waiting forblood tests or unable to sleep. For the past two yearshave seen Swift survive a blood clot on his heart,and a life-changing diagnosis. Not a diary of diseaseand recovery, and never seeking easy epiphanies, thepoems nevertheless unfold a tapestry of humane,witty, and often formally-delightful perceptions. Fromremembering poets who have died, to celebrating seeinga movie star from Mad Max: Fury Road cycling past, theseare poems always seeking to see things, and say things,with craft, skill, elegance, and joy.
£12.59
Eyewear Publishing Technelegy
Book SynopsisAn essential handbook for our time of astonishing technological transformation by the world''s leading AI poet.In 2018, Sasha Stiles found herself wondering what the rise of large language models might mean for writers - and for creativity at large. To probe the possibilities, she began translating over a decade of analog poems and research into a personalized AI model, augmenting human voice with next-gen imagination.Crafted jointly by Stiles and her poetic alter ego, and first published in hardcover in 2021, Technelegy is a prescient artifact of the pre-ChatGPT era - a collection of generative poems nestled in their own training data - and an unprecedented experiment fusing past and future, woman and machine, verse and code, elegy and wordplay, in search of answers to the urgent question: what does it mean to be human in a nearly posthuman world?
£11.69
