A haiku, an ode, a sonnet, a limerick, an elegy ... more poetry,please.
Poetry Books
Graphic Arts Books Paradise Regained
Book SynopsisWhen Jesus was baptized, Heaven announced that he was the son of God. After the joyous celebration, Jesus went back to his mother’s house to hear the story of his miraculous birth, which inspired Jesus to go on a journey to become even closer to God. Trusting his God and strong in his love for him, Jesus set out for a forty-day trip into the desert with no food, as he planned to fast in order to eliminate distractions. Meanwhile, Satan overheard the declaration that Jesus was the son of God. After meeting with his followers, Satan decides that he will corrupt Jesus just as he corrupted Adam and Eve. Excited to hurt God once again, Satan accompanies Jesus to the desert. As Satan disguises himself and attempts to tempt Jesus with food, power, and vanity, he tries to appeal to the vehement nature of human hunger. Through promises of power and appeals to Jesus’ ego, Satan is relentless. However, as Jesus deflects and rebukes Satan’s attempts, the fallen angel realizes that Jesus will be much more difficult to ruin than Adam and Eve—but that doesn’t mean Satan will give up. Separated into four books, Paradise Regained follows a biblical story from the gospel of Luke, and reimagines the interaction, dialogue, and results of Jesus and Satan’s time in the desert with a new perspective. With direct language and modest syntax, Paradise Regained examines themes of theology and focuses on the human hunger, both for the physical and spiritual. Paradise Regained comprises of similar themes and ideas as John Milton’s esteemed work, Paradise Lost, however Paradise Regained tells a story of redemption instead of ruin, making this classic the perfect sequel to Paradise Lost. This edition of Paradise Regained by John Milton is now presented in an easy-to-read font and features a striking new cover design. With these accommodations, Paradise Regained is restored to modern standards while preserving its original mastery, providing an accessible and desirable experience for contemporary readers.
£6.06
Graphic Arts Books Spring and All
Book SynopsisSpring and All (1923) is a book of poems by William Carlos Williams. Predominately known as a poet, Williams frequently pushed the limits of prose style throughout his works, often comprised of a seamless blend of both forms of writing. In Spring and All, the closest thing to a manifesto he wrote, Williams addresses the nature of his modern poetics which not only pursues a particularly American idiom, but attempts to capture the relationship between language and the world it describes. Part essay, part poem, Spring and All is a landmark of American literature from a poet whose daring search for the outer limits of life both redefined and expanded the meaning of language itself. “There is a constant barrier between the reader and his consciousness of immediate contact with the world. If there is an ocean it is here.” In Spring and All, Williams identifies the incomprehensible nature of consciousness as the single most important subject of poetry. Accused of being “heartless” and “cruel,” of producing “positively repellant” works of art in order to “make fun of humanity,” Williams doesn’t so much defend himself as dig in his heels. His poetry is addressed “[t]o the imagination” itself; it seeks to break down the “the barrier between sense and the vaporous fringe which distracts the attention from its agonized approaches to the moment.” When he states that “so much depends / upon // a red wheel / barrow,” he refers to the need to understand the nature of language, which keeps us in touch with the world. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of William Carlos Williams’ Spring and All is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.
£6.78
Graphic Arts Books Twenty
Book SynopsisTwenty (1918) is a poetry collection by Stella Benson. Largely recognized for her work as an activist in the women’s suffrage movement and for her popular novels, Benson was also an accomplished poet. Twenty, her debut volume, is a collection indebted to symbolism in which Benson reflects on her experiences as a young woman in a rapidly changing world. In “The Secret Day,” Benson muses on the impossibility of peace in a time that refuses to slow: “My yesterday has gone, has gone and left me tired, / And now to-morrow comes and beats upon the door / […] / So I have built To-day, more precious than a dream; / And I have painted peace upon the sky above.” Responding to the horrors of a decade torn by war, Benson does what she can to maintain her own personal calm, to build a safe space apart from the world. In “Redneck’s Song,” she laments the years of her life spent obeying “the laws of men / Who worshipped law,” declaring instead that “Those laws are dust / To-day…” In these poems shaped by her experience as an activist and pioneering feminist, the personal is inseparable from the political. Benson’s identity, her present and her future, depend on this revolutionary thrust—no longer will she “shut [her] eyes” and “hold [her] tongue.” It may be “their path,” but she will make her own “groove,” her own way through life. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Stella Benson’s Twenty is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.
£6.06
Graphic Arts Books The Power of Darkness
Book SynopsisThe Power of Darkness (1886) is a play by Leo Tolstoy. Forbidden for decades in Tolstoy’s native Russia, the five-act play was first staged in Paris, where it earned praise from some of France’s leading critics. Noted for its brutal depiction of violence and desperation, the play is concerned with the universal religious and philosophical themes that inspired such masterpieces as War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Peasant life is often portrayed in art as peaceful and romantic, in touch with the rhythms of the natural world and coursing with spirituality. In The Power of Darkness, Tolstoy refuses such empty symbolism, choosing instead to tell a story of greed, murder, and betrayal that has everything to do with the political reality faced by its impoverished characters. Fearful of what will happen to their farm when her aging husband Peter dies, Anisya seduces her farmhand Nikita, whose lack of education and opportunity—as well as a moral emptiness—make him a willing accomplice. Betraying Marinka, a young orphan girl he manipulates for pleasure, Nikita joins Anisya in dispossessing her stubborn husband. Tragic and disturbing, The Power of Darkness is a story of man at war with nature, and therefore at war with himself. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Leo Tolstoy’s The Power of Darkness is a classic work of Russian literature reimagined for modern readers.
£6.78
Graphic Arts Books Men, Women and Ghosts
Book SynopsisMen, Women, and Ghosts (1916) is a poetry collection by Amy Lowell. Published at the beginning of her career as an influential imagist devoted to classical poetic themes and forms, Men, Women, and Ghosts is an agile and promising work from a pioneering poet of the early twentieth century. In “Patterns,” the collection’s opening poem, Lowell displays an economy of language and clarity of vision that would define the imagist school, in which she would prove an essential figure: “I walk down garden paths, / And all the daffodils / Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. / […] / I too am a rare / Pattern. As I wander down / The garden paths.” As the speaker of the poem laments the loss of her lover, she remarks: “the man who should loose me is dead, / Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, / In a pattern called a war. / Christ! What are patterns for?” As a poet indebted to tradition and yet interested in the prospect of a modern poetry, as a lesbian and bohemian figure from a prominent Boston family, Lowell was keenly aware of the dangers inherent to “patterns.” Her poems, unique and experimental, are an essential contribution to one of humanity’s oldest art forms. Men, Women, and Ghosts is a vibrant collection from an emerging poet who would come to define the imagist movement throughout her storied career. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition Amy Lowell’s Men, Women, and Ghosts is a classic work of American poetry reimagined for modern readers.
£7.99
Graphic Arts Books The Flowers of Evil
Book SynopsisThe Flowers of Evil (1857) is a collection of poems by Charles Baudelaire. Translated into English by Cyril Scott in 1909, Baudelaire’s poems remain lively and idiosyncratic nearly two centuries after they came into existence. Comprised mostly of sonnets and short lyrics, The Flowers of Evil captures Baudelaire’s sense of the changing role of the poet in modern life. Rather than focus on beauty and other ideals, Baudelaire explores the totality of human experience—the good, bad, and ugly of life on earth. “When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree / The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere, / His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy, / Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her.” In his opening benediction, Baudelaire reverses the typical trope of invoking the muses or celebrating poetry as a divine gift. Instead, he depicts the poet as a being cursed, a “hideous Child of Doom.” Childhood for Baudelaire is a subject of particular interest, a time described, in his poem “The Enemy,” as “a ravaging storm, / Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun…” The youthful experience of melancholy clearly informs the poet’s outlook as an adult: “Time devours our lives, / And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts / On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!” While much of Baudelaire’s work deals with darkness and despair, his poems can rise to the heights of celebration and ecstasy, his voice soft and sweet as he invites his sister on a journey to an imagined land of “order and loveliness, / Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.” Ultimately, Baudelaire’s vision—however irreverent—is guided by truth and morality, which drive him on a torturous path from good to evil, beauty to death, and back. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Flowers of Evil is a classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.
£7.49
InterVarsity Press Now I Lay Me Down to Fight: A Poet Writes Her Way
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£12.59
SMK Books Spoon River Anthology
£21.53
Andrews McMeel Publishing Anywho, I Love You
Book SynopsisFrom bestselling poet Samantha King Holmes and New York Times bestselling author r.h. Sin comes a collection of poetry, prose, and photography that proves love is infinite and ever changing.This is a seven-year tapestry of love, adventure, enlightenment, and progression. A collection of moments sewn together with poetry and prose, memories and musings.Anywho, I Love You is a window into what we have seen and what we have felt throughout our journey as lovers, parents, authors, and artists.
£15.29
Andrews McMeel Publishing A Midnight Moon
Book SynopsisCan we be lonely together? Asks r.h. Sin in this heartbreaking collection of poetry.A Midnight Moon is a moving collection of poetry from celebrated bestselling author r.h. Sin. With the honesty and transparency that he has become known for, Sin takes readers on a journey of goodbyes, the unforgivable, and secret treks to find solace beneath the moon. A poetic journey through sleepless nights, A Midnight Moon is r.h. Sin’s best work yet.
£11.69
FriesenPress My Odyssey: Journal and reflections of a 12 year
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£11.39
FriesenPress Of Course It Hurts
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£12.82
FriesenPress newly untitled
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£17.57
FriesenPress Riverlines: Poems of time and place along the
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£12.82
FriesenPress Now, My Perspective
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£10.12
Manchester University Press The Massacre at Paris
Book SynopsisThis Revels Plays edition of Christopher Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris opens up this powerful dramatisation of the French Wars of Religion to student and scholar through its comprehensive introduction, full collation and commentary notes, and an appendix containing a fragment from a lost, fuller version of the play. -- .
£23.75
Manchester University Press Ballads and Songs of Peterloo
Book SynopsisBallads and songs of Peterloo is an edited collection of poems and songs written following the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. This collection, which includes over seventy poems, were published either as broadsides or in radical periodicals and newspapers. Notes to support the reading of the texts are provided, but they also stand alone, conveying the original publications without diluting their authenticity.Following an introduction outlining the massacre, the radical press and broadside ballad, the poems are grouped into six sections according to theme. Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy is included as an appendix in acknowledgement of its continuing significance to the representation of Peterloo. This book is primarily aimed at students and lecturers of Romanticism and social history.Trade Review'Morgan’s background in English literature shows through in her insightful analysis of the texts, but the avid historian will not be disappointed. These songs, written at the time and sometimes as eyewitness accounts, often contain references to contemporary cultural touchstones and political figures, many of which may be unknown to present-day readers. But through the incredibly detailed and comprehensive footnotes, the ballads help to provide a deeper understanding of the political and emotional landscape than could be gained from a history book alone. This is a work of which Roy Palmer would have been proud.'Folk Music Journal'Ballads and Songs of Peterloo is a comprehensive and timely addition to our knowledge of Peterloo’s enduring cultural legacy. It is also a very useful reference tool for accessing key bibliographic and contextual information on the many short-lived radical newspapers of the period – a service indeed for radical historians, and it is certainly a book that I will refer to again and again. But what I like best about this very readable book is that it keeps these songs alive and makes them accessible to a new generation.'Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire -- .Table of ContentsList of illustrationsPreface Acknowledgements Introduction 1 ‘Rise Britons, rise now from your slumber’: the revolutionary call to arms 2 ‘Ye English warriors’: radical nationalism and the true patriot 3 ‘Base brat of reform’: the victimisation of mother and child 4 ‘Your memorials shall survive the grave’: elegy and remembrance 5 ‘Those true sons of Mars’: chivalry, cowardice and the power of satire 6 ‘Freeman stand, or freeman die’: liberty and slavery Appendix Select bibliography Index of poemsIndex
£999.99
Manchester University Press A Sonnet to Science: Scientists and Their Poetry
Book SynopsisA sonnet to science presents an account of six ground-breaking scientists who also wrote poetry, and the effect that this had on their lives and research. How was the universal computer inspired by Lord Byron? Why was the link between malaria and mosquitos first captured in the form of a poem? Whom did Humphry Davy consider to be an ‘illiterate pirate’? Written by leading science communicator and scientific poet Dr Sam Illingworth, A sonnet to science presents an aspirational account of how these two disciplines can work together, and in so doing aims to convince both current and future generations of scientists and poets that these worlds are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary in nature.Table of ContentsIntroduction1 The romantic scientist: Humphry Davy (1778–1829)2 The metaphysical poet: Ada Lovelace (1815–52)3 The lyrical visionary: James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79)4 The medical metrist: Ronald Ross (1857–1932)5 The reluctant poet: Miroslav Holub (1923–98)6 The poetic pioneer: Rebecca Elson (1960–99)EpilogueIndex
£999.99
Manchester University Press Old Fortunatus: By Thomas Dekker
Book SynopsisWith its fantasy of magical travel and inexhaustible riches, Thomas Dekker’s Old Fortunatus is the quintessential early modern journeying play. The adventures of Fortunatus and his sons, aided by a magical purse and wishing-hat, offers the period’s most overt celebration of the pleasures of travel, as well as a sustained critique of the dangers of intemperance and prodigality. Written following a period of financial difficulty for Dekker, the play is also notable for its fascination with the symbolic, mercantile and ethical uses of gold.This Revels Plays edition is the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of Old Fortunatus. It offers scholarly discussion of the play’s performance and textual history, including attention to the German version printed and performed in the early seventeenth century. It provides a long overdue critical reappraisal of this unjustly neglected play.Trade Review'McInnis has produced an admirable, rigorous, and reliable scholarly edition. He has given criticism a chance to match this editorial achievement with insights of comparable height and nuance.'Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme'This new edition of Old Fortunatus is a valuable intervention. It brings the play into focus for advanced teaching and research. It suggests some of the ways Dekker’s dramaturgy embodies the possessive imagination that structures English travel writing and proto-colonial fantasy in the period.'Early Theatre'If Old Fortunatus has another moment, it might be now, when technologies of trade and travel elate and overwhelm us, and the world seems to flicker between far off and at hand. Like other Revels editions, this one offers an authoritatively edited, modernized, and annotated text, a comprehensive textual and historical introduction, and a short performance history. McInnis’s introduction and notes are exceptional even by the high standards of the Revels series, adroitly recounting the wanderings of the Fortunatus story and the complicated history of Dekker’s playtext. McInnis’s particular expertise on travel narratives and lost plays shows to advantage, as he also sets Dekker’s play into the performance context of other contemporary plays. McInnis’s Old Fortunatus is an example of how a good edition does more than simply make a play newly available; it serves as waystation to a way of grasping a new world.'SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 -- .Table of ContentsList of illustrationsAbbreviationsIntroduction Authorship and the lost play(s) The text The German play Sources Performance history Critical reception Act and scene divisions Press-variantsOld FortunatusIndex
£21.00
Manchester University Press Thierry and Theodoret
Book SynopsisThis is the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of Fletcher, Massinger, and Field's Thierry and Theodoret, with an introduction that reassesses sources (including Shakespeare) and discusses the authorship and reception of this captivating play, pointing the way for future study, especially of a historical or gender-based nature. -- .
£999.99
Tutti Frutti Press Eat The Peach - A Collection of Poems by Nick
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£9.50
Pan Macmillan The M Pages
Book SynopsisA brilliant, moving book . . . Reminiscent of one of this century’s great elegies, Denise Riley’s A Part Song, The M Pages is similarly probing, hurt, skeptical and smarting . . . in a book packed with good poems.' Irish TimesThe reader might be justified in thinking that the ‘M’ in the title of Colette Bryce’s new collection could stand for ‘mortality’, ‘mourning’, or the spontaneous and cathartic practice of the writer’s ‘morning pages’ – until they reach the book’s arresting central sequence. Addressed to a named ‘M’ who has suddenly died, this fourteen-part poem depicts the experience of unexpected bereavement, and the altering effect such events have on the living. It does so unflinchingly, gracefully and honestly, as Bryce harnesses her characteristic insight, forensic eye and tightly woven music to deeply moving ends – while demonstrating again why she is regarded as one of the leading Irish poets of the age. As the book unfolds, it becomes clear that her other subjects – of family, travel, history and ageing – all orbit the gravitational centre of The M Pages. What emerges is an important book about love, fear, self-censorship and the limits of our knowledge, and what we can and cannot say about some of the most profound events we face.Trade ReviewA brilliant, moving book, whose efforts of affection are most affecting in the long title sequence remembering her sister . . . Reminiscent of one of this century’s great elegies, Denise Riley’s A Part Song, The M Pages is similarly probing, hurt, skeptical and smarting. Bryce is a poet of great assurance . . . in a book packed with good poems. * Irish Times *
£10.44
Pan Macmillan Hiddensee
Book SynopsisA powerful collection from the T. S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted Annie Freud. Hiddensee represents Annie Freud’s most ambitious work to date, not least because it is a book about ambition and its necessity, the need to go beyond oneself, and to do what one cannot: Freud dives into other ways of thinking, other art forms, the taboos of illness and desire, and – spectacularly – other languages. This ambition has also emboldened Freud to pursue and confront the complex truth of herself: her German Jewish inheritance, her teachers, the remarkable minds of the exiled individuals who raised her – and the exiles she herself then pursued. The book also celebrates the work of the French-language Swiss poet Jacques Tornay, whom Freud identifies as a spiritual brother – and a route back into her own French and symbolist influences. These astonishing and generous versions of Tornay remind us that our voices should not and cannot be uncomplicatedly our own. Hiddensee is named for the Baltic island where Annie Freud’s grandmother spent her summers before the war (and its famous artistic community, whose members included George Grosz and Käthe Kollwitz). In its unselfconscious internationalism and breathtaking cultural range, Hiddensee offers a radically European and multilingual perspective to counter the cultural narrowness and closing borders of the current age, and again confirms Freud as one of our most essential poets.Trade ReviewOften witty and light-hearted, sometimes worried and sad, Freud’s poems are highly evocative of the complicated life she has led. * Guardian *Modest, gentle and universal, these understated poems are a small masterclass in the art of synthesis * Guardian *
£10.44
Pan Macmillan Poems About Birds
Book SynopsisCountless writers have been inspired by the beauty of birds – their colours, their easy flight, their lightness and softness, and the grace and whimsicality of their ways. Our literature, especially our poetry, is full of them. This annotated edition of Poems About Birds selects the very best from H. J. Massingham’s original collection which was first published in 1922.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics with ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover.Spanning from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, Poems About Birds captures the enticing lives of birds through the eyes of classic poets. From John Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ to Sylvia Lynd’s ‘The Return of the Goldfinches’, and from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Eagle’ to William Wordsworth’s ‘To The Skylark’, countless varieties of bird are celebrated here.
£10.44
Walker Books Ltd National Theatre Lola Saves the Show
Book SynopsisJoin Lola on her backstage adventure in the first picture book created with the National Theatre.It''s showtime! Lola is a little actor with big dreams. But when disaster strikes on opening night and an important prop goes missing backstage, can Lola save the show in time? A fun and engaging picture book for both daytime and bedtime, packed with backstage drama and laugh-out-loud moments, with references to theatre roles and departments. The perfect gift for any little one that loves the theatre. This book is ideal for fans of Chris Haughton and Michelle Robinson.
£7.59
iUniverse Kisses of Death: Poems by Chantelle Schenck
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£9.45
iUniverse Cantos a Mi Dios
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£11.35
iUniverse A Lyrical Collective: Volume I
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£11.95
iUniverse Reflections of Life
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£12.76
Ann B. Rhodes A Sight to Behold
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£12.34
Basic Books Another America/Otra America
Book SynopsisBefore becoming the bestselling author we know today, Barbara Kingsolver was a fresh college graduate who had just moved to Tucson, Arizona with hopes of open space and adventure. What she found was quite different, "another America" that she chronicled through her poetry, in which she came to share her home with refugees and committed to paper their tragic stories of life at and beyond the borderland. Interweaving past political events from the US-backed dictatorships in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, to the government surveillance carried out in the Reagan years, Kingsolver's early poetry expands into a broader examination of the racism, discrimination, and troubled immigration system she lived beside. They coalesce in a record of her emerging adulthood, in which she confronts the realization that the national myth of America she'd signed on to was a hypocrisy -- a realization that would come to shape her not only as an artist, but as a citizen.Written with a balance of clarity regarding America's shortcomings and empathy for her subjects, Another America is a luminous book of poems, a deeply moving and beautifully crafted exploration of American society and our individual place within it. As in her fiction, Kingsolver's poetry rings with a richness of language and spirit, eloquently expressing her insights with great compassion.With a new introduction from Kingsolver that reflects on the current border crisis, Another America is a striking portrait of a country separated by those with privilege, those without, and the lives that are lived in between.
£13.29
Xlibris Poetry from My Soul
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£11.35
Xlibris Us In My Garden: Life in Poetry
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£12.85
Partridge Publishing Singapore ዳው ዴ ጂንግ
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£7.73
Authorhouse It's Basketball Time
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£17.95
Authorhouse Carla
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£12.30
Harbour Publishing The Broken Face
Book SynopsisA masterful new collection by Griffin Poetry Prize finalist RussellThornton.The poems inThe Broken Faceexplore a sacramental, imaginative vision within contexts of crime, perception, memory and love. In this collection, Russell Thornton returns to the vital themes of intimacy and family, loss, fear and hope, bringing to each poem the essential quality of a myth or incantation. Reverent and revealing, within those familiar relationships he ushers in a connection with something transcendent: A man has come floundering late in the night / to stand alone at the shore of a sleeping infant'sface.The poems capture life at the periphery, whether describing homelessness or incarceration, or even the universal experiences of aging and mortality, love and fear of love, all of which bring the speaker into a detached yet energized state of watching and waiting: the door that was my grandfather into our passing lives / will arrive at a house where each of us is his own door / that opens on our first selves, fundamentaltogether.With intense lyricism, Thornton displays a mastery of craft so complete as to be nearly invisible. While stunningly beautiful, his imagery is also in such complete service to the deeper emotional resonance of each poem that it feels inevitable, making the collection deeplymoving.
£9.89
Exile Editions Three Books: Winter In the Country / On “The
Book SynopsisIn the first book, Winter in the Country, Azarov imagines the enormous presence of the great poet, Pushkin, and his influence on the development of the modern Russian psyche. In On “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” he imagines himself exchanging personalities with Tolstoy’s great character, Ivan Ilyich, who suffered and died from a terminal illness. In doing so, he enlarges his own personal experience by giving the death of a close friend a mythic dimension. In the third book, An Atomic Cake, he explores a Moscow world of wild contradictions, surreal social hysteria, and periods of massive malaise, all occurring under the cloud of atomic bomb testing. This is when he met a passionate computer specialist whose father had witnessed the American atomic testing at Bikini Atoll. Together, trying to make sense of such a world, they talked, imagining into existence the spirit of Rita Hayworth as she rode on the side of the bomb in her negligée.
£15.26
Coach House Books dyslexicon
Book SynopsisA double-lunged bong hit of mid-Eighties post-punk college rock, Gertrude Stein, art films, and the comedic legacy of Laurel and Hardy (including such great standup teams as HD and Ezra Pound, Jesus and Judas, and Steve McCaffery and bpNichol). Jeff Derksen says: 'If reading is sixty-nining, then dyslexicon satisfies at both ends. Stephen Cain disentangles everyday life into its constituent emotional, intellectual, sexual and cultural parts -- people, the city, books, music - only to recombine them into a new set of relations ...It's a sexy m-f of a book. Put it on your turntables.'
£13.59
Coach House Books The Porcupinity of the Stars
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2011 Hamilton Literary Award for Poetry! In this much-anticipated new collection, poet and musician Gary Barwin both continues and extends the alchemical collision of language, imaginative flight and quiet beauty that have made him unique among contemporary poets. As the Utne Reader has noted, what makes this work 'so compelling is Barwin's balance of melancholy with wide-eyed wonder.' The Porcupinity of the Stars sees the always bemused and wistful poet reaching into new and deeper territory, addressing the joys and vagaries of perception in poems touching on family, loss, wonder, and the shifting, often perplexing nature of consciousness. His Heisenbergian sensibility honed to a fine edge, the poems in this bright, bold and intensely visual book add a surreptitious intensity and wry maturity to Barwin's trademark gifts for subtle humour, solemn delight, compassion, and invention.Trade Review'Between the freaky, funny filmmaker Guy Maddin and author Gary Barwin, Canada is producing some of the most innovative creative works of our time.' -- Utne Reader 'Gary Barwin delivers surreal, parabolic, even mythic poems, the denseness of which opens up to sparkle with an alluring beauty, as in the image conjured by the book's title ... The poems in Porcupinity are the result of an unencumbered imagination, tinted by humour, intelligence and pathos.' -- Canadian Literature 'Barwin brings a delightfully refreshing reality to the page. He teaches us to see in new ways, even sometimes with the eyes of a child. In his world, words are building blocks. He uses them to erect monuments both to the mundane and to the maniacal.' Prairie Fire Review of Books 'Among contemporary poets, Barwin stands out as exceptional for his ability to plunder the synesthetic splendor of words. His poems seem to lift from the printed page and nosedive into other sensory dimensions. They are at once so spacious, intensely visual, and alert to sound that it's possible to become convinced words are endowed with flavors and smells--exotic, fragrant candies that stain the tongue with color.' -- ForeWord 'Few books of poetry in recent decades have so inventively and insightfully explored how intimately our existence is rooted in a foundation of both death and wonder.' -- Gabriel Gudding, author of Rhode Island Notebook 'Gary Barwin likes to drive language through the guard rails and into oncoming traffic.' -- Hamilton Spectator
£9.89
Coach House Books Broom Broom
Book SynopsisNothing slips by Brecken Hancock's deft ear as she seductively plumbs the depths of the evolution of bathing, doppelgangers, the Kraken, and the minutiae of family with all its tragic misgivings. The poems in Broom Broom pervert the rational, safe parts of the world to extoll and absorb the sweep of human history. What I mean to say is, the evidence is always there. From where we stand, we confuse lampposts for ghosts. Brecken Hancock's poetry, essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in several journals, including Event and Fiddlehead. She is reviews editor for Arc Poetry Magazine. Broom Broom won the 2015 Language Trillium Book Award for Poetry (English Language), which comes with a $10,000 cash prize. The Jury's citation for Broom Broom read: "Personal history and private pain are made public, historical, mythological, science fictional, and monumental in this eerie, resonant debut. Hancock's poems astonish with their breadth of reference, their dense soundscapes, their terrifying wisdom, and their centrifugal emotional force."
£12.34
Coach House Books Swivelmount
Book SynopsisPoems to read in the small hours before dawn, when the sirens start up again. Swivelmount’s concerns – the collapse of subject and world, eros and law, knowledge and bafflement – gain new urgency as Babstock fiercely reimagines and reassembles the remnants into a viable order. At the core of their kinetic imagery is a freefall into mourning, but also a faith in others: a Babstock poem is the voice next to you in the ER waiting room, becalmed, compassionate, darkly humorous. This is Babstock at his best. Past Praise: “This is a poetry that is so uncompromising in how it deals with traditions – of poetic forms, of dictions, of militaristic histories – that it becomes something magnificent: brittle and hard. It will change how you think.” —Juliana Spahr for On Malice “On Malice is a fascinating and elegiac rebuke to surveillance technologies and its discontents. Ken Babstock is a wonderful and spirited poet. His work is full of musicality, syncopation, wit, and formal acuity.” —Peter Gizzi “The flavour of this poetry is complex – it will have to be consumed in small amounts like a sipping tequila. It inebriates quickly. It imparts a convivial brilliance to life. And it is not without its sinister edge.” —Ange Mlinko for Methodist Hatchet “I felt as if I were reading poems written with a scalpel. Methodist Hatchet swaggers with confidence, intelligence, technique, humour, and that pinioning accuracy of observation we’ve come to expect from Babstock, surely one of the most versatile, switched-on, and linguistically savvy poets of our time.” —Simon Armitage “Methodist Hatchet is as precise as it is expansive, as complex as it is companionable. It refuses to look away from the unstable nature of self and world and word. That is why Babstock is one of the most exciting lyric poets writing today.” —Sina Queyras, The Globe and Mail for Methodist HatchetTrade Review“I love the ease with which these poems overturn and half-describe things, out-doing industry with their mouthloads … Also when the global romantic registers a crack in the globe – Babstock does this on a dime, and often. The crack of course is the revelation (I don't think he would like the use of this word, or 'global romantic' for that matter), but it’s what all his weird geography always leads to … Swivelmount has come out from under something dark and brittle (see On Malice) to dance with a literally sick world. Or maybe not dance, but dazzle and hold.” —Dan Bejar, Destroyer“To experience his poetry is to feel, suddenly, while falling from a high place, a firm hand on the scruff of your neck. Startling, pain-filled, life-saving.” —Miriam Toews“I have never read anything quite like Swivelmount. The poems in this book are lapidary yet expansive. They are highly polished yet quirky, erudite - drawing on art, biology, geology, and history - yet utterly unpretentious, impersonal and then, suddenly, personal after all. As Babstock puts it, ‘… I’m never/sure if it’s agency/or deep structure that wants/what it wants.’ In other words, this work is delightfully resistant to categorization. Babstock is an original.” —Rae Armantrout
£999.99
Coach House Books Boat
Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE PAT LOWTHER MEMORIAL AWARDFrom the author of The Baudelaire Fractal, a poetry classic, with new work In 2004, boldly original poet Lisa Robertson published a chapbook, Rousseau’s Boat, poems culled from years of notebooks that are, nevertheless, by no means autobiographical. In 2010, she expanded the work into a full-length book, R’s Boat. During the pandemic, she was drawn back into decades of journals to shape Boat. These poems bring fresh vehemence to Robertson’s ongoing examination of the changing shape of feminism, the male-dominated philosophical tradition, the daily forms of discourse, and the possibilities of language itself. “Robertson has quietly but surely emerged as one of our most exciting and prolific philosophers—I mean poets. Interested in architecture, weather systems, fashion, autobiography, gender, the classics, and just about everything else, she manages to irradiate her subjects with calm, wit, and astonishing beauty. Robertson’s style is both on splendid display and under fierce interrogation in her latest book, R’s Boat.” —Kenyon Review “In R’s Boat, Robertson has penned a post-conceptual, post-lyric, relentlessly self-examining performance of memory and sincerity that manages, remarkably, to be both theoretically concerned and deeply emotive.” —Harvard Review “R's Boat grapples with form, the constraint of language and tradition, and the challenge to avoid anything that might exist as template. The poems examine feminism, discourse, the body, and poetry itself through sumptuous, seductive language.” —American PoetsTrade Review"This is the third installment in an expanding project, begun in 2004, based on what the experimental poet calls 'indexical readings' of her daily notebooks. Drawn from a combination of old and new sample of the latter, two new sections, 'The Hut' and 'The Tiny Notebooks of Night,' showcase the Baudelaire Fractal author’s trademark lyric inscrutability." – Emily Donaldson, The Globe & Mail"Boat plays with memory and nostalgia; trawling through Robertson’s journals, the collection’s patchwork recreates the disjunctive ambiguity of one life-history." – Cecily Fasham, Oxford Review of Books"Lisa Robertson’s Boat works against the certainties much poetry strives to achieve." – Dan Beachy-Quick, Poetry Foundation"For Robertson, drifting is both a practice and a style." – Andrea Brady, London Review of Books
£999.99
Coach House Books Love Language
Book SynopsisCBC BOOKS CANADIAN POETRY COLLECTIONS TO WATCH FOR IN FALL 2023In his follow-up to SKY WRI TEI NGS, Nasser Hussain tackles the absurdity of the English languageThe term “Love Language” can be read at least three ways: as an imperative, as the signoff to a letter, and as a contemporary way of talking about relationship styles. None of these would be wrong in this book. Love Language loves language. These are poems that repeat and hypnotize as English becomes more absurd: from Apple's terms and conditions to other poet's love poems, from performance reports to pop songs, Hussain skillfully and joyfully toys with everyday texts to talk about love, to think about poems, to call out racism, to remind us that words can be fun. Allow these playful poems to woo you, to let you fall in love with language again."Think of 'time as a lantern,' suggests Nasser Hussain, in these inimitable poems that take play seriously and allow seriousness to enter the room disguised as incantation. These are poems that long to dismiss the lyric’s most recent pretty mask of polite propriety and instead take us to the lyric’s ancient roots. It started way back, the poet says, 'when a cave person made a grunt,' to speak the name of a thing. Indeed. This is the lyric’s ancient pact with the world: to spin playful language into seriousness of giving things their names—what are we without this speaking, this tune? Hussain knows this and writes beautiful poems—and I, for one, am grateful." – Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic"Hussain's humour is never complacent; it is the opposite of a defence mechanism (we are encouraged to imagine such a thing) and wryly sidesteps the bad binary of conservative withdrawal as set against algorithm-envenomed hyperassertion. He puts into words a new masculinity maturer than we deserve, that acknowledges swerves of defiance to be inseparable from underswells of doubt." – Vidyan Ravinthiran, author of The Million-Petalled Flower of Being HereTrade Review"Hussain’s poems both puzzle and illuminate, as he delivers answers in no-answers, clarity through absurdity. Can we break down the inanity of our modern lives with verve and levity? Yes, indeed. Love Language unveils the possibilities." – The Toronto Star“The Garden of Eden, it turns out, is always just a layover away.” – Sam Anderson, New York Times Magazine on SKY WRI TEI NGS
£12.34
Broadview Press Ltd The Witch of Edmonton
Book SynopsisAt the center of this remarkable 1621 play is the story of Elizabeth Sawyer, the titular "Witch of Edmonton," a woman who had in fact been executed for the crime of witchcraft mere months before the play's first performance. Yet hers is only one of several plots that animate The Witch of Edmonton. Blending sensational drama with domestic tragedy and comic farce, this complex and multi-layered play by Dekker, Ford, and Rowley emphasizes the mundane realities and interpersonal conflicts that are so often at the heart of sensational occurrences. This edition of their work offers a compelling and informative introduction, thorough annotation, and a selection of contextual materials that helps set the play in the context of the "witch-craze" of Jacobean England.Table of Contents Introduction William Rowley, John Ford, and Thomas Dekker The Witch of Edmonton The Witch of Edmonton In Context from James I (James VI of Scotland), Demonology, In Form of a Dialogue, Divided into Three Books (1597) from William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft; so far forth as it is revealed in the Scriptures, and manifest by true experience (1608) from John Cotta, The Trial of Witchcraft, Showing the True and Right Method of the Discovery: With a Confutation of Erroneous Ways (1616) Henry Goodcole, The Wonderful Discovery of Elizabeth Sawyer, a Witch, late of Edmonton, her conviction and condemnation and death. Together with the relation of the Devil's access to her, and their conference together (1621)
£17.05
Broadview Press Ltd Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom
Book SynopsisAs Americans began defining who was to be counted a citizen in their newly-established republic, Susanna Rowson’s comic opera Slaves in Algiers (1794) makes an earnest case that women be accorded the rights guaranteed to men, playfully turning sexual hierarchies on their head: “Women were born for universal sway; / Men to adore, be silent, and obey.” A fast-paced plot, engaging characterization, and rollicking songs ensured that Slaves in Algiers garnered success when it was first performed at the New Theater in Philadelphia. But Rowson’s play also engages in perpetuating racial stereotypes: set in Algiers at a time when Barbary pirates were seizing more and more U.S. ships in the Mediterranean Sea, Slaves in Algiers is written for a largely white audience driven by outrage at the enslavement of white people in the Barbary states. The play is critical of many aspects of North African cultures, particularly the practices of piracy and enslavement, while not acknowledging the moral and ethical taint of America’s own enslavement of African Americans. In recent years, critics have given increased attention to Slaves in Algiers, particularly to its interwoven feminist, nationalist, and imperialist themes, as well as to its treatment of Muslim and Jewish characters.This volume is one of a number of editions that have been drawn from the pages of the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of American Literature; like the others, it is designed to make a range of material from the anthology available in a format convenient for use in a wide variety of contexts.Trade ReviewCOMMENTS ON The Broadview Anthology of American Literature“The expansion, diversification, and revitalization of the texts and terms of American literary history in recent years is made marvelously accessible in the … new Broadview Anthology of American Literature.” — Hester Blum, Penn State University“The Broadview Anthology of American Literature is, quite simply, a breakthrough. … Meticulously researched and expertly assembled, this anthology should be the new gold standard for scholars and teachers alike.” — Michael D’Alessandro, Duke University“So much thought has been put into every aspect of the Broadview Anthology of American Literature, from the selection of texts to their organization to their presentation on the page; it will be a gift to classrooms for years to come.” — Lara Langer Cohen, Swarthmore College “The multiplicity of early American locations, languages, and genres is here on wondrous display.” — Jordan Alexander Stein, Fordham University “Above all, this is a volume for the 21st century. … Its capaciousness and ample resource materials make for a text that is always evolving and meeting its readers in new ways.” — Russ Castronovo, University of Wisconsin-Madison“a rich collection that reflects the diversity of American literatures…. [and] that never forgets its most important audience: students. There is a wealth of material here that will help them imagine and reimagine what American literature could be.” — Michael C. Cohen, UCLA Table of ContentsIntroduction Susanna Haswell Rowson Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom: A Play, Interspersed with Songs, in Three Acts Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom: A Play, Interspersed with Songs, in Three Acts
£16.10
Copper Canyon Press,U.S. The Shape of the Journey: New & Collected Poems
Book Synopsis "This is poetry worth loving, hating, and fighting over."The New York Times Book Review Here is the definitive collection of poetry from one of America's best-loved writersnow available in paperback. With the publication of this book, eight volumes of poetry were brought back into print, including the early nature-based lyrics of Plain Song, the explosive Outlyer & Ghazals, and the startling "correspondence" with a dead Russian poet in Letters to Yesenin. Also included is an introduction by Harrison, several previously uncollected poems, and "Geo-Bestiary," a 34-part paean to earthly passions. The Shape of the Journey confirms Jim Harrison's place among the most brilliant and essential poets writing today. "Behind the words one always feels the presence of a passionate, exuberant man who is at the same time possessed of a quick, subtle intelligence and a deeply questioning attitude toward life. Harrison writes so winningly that one is simply content to be in the presence of a writer this vital, this large-spirited."The New York Times Book Review "(An) untrammelled renegade genius here's a poet talking to you instead of around himself, while doing absolutely brilliant and outrageous things with language."Publishers Weekly "Readers can wander the woods of this collection for a lifetime and still be amazed at what they find."Booklist (starred review.) When the cloth edition of this book was first published, it immediately became one of Copper Canyon Press's all-time bestsellers. It was featured on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, became a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was selected as one of the "Top-Ten Books of 1998" by Booklist. Jim Harrison is the author of dozens of books, including Legends of the Fall and In Search of Small Gods. He has also written numerous screenplays and served as the food columnist for Esquire magazine. He lives in Montana and Arizona. Dead Deer Amid pale green milkweed, wild clover, a rotted deer curled, shaglike, after a winter so cold the trees split open. I think she couldn''t keep up with the others (they had no place to go) and her food, frozen grass and twigs,
£999.99
Copper Canyon Press,U.S. The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth
Book Synopsis The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth assembles all of his published longer and shorter poems, and includes a never-before-published selection of his earliest work. Rexroth’s poems of nature and protest are remarkable for their erudition and biting social and political commentary; his love poems justly celebrated for their eroticism and depth of feeling. The cloth edition was one of the most widely reviewed poetry titles in 2003: “Scholars and critics who endeavor to discuss mid-20th century American poetry responsibly ignore Rexroth at their peril.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review, cover feature and selected as a Book of the Year “Rexroth is probably best known as the ‘Father of the Beat Generation.’ These poems reveal that great beauty lies beyond that cliché.”—NPR’s All Things Considered “Rexroth’s prodigious breadth of learning, his hungry attention to the natural world, his contempt for warmongering and his profound, occasionally overlapping love of women are all on flourishing display.”—The San Francisco Chronicle “Rexroth never mistook his poetry for a product, and he could present ideas and images in an urgent, memorable and eloquent way.”—The Nation “Rexroth is one of the most readable and rewarding 20th-century American poets.”—Booklist Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) was one of the world’s great literary minds. In addition to being a poet, translator, essayist and teacher, he helped found the San Francisco Poetry Center and influenced generations of readers with his Classics Revisited series.
£999.99
