Poetry Books

Book SynopsisWinner of the 2014 Yale Series of Younger Poets prizeTrade ReviewReturn the howl to its wolf Return the shovel to the barn, the rope to the horse’s stable Resurrect the dark from its heart housed in terror Reenter the night through its door of mercy —from “Reverse: A Lynching”“Reading these poems, I think of the photographs of Diane Arbus. . . . The poetry of Blue Yodel is not easy. It presents uncomfortable truths and leaves us to wrestle with them on our own. In the course of that wrestling, we learn a lot about what we know versus what we’d prefer not to know.”—Carl Phillips, from the Foreword“Ansel Elkins’s writing is spare, musical, and sophisticated, and it anchors her powerful imagination, her phantasmagoric landscapes and stories, her wild figurations, her Southernism, and her moral ardor. These are poems poised by the discipline of the mind and perfected by the restlessness of the spirit.”—Vijay Seshadri, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of 3 Sections: Poems“A wonderful piece of work. Big, complicated, and with language that sings. I found myself waking up with stanzas repeating in the back of my head.”—Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina

Read more less

Book SynopsisA darkly riotous, superbly fast-talking adventure, adapted from the Booker Prize-winning novel. Vernon Little is fifteen years old and lives with his mother in Martirio, a flea-bitten Texan town. His best friend just massacred sixteen of their classmates before killing himself. The town wants vengeance and turns its sights on Vernon, who is arrested at the start of the story. Tanya Ronder's stage adaptation of DBC Pierre's Booker Prizewinning novel Vernon God Little was first performed at the Young Vic, London, in 2007, when it was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best New Play. Rufus Norris's production was revived in 2011, in this revised version, as the centrepiece of the Young Vic's celebratory fortieth anniversary season.Trade Review'Tanya Ronder's clever, fluent, and highly enjoyable theatrical adaptation' * Independent *'Exuberant, inventive, edgy, excitable, original' * Mail on Sunday *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisSelections from both the Iliad and the Odyssey, made with an eye for those episodes that figure most prominently in the study of mythology.Trade Review"A good idea—its utility far outweighs qualms purists have about students not reading every last item in the catalogue of ships. The translation is vigorous and readable." —Andrew Ford, Princeton University"Not only does one get an excellent translation of both Homer's Iliad and Odyssey under one cover, but the selections included are infinitely better and longer than what one normally gets in anthologies of Greek literature. For courses in which entire texts cannot be used, this is by far the best choice available today." —Kostas Myrsiades, Westchester University"The Essential Homer fills a long-felt need for an edition that offers a sizable selection of the books and passages most likely to be used in undergraduate courses. It's a wonderful help." —Richard P. Martin, Stanford University"This is a wonderful translation—readable, lively, preserves the essential spirit. Students get caught up in it. The abridgment is a good text for general classes." —Nicolle Hirschfeld, California State University, Long Beach"A fine poetic translation that today's students can understand. The selections are very well chosen for a course in which time limitations prevent reading the whole of either epic." —Lillian Doherty, University of Maryland

Read more less

Book SynopsisA biography of one of the most important writers in English of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. It offers fresh insights into his life and work, concentrating on the themes, patterns, relationships, ideas and language common to his life and creative output.Trade Review"William Baker's Harold Pinter affords readers with a comprehensive, career-spanning analysis of the Nobel Laureate's life and art. A deft and eminently rewarding exploration of one of postwar literature's great masters, Baker's study will become the standard-bearer for our understanding and enjoyment of Pinter's time-eclipsing work." - Professor Ken Womack, Penn State University, USATable of ContentsIntroduction and Acknowledgements; 1. Growing Up; 2. Ireland, Precarious Existence and Marriage; 3. Early Plays; 4. Success; 5. Turning Points; 6. The 1970s and 1980s; 7. The 1990s and Beyond: Political Engagement; 8. Conclusion: Cancer, The Nobel Prize, Mutations of Mortality, Poetry; Bibliography; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisMarianne Novy is a Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, USA and has been teaching Shakespeare from a feminist perspective there since 1971.Trade ReviewUsing close reading, social context, and some intriguing nuggets of performance history, Novy's book is as illuminating as it is readable. It is also rendered all the more urgent by her inclusion of current gender issues. * Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents1. Introduction 2. Likeness and Difference 3. Desire 4. Marriage 5. Motherhood 6. Language 7. Between Women 8. Work Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewIn these new translations Meineck and Woodruff have struck a near-ideal balance between accuracy and readability, formality and colloquialism. Their versions are simply a pleasure to read, conveying with remarkable vividness the powerful characterizations and poetic variety of the originals. The addition of succinct but illuminating notes makes this an exemplary volume for anyone interested in Sophocles' dramatic art. --Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, Department of Classics, Wesleyan University[T]his sequel to the same pair's well-received translation of the Theban plays hits an appropriate mean . . . a text that I could happily adopt for teaching. --Malcolm Heath in Greece and RomeTable of ContentsIntroduction; Notes on the Translations; Map: Sophoclean geography; House of Pelops Family Tree; Ajax; Women of Trachis; Electra; Philoctetes; Endnotes.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe hit stage play behind major BBC TV drama series Mood. Sasha Clayton is twenty-four and living with her mum, stepdad, and irritating little sister, in Plaistow, East London. She's gone from being the most popular girl at school, to spending most of her time on her own in her bedroom scrolling through social media. She may not have a job or a flat, and, admittedly her boyfriend's not answering her calls – but she's got talent and a dream. When she releases her first EP everything's going to change. Nicôle Lecky's play Superhoe was first staged in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in January 2019, performed by its author and directed by Jade Lewis. It was the first collaboration between Talawa Theatre Company and the Royal Court. The play was adapted by Nicôle Lecky into the six-part BBC television drama series Mood, first broadcast in March 2022.Trade Review'Fiercely clever... equal parts brutally funny and brutally sad... for a story of loneliness, isolation and entrapment, Superhoe is also beautiful and hopeful' * The Stage *'A vivid and touching portrait of millennial angst' * Telegraph *'A terrific piece by rising star Nicole Lecky, full of wit, truth and blazing feeling... smart, of the moment, and very funny' * Metro *'An engaging and hyper-provocative solo piece that shines a light on the perils new generations face' * Broadway World *'A frank, funny, and at times devastating piece which explores class, familial relations, and making ends meet with only your phone' * WhatsOnStage *'Nicole Lecky is a revelation… smart, sweary, authentic and provocative' * Evening Standard *'Astute, aggy and punctuated with rap, Superhoe pins down the financial difficulties of young adults' * Guardian *'Nicôle Lecky is a serious name to watch… this thrilling monologue is clearly the work of somebody who will go very, very far indeed' * Time Out *

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis is the fifth volume to be published in the ongoing complete edition of Auden''s works, under the editorship of Edward Mendelson. It includes the essays, reviews, and other prose that Auden published or prepared for publication between 1949 -- when he wrote his first book of criticism, The Enchafèd Flood -- and December 1955, shortly before he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford and began the series of lectures that he published, with much else, in The Dyer''s Hand.The texts throughout this edition are, wherever possible, newly edited from Auden''s manuscripts, and the notes report variant readings from all published versions.Trade Review"'The Complete Works, edited with elegant scruple by Edward Mendelson, is the only way to get at Auden as he happened, year by year, bit by bit, and not as he, or his later biographers, want us to think of him.' Boston Book Review"

Read more less

Book SynopsisA new translation by Anthony Esolen Illustrations by Gustave Doré   Written in the fourteenth century by Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy is arguably the greatest epic poem of all time—presenting Dante’s brilliant vision of the three realms of Christian afterlife: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. In this second and perhaps most imaginative part of his masterwork, Dante struggles up the terraces of Mount Purgatory, still guided by Virgil, in a continuation of his difficult ascent to purity. Anthony Esolen’s acclaimed translation of Inferno, Princeton professor James Richardson said, “follows Dante through all his spectacular range, commanding where he is commanding, wrestling, as he does, with the density and darkness in language and in the soul. It is living writing.” This edition of Purgatory includes an appendix of key sources and extensive

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe first European artist to cross the equator, Camoes's narrative reflects the novelty and fascination of that original encounter with Africa, India and the Far East. The poem's twin symbols are the Cross and the Astrolabe, and its celebration of a turning point in mankind's knowledge of the world unites the old map of the heavens with the newly discovered terrain on earth. Yet it speaks powerfully, too, of the precariousness of power, and of the rise and decline of nationhood, threatened not only from without by enemies, but from within by loss of integrity and vision.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as

Read more less

Book SynopsisA Jewish heist comedy that combines madcap action and biting political satire, winner of an Edinburgh Fringe First Award and a Summerhall Lustrum Award.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisA social satire looks at what would happen if the Second Coming of Christ occurred in South AfricaTrade Review'A satire played with devastating energy in a brilliantly witty staging.' The Guardian 'The most politically potent show ever staged in South Africa.' The Observer

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1956, Anne Sexton was admitted into a mental hospital for post-partum depression, where she met Dr. Martin Orne, a young psychiatrist who treated her for the next eight years. In that time Sexton would blossom into a world-famous poet, best known for her confessional poems dealing with personal subjects not often represented in poetry at that time: mental illness, depression, suicide, sex, abortion, women''s bodies, and the ordinary lives of mothers and housewives. Orne audiotaped the last three years of her therapy to facilitate her ability to remember their sessions. The final six months of these tapes are the focus of this book.In An Accident of Hope, Dawn Skorczewski links the content of the therapy with poetry excerpts, offering a rare perspective on the artist''s experience and creative process. We can see Sexton attempting to make sense of her life and therapy and to sustain her confidence as a major poet, while struggling with the Trade Review"Dawn Skorczewski explores this explosive material with delicacy and a sensitive hand. While An Accident of Hope limns the contours of Anne Sexton's deep-seated emotions – both the joy and the anguish – and the intertwined roots of her poetry, it simultaneously gives us a compelling read that never, ever, disappoints." - Linda Gray Sexton, author of Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide and Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother: Anne Sexton"By combining close readings of Anne Sexton's poems, mid-20th-century cultural history, and reflections on the development of psychoanalytic theory and technique, Dawn Skorczewski has produced a richly contextualized interpretive account of the audio recordings of the last six months of the poet's treatment with psychiatrist Martin Orne. An Accident of Hope amply demonstrates the mutually generative potential of literary and psychoanalytic texts and methodologies, while also reinforcing our sense of the propriety of Freud's oft-cited avowal that, wherever he went, he found that a poet had gotten there before him. Toggling back and forth between Sexton's poems and her taped conversations with Orne, Skorczewski reveals that, in certain ways, Sexton had a more forward-looking understanding than her doctor did of the psychotherapeutic relationship as a creative partnership." - Max Cavitch, University of Pennsylvania, USA "In An Accident of Hope, worlds creatively collide. Skorczewski composes a contrapuntal work of great force that resonates on several levels at once. Poems comment on intimate therapy encounters, and the encounters themselves reveal a patient trying to teach her beloved therapist how to listen to her and a therapist teetering between sexist and rigid theoretical analytic paradigms and a desire to nurture the creative human being in his care. Masterfully—and lyrically—connecting Sexton's poems, therapy sessions, and the therapeutic and cultural norms of the time, Skorczewski tells the tale of a great poet, a traumatized and traumatizing woman, and a patient whose challenges to her therapist foreshadow relational understandings of what harms and what heals." - Lynne Layton, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, USA"Dawn Skorczewski's responsiveness to the psychoanalytic narrative invites readers into an affecting study of the inner lives of men and women. With sophistication, care, and a literary style that makes for compelling reading, she draws readers into Dr. Martin Orne's tape recorded clinical treatment of the poet Anne Sexton. It is an unusual record of poetry and life woven from the fragility of creativity between the poet and the analyst. Nested in this commentary are the erotic tensions between North American psychoanalysis and the arts in the 1960s. Through the painful complications of childhood, adulthood, and illness, Skorczewski writes of love, hate, and sexuality; there is rare attunement to the backstage of lives in search of meaning. And new questions follow: Must one choose between art and life or between poetry and therapy? This book promises to open significant debate on the emotional conflicts of the imagination." - Deborah P. Britzman, York University, UK, and author of Freud and Education "An Accident of Hope offers the reader insight into the workings of the mind of a patient who is fully aware of the importance of her relationship with her therapist, not only to free her from her demons but to give birth to her poetic creativity. Dawn Skorczewski succeeded in writing a book that is instructive, entertaining, and a captivating read. It is instructive because of the author's appreciation of how psychoanalytic theory of the 1960s had affected this treatment, and because in interpreting Sexton's poems she was able to establish the connection between Sexton's increasing insights into her turbulent inner world and what her poetry was successfully communicating. The easy, conversational style of writing is experienced as if the reader were a third person in Dr. Orne's consulting room. This is an extraordinary book that psychoanalysts and literary critics will find equally rewarding." - Anna Ornstein, University of Cincinnati, USA"An Accident of Hope is a rich and far-ranging text that covers such diverse topics as creativity, identity, narrative, the history of psychiatry/psychology, and the history of feminism. Skorczewski’s explorations touch upon very fundamental questions of identity and creativity." –PsycCRITIQUES"Dawn Skorczewski explores this explosive material with delicacy and a sensitive hand. While An Accident of Hope limns the contours of Anne Sexton's deep-seated emotions – both the joy and the anguish – and the intertwined roots of her poetry, it simultaneously gives us a compelling read that never, ever, disappoints." - Linda Gray Sexton, author of Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide and Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother: Anne Sexton"By combining close readings of Anne Sexton's poems, mid-20th-century cultural history, and reflections on the development of psychoanalytic theory and technique, Dawn Skorczewski has produced a richly contextualized interpretive account of the audio recordings of the last six months of the poet's treatment with psychiatrist Martin Orne. An Accident of Hope amply demonstrates the mutually generative potential of literary and psychoanalytic texts and methodologies, while also reinforcing our sense of the propriety of Freud's oft-cited avowal that, wherever he went, he found that a poet had gotten there before him. Toggling back and forth between Sexton's poems and her taped conversations with Orne, Skorczewski reveals that, in certain ways, Sexton had a more forward-looking understanding than her doctor did of the psychotherapeutic relationship as a creative partnership." - Max Cavitch, University of Pennsylvania, USA "In An Accident of Hope, worlds creatively collide. Skorczewski composes a contrapuntal work of great force that resonates on several levels at once. Poems comment on intimate therapy encounters, and the encounters themselves reveal a patient trying to teach her beloved therapist how to listen to her and a therapist teetering between sexist and rigid theoretical analytic paradigms and a desire to nurture the creative human being in his care. Masterfully—and lyrically—connecting Sexton's poems, therapy sessions, and the therapeutic and cultural norms of the time, Skorczewski tells the tale of a great poet, a traumatized and traumatizing woman, and a patient whose challenges to her therapist foreshadow relational understandings of what harms and what heals." - Lynne Layton, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, USA"Dawn Skorczewski's responsiveness to the psychoanalytic narrative invites readers into an affecting study of the inner lives of men and women. With sophistication, care, and a literary style that makes for compelling reading, she draws readers into Dr. Martin Orne's tape recorded clinical treatment of the poet Anne Sexton. It is an unusual record of poetry and life woven from the fragility of creativity between the poet and the analyst. Nested in this commentary are the erotic tensions between North American psychoanalysis and the arts in the 1960s. Through the painful complications of childhood, adulthood, and illness, Skorczewski writes of love, hate, and sexuality; there is rare attunement to the backstage of lives in search of meaning. And new questions follow: Must one choose between art and life or between poetry and therapy? This book promises to open significant debate on the emotional conflicts of the imagination." - Deborah P. Britzman, York University, UK, and author of Freud and Education "An Accident of Hope offers the reader insight into the workings of the mind of a patient who is fully aware of the importance of her relationship with her therapist, not only to free her from her demons but to give birth to her poetic creativity. Dawn Skorczewski succeeded in writing a book that is instructive, entertaining, and a captivating read. It is instructive because of the author's appreciation of how psychoanalytic theory of the 1960s had affected this treatment, and because in interpreting Sexton's poems she was able to establish the connection between Sexton's increasing insights into her turbulent inner world and what her poetry was successfully communicating. The easy, conversational style of writing is experienced as if the reader were a third person in Dr. Orne's consulting room. This is an extraordinary book that psychoanalysts and literary critics will find equally rewarding." - Anna Ornstein, University of Cincinnati, USA"Skorczewski’s work with the transcripts of Sexton’s private therapy sessions refuses any prurient interest the reader may have in Sexton’s flamboyant character—or the melodramatic features of her suicide. With her extensive knowledge of psychoanalytic theory, Skorczewski is able to make lucid comparisons between Orne’s clinical approach, which relied heavily on Freudian theory and its later expression as ego psychology, and contemporary theories of analysis that she argues provide superior modalities for treating mental illness and depression." - Judith Harris, DIVISION | REVIEW WINTER 2014Table of ContentsIntroduction. "You, I, We Created the Poet": November 1963. Did Anne Sexton Kill John F. Kennedy? Late November 1963. Holding Hands and Letting Go: The Road to "Flee on Your Donkey": December 10-12, 1963. "This Terrible Ideal of the Happy Family": December 14-19, 1963. Dancing for Your Doctor: Notes on Narcissism: December 21-24, 1963. The Black Pants and the New Bikini: Oedipal Scripts: February-March 1964. "The Discovery of a Human Being": April 21-28, 1964. Flash Forward: An Epilogue: July 1964-February 1965.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of poems by Wislawa Szymborska. It features twenty-seven poems.Trade Review"No reader, not even poetry-phobes, should miss the bright revelations of Nobel laureate Szymborska. [...] Syzmborska is sharply ironic and lithely philosophical, pondering the phenomenal precision of dreams and the elusiveness of meaning. The neat, prancing lyrics collected in this slender, piercing book are delectable and profound." --Booklist —

Read more less

Book SynopsisFollowing the exceptional acclaim for his first two books, Farley might have been forgiven for resting on his laurels with his ‘difficult third’ - but Tramp in Flames instead finds him driving his formal ambition and remarkable imagination harder than ever. A book of considerable emotional daring and sometimes Wordsworthian sweep, Tramp in Flames is the work of a meticulous archivist of our cultural memory, and sets the palimpsest of the present hour on a light-box. It also shows Farley rapidly becoming one of the definitive English voices of the age. 'Resonant without being flashy . . . lines that will stick with you for a really, really long time' Mark Haddon 'Funny, observant, brilliantly musical . . . streetwise, erudite, elusive, but very accessible' Ruth Padel, Financial Times 'Farley is one of our most vital and engaging voices. Even a title can twist at the familiar, commanding our attentio

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"A great feast of an anthology." -- The Nation. "Searing and unforgettable." -- Voice Literary Supplement.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis comprehensive and authoritative collection of all 1,775 poems by Emily Dickinson is an essential volume for all lovers of American literature.  Only eleven of Emily Dickinson's poems were published prior to her death in 1886; the startling originality of her work doomed it to obscurity in her lifetime. Early posthumous published collections — some of them featuring liberally 'edited' versions of the poems — did not fully and accurately represent Dickinson's bold experiments in prosody, her tragic vision, and the range of her intellectual and emotional explorations. Not until the 1955 publication of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, a three-volume critical edition compiled by Thomas H. Johnson, were readers able for the first time to assess, understand, and appreciate the whole of Dickinson's extraordinary poetic genius.  This book, a distillation of the three-volume Complete Poems, br

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisIrish Poems is a treasury of poetry from the Emerald Isle, stretching back fourteen centuries. From the romantic ballad to the rebel song, from devotional Christian verse to revivals of ancient Celtic myth, poetry has long been Ireland’s most eloquent response to its turbulent and colorful history. Irish Poems gives us a dazzling selection from a long and distinguished poetic tradition, ranging from the earliest Gaelic bards up to the present. Organized around such themes as politics, religion, Gaelic culture, the Irish landscape, and matters of the heart, the poems collected here come from a wide range of writers old and new, including such literary giants as Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge, Samuel Beckett, Louis MacNeice, Patrick Kavanagh, Paul Muldoon, Evan Boland, Seamus Heaney, and many more.

Read more less

Book SynopsisMenander, the dominant figure in New Comedy, wrote over 100 plays, of which one complete play, substantial portions of six others, and smaller but interesting fragments have been recovered. The complete play, Dyskolos (The Peevish Fellow), won first prize in Athens in 317 BC.Trade ReviewAn excellent guide to Menander… Arnott has given us fine texts, clear translations, brief and useful introductions, and the help that is needed to make sense [of the] fragments. -- David Konstan * Scholia Reviews *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTenderly, joyously, sometimes in sadness,  sometimes in pain, Maya Angelou writes from the heart and  celebrates life as only she has discovered it. In  this moving volume of poetry, we hear the  multi-faceted voice of one of the most powerful and  vibrant writers of our time.

Read more less