A haiku, an ode, a sonnet, a limerick, an elegy ... more poetry,please.
Poetry Books
Batsford Ltd Goblin Market: An Illustrated Poem
Book SynopsisThe classic poem, Goblin Market (1862) by Christina Rossetti, tells the story of Lizzie and Laura, who are tempted by the fruit sold by the goblin merchants. In this fully illustrated and beautiful volume, illustrator Georgie McAusland brings the words and story to life. SHORTLISTED in the V&A Illustration Awards and the World Illustration Awards. Breathing new life into the Victorian tradition of illustrated poems, this book reads like a picture story book. The stunning illustrations illuminate and drive the narrative forward as in all good story books. It tells the tale of the two sisters drifting apart as Laura succumbs to the forbidden fruit sold by the goblins, but the bonds of sisterhood prove strong. The poem has fascinated for generations and been the subject of various interpretations. This illustrated version brings the words and story alive for a new generation. Christina Rossetti is considered the foremost female poet of her time, and her poetry still resonates with women's lives today, as she entwines themes of sexuality, sisterhood, love and temptation in her work. All of these themes are encapsulated in Goblin Market. The book includes an introduction to the poem by novelist Kirsty Gunn, so all readers – for pleasure or study – can understand its riches. Trade Review‘[A] uniquely different … illustrated interpretation’ * Pre-Raphaelite Society Review *‘This new edition has bold, simple but moving illustrations by Georgie McAusland. If you don’t know Goblin Market, it’s a must-read.‘ * Fortean Times *
£11.69
Poetry Wales Press Skirrid Hill
Book Synopsis
£999.99
Nick Hern Books The Weir (NHB Modern Plays)
Book SynopsisThe spellbinding, beautifully observed hit from the master of suspenseful realism. A bar in a remote part of Ireland. The local lads are swapping spooky stories to impress a young woman recently moved to the area from Dublin. As the drink flows and the stories become increasingly frightening, it's clear that Valerie has something on her mind. She has a tale to tell that'll stop them all dead in their tracks. Conor McPherson's play The Weir combines superbly chilling tales of the supernatural with the hilarious banter of a small community in the heart of rural Ireland. The Weir was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs at the Ambassadors Theatre on West Street, London, in July 1997. It transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End in February 1998, where it played for two years. The play went on to win the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 1999. McPherson also won the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards for Most Promising Playwright. The Weir has since been performed very widely, including on Broadway in 1999. It received a major West End revival at the Donmar Warehouse in 2013, and transferred to the West End once again. It was voted one of the hundred most significant plays of the twentieth century in a poll conducted by the National Theatre in 2000. 'The play of the decade... a modern masterpiece' - Express 'I am convinced that this is the best new play I've seen in years' - Sunday Telegraph 'There is a depth in the characterisation... that puts one in mind of an Irish Chekhov. I have rarely been so convinced that I have just seen a modern classic' - Daily Telegraph 'A beautifully crafted and compassionate piece, dealing with love, loss and loneliness. It works because one believes so intensely in the characters that one shares the experiences they talk of, because it contains at its heart a shattering event and because it demonstrates the healing potential of storytelling... a fine piece of writing' - Financial Times Best New Play, Olivier AwardsTrade Review'The play of the decade... a modern masterpiece' * Express *'I am convinced that this is the best new play I've seen in years' * Sunday Telegraph *'There is a depth in the characterisation... that puts one in mind of an Irish Chekhov. I have rarely been so convinced that I have just seen a modern classic' * Daily Telegraph *'A beautifully crafted and compassionate piece, dealing with love, loss and loneliness. It works because one believes so intensely in the characters that one shares the experiences they talk of, because it contains at its heart a shattering event and because it demonstrates the healing potential of storytelling... a fine piece of writing' * Financial Times *
£10.44
Parthian Books Feet in Chains
Book SynopsisSnowdonia, 1880, and Jane Gruffydd is a newcomer to the district, dressed to the nines and almost fainting in the heat of the interminable prayer meeting out on the mountainside...In the pages of this classic 1936 novel, we see the passionate and headstrong Jane grow up and grow old, struggling to bring up a family of six children on the pittance earned by her slate-quarrying husband, Ifan. Spanning the next forty years, the novel traces the contours not only of one vividly evoked Welsh family but of a nation coming to self-consciousness; it begins in the heyday of Methodist fervour and ends in the carnage and disillusionment of the First World War. Through it all, Jane survives, the centre of her world and the inspiration for her children who will grow up determined to change the conditions of these poor people's lives, to release them forever from their chains.Trade Review'Direct and brilliantly convincing...A comparison with Russian literature is tempting...The frustration and hopelessness...of Chekhov's...characters resemble the peasants and quarrymen of Kate Roberts's narrower world'. (Storm Jameson)
£8.54
Two Rivers Press This Thing of Blood & Love
Book SynopsisThis Thing of Blood & Love, Lesley Saunders’ fifth collection with Two Rivers Press, is an intense examination of human culpability, the secrets we half-keep from ourselves, the contradictory selves we inhabit, the histories that live on unreconciled in us, the planet whose imperfect stewards we are; and above all the unfathomable mystery of being (in) a body, incarnated, made flesh – a thing of blood and love that betrays us with its appalling vulnerabilities. The poems in this book display the celebratory delight in language which has continued to impress readers and reviewers of Saunders’ work, though here imbued with a disturbed and disturbing awareness of mortality – the ultimate vulnerability from which in the end we derive our deepest sense of self.Trade ReviewLesley Saunders’ poetry in ‘This Thing of Blood & Love’ operates in a space somewhere between science and mystery, carnality and spirit. In its enigmatic scenes it is sometimes reminiscent of unsettling, dreamlike painting – yet this is not painting, but poetry, linguistically rich, made of language at once sensuous and subtle. It is highly aware of the human body, of the materiality of flesh, and equally of the psyche. It is poetry with a sophisticated, up to the minute quality, knowledgeable about our lifestyles and technologies, and alive to modern sciences of the mind. Saunders is a serious poet with a light touch, who marvels at the constitution of human physical being and the labyrinthine ways of consciousness. She is alert to the apocalypse we have invited to destroy our fragile world. She skates on thin ice, stylishly, gracefully, aware of the risks. Her enigmatic work does not lend itself to summary. It can only be entered by a reader prepared to share an exhilarating dance on the ice. — Jeremy Hooker
£9.49
Stewed Rhubarb Press Endless Blue
£6.00
Arc Publications Poems Written Through Barbedwire Fences
Book SynopsisThis chapbook by Ro Mehrooz is the first time that the work of a single Rohingyan poet has appeared in print in a bilingual edition. The Rohingya people continue to experience genocide at the hands of the Myanmar military, so it is not surprising that Ro's poems are full of anger, anguish and despair, although there are moments of light as he reflects upon the traditions and customs of his people. James Byrne's informative introduction, together with Ro's deeply-affecting poems, paint a stark and unforgettable picture of this war-torn, torture-ravaged and largely forgotten area of Myanmar.
£7.60
Valley Press Couples
Book SynopsisBleak but wonderful ... familiar, and of course funny. Alan BennettDark, funny and twisted, but surprisingly tender. A.L. KennedyCouples is a blackly comic sequence of poems that explore the nature of co-dependency of two people who want to be together, but at the same time cannot help but push each other away. The layout of the book is itself a commentary on the phenomenon the poems are placed in their own couples', pairs that face each other across the page. Sometimes they exchange a glance, sometimes they stand side-by-side, staring out into the abyss; only when the book is closed, and they are in darkness, do they truly come together. Originally published on Valentine's Day 2013, the seven-year itch has brought Michael Stewart back to his old flame for a new edition in 2020; reworking the original poems, and adding a dozen more. The result is an unnervingly perceptive volume, to be shared with your other half' at your own risk you may never look at a couple, or each other, the same way again.
£7.59
Nine Arches Press Terminarchy
Book SynopsisAngela France’s Terminarchy eloquently considers the troubling terms of existence in an age of climate catastrophe and technological change. How do we negotiate a world where capitalism and greed threaten a fragile earth, where technology seems to promise us connection but might also fuel isolation? Where even finding solace in nature reminds us that the seasons can no longer be trusted? Reframing ecopoetics in her own instinctive, radical, lyrical form. France considers whether, rather than collison-course, there might be a better way to coexist. Where extinction threatens, these wry, alert poems and their earthy voices try to find a way through and look for hope."Angela France travels the living world of our fellow creatures with much empathy, considering the survivals, (for now) and the irrevocable losses. Though the theme is mortal and full of danger, the poems sing, they inhabit delight amid the sorrow. Observational, meditative, earthy, riverine, full of foundational energy; this is a key collection, an essential poetics of gravity and grace." - Penelope Shuttle
£9.49
Eyewear Publishing The Scent of Spring, Elegies Out Of Season
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£10.44
Candlestick Press Ten Poems about Trains: RETURN
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£7.41
Salamander Street Limited Act Normal: Mark Wheeller Contemporary Monologues
Book SynopsisAct Normal includes 31 contemporary monologues from Too Much Punch For Judy, Hard To Swallow, Missing Dan Nolan, I Love You, Mum - I Promise I Won’t Die, Game Over … and many more of Mark’s plays and musicals. Written with young performers in mind and available for classroom or audition use, they offer a range of characters and topics – both comic and serious - along with acting notes for each monologue. Many of the monologues are verbatim, providing a unique opportunity for actors and directors to explore this exciting form. Act Normal is the first exclusive collection of Mark’s monologue work. ‘Surprise your teacher, your friends, your family, your audience and last but not least, yourselves!’ – Mark Wheeller Monologue topics: True stories and verbatim pieces British World War II evacuee experience Testimony of world champion blind athlete Graham Salmon Account of sisters involved in a drink-driving accident Story of a woman’s battle with anorexia A young woman’s struggles breaking into the football world Two pieces on the life-changing consequences of a car accident Recounting of a prison assault Dan Nolan’s 2002 disappearance Grooming and human trafficking Students excluded from the mainstream education system Accidental drug overdose Young people and self-harm Online predators Fiction Absurdist, allegorical tale about a fantasy King Unplanned teenage pregnancy Fandom and mourning an idol (reference to David Bowie) Theatre in Education piece on road safety Featured plays, with character options and ages (NB: all are suitable for performers of any age and gender) Blackout - Operation Pied Piper - Jean, aged 9 Graham – World’s Fastest Blind Runner – Junie, pre-teen/ Graham, adult Too Much Punch For Judy – Judy, young adult/ Duncan, adult Hard to Swallow – Anna, young adult/ John, adult Sweet (W)FA / Lethal In The Box – Miss Vallas, adult/ Spanner, adult Chicken! – Nut-Job, teenager/ Chris, teenager Legal Weapon 2 – Andy, young adult Wacky Soap – Storyteller, adult Missing Dan Nolan – Pauline, adult / Sarah, young teenager/ Andy, adult One Million to Stop The Traffik – Mary, adult Kids Who Look Out of the Window – Tonisha, teenager Chequered Flags to Chequered Futures – Jane, adult/ Driver, adult I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die – Jack, teenager Scratching the Surface – Louise, adult This Is For You – Susan, adult Can You Hear Me Major Tom? – Mark, adult/ Jasmine, adult Game Over – Lorin, adult
£10.99
Valley Press Notes of Your Music
Book SynopsisI have grown older and loved others, but I shall always carry some notes of your music in my pockets, like petals, wherever I go.In his fourth collection of sonnets bookended by two free-form pieces James Nash sets out to celebrate what may be gone, or flag up what might be celebrated before it goes.From the simple music of the bottle bank (a favourite task), to the biggest questions of the human experience, the poet''s gentle, perceptive gaze illuminates all it surveys, delighting and moving in equal measure.This is a book to be savoured slowly and cherished often a quiet companion for the heart and mind.
£21.25
Grupo Anaya, S.A. Animaladas
Book Synopsis
£11.21
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Last Night of the Earth Poems
Book SynopsisPoems deal with writing, death and immortality, literature, city life, illness, war, and the past.
£10.44
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling
Book SynopsisIntroduction and Notes by R.T. Jones, Honorary Fellow of the University of York. This edition of the poetry of Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) includes all the poems contained in the Definitive Edition of 1940. In his lifetime, Kipling was widely regarded as the unofficial Poet Laureate, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. His poetry is striking for its many rhythms and popular forms of speech, and Kipling was equally at home with dramatic monologues and extended ballads. He is often thought of as glorifying war, militarism, and the British Empire, but an attentive reading of the poems does not confirm that view. This edition reprints George Orwell's hard-hitting account of Kipling's poems, first published in 1942, and generally regarded as one of the most important contributions to critical discussion of Kipling.
£6.23
Penguin Books Ltd The Complete Poems
Book SynopsisOne of the great English Romantic poets, William Blake (1757-1827) was an artist, poet, mystic and visionary. His work ranges from the deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innocence and their counterpoint Experience - which juxtapose poems such as ''The Lamb'' and ''The Tyger'', and ''The Blossom'' and ''The Sick Rose'' - to highly elaborate, apocalyptic works, such as The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem. Throughout his life Blake drew on a rich heritage of philosophy, religion and myth, to create a poetic worlds illuminated by his spiritual and revolutionary beliefs that have fascinated, intrigued and enchanted readers for generations.Table of ContentsThe Complete PoemsPrefaceTable of DatesFurther ReadingThe PoemsPoetical SketchesMiscellaneous PoemsKing Edward the ThirdDramatic FragmentsPoems Written in a Copy of Poetical SketchesSongs from "An Island in the Moon"There is No Natural Religion [a, b]All Religions Are OneThe Book of ThelTirielSongs of Innocence and of ExperienceSongs of InnocenceSongs of ExperienceNotebook Poems and Fragments, c. 1789-93The French RevolutionThe Marriage of Heaven and HellA Song of LibertyVisions of the Daughters of AlbionAmericaEuropeThe Song of LosAfricaAsiaThe Book of UrizenThe Book of AhaniaThe Book of LosVala, or The Four ZoasNotes Written on the Pages of The Four ZoasAdditional FragmentsThree Poems, ?c. 1800Poems from LettersNotebook Poems, c. 1800-1806Poems from the Pickering ManuscriptMiltonDedication to Blake's Illustrations to Blair's GraveNotebook Epigrams and Satiric Verses, c. 1808-12Miscellaneous Verses and EpigramsVerse from the Marginalia to Reynolds's DiscoursesVerse from the Advertisement to Blake's Exhibition of Paintings, 1809Epigrams from A Descriptive CatalogueEpigrams from "Public Address"JerusalemThe Everlasting GospelFor the Sexes: The Gates of ParadiseThe Ghost of AbelNotesDictionary of Proper NamesNote to the IndexesIndex of TitlesIndex of First Lines
£15.29
WW Norton & Co Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings
Book SynopsisFerdowsi’s classic poem Shahnameh is part myth, part history–beginning with the legend of the birth of the Persian nation and its tumultuous history, it contains magical birds and superhuman heroes and centuries-long battles. Written over 1,000 years ago, it was meant to protect Persian collective memory amidst a turbulent sea of cultural storms. Originally written in couplets, the translation and adaptation by Ahmad Sadri retells the mythological tales in prose format. The spectacular illustrations in this edition were created from elements culled from thousands of manuscripts, lithographs, and miniatures dating from the thirteenth through the nineteenth centuries, and each panel becomes a new work of art, an exquisite collage of traditional forms.
£75.04
Pan Macmillan 101 Poems for Children Chosen by Carol Ann Duffy
Book SynopsisCarol Ann Duffy, appointed Poet Laureate in 2009, has chosen her favourite poems for children for this stunning collection of classic and modern verse, exquisitely illustrated by multi-award-winning illustrator Emily Gravett.Featuring such classic poems as 'The Owl and the Pussycat' by Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky' alongside Edwin Morgan's 'The Loch Ness Monster's Song' and 'Balloons' by Sylvia Plath, 101 Poems for Children Chosen by Carol Ann Duffy: A Laureate's Choice is a delight for children of all ages and a pleasure to read aloud.
£8.54
Oxford University Press The Homeric Hymns
Book Synopsis''With fair-tressed Demeter, the sacred goddess, my song begins,With herself and her slim-ankled daughter, whom Aidoneus onceAbducted...''Most people are familiar, at least by repute, with the two great epics of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, but few are aware that other poems survive that were attributed to Homer in ancient times. The Homeric Hymns are now known to be the work of various poets working in the same tradition, probably during the seventh and sixth centuries BC. They honour the Greek gods, and recount some of the most attractive of the Greek myths. Four of them (Hymns 2-5) stand out by reason of their length and quality. The Hymn to Demeter tells what happened when Hades, lord of the dead, abducted Persephone, Demeter''s daughter. The Hymn to Apollo describes Apollo''s birth and the foundation of his Delphic oracle. In the Hymn to Hermes Apollo''s cattle are stolen by a felonious infant - Hermes, god of thieves. In the Hymn to Aphrodite the goddess of love herself becomes infatuated with a mortal man, the Trojan prince Ankhises. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade ReviewThis welcome new translation of the Homeric Hymns offers a skilled and nuanced verse rendering that is accompanied by intelligent and helpful notes. The introductory material is brief; the end-notes more thorough yet always concise; throughout there is frequent and up-to-date reference to important bibliography on the hymns. Readers should find the translation poetic and often striking, and they will also come away with a firm sense of modern scholarship on these short epic works. * Journal of Hellenic Studies *
£8.54
Pan Macmillan A Poet for Every Day of the Year
Book SynopsisAllie Esiri’s beautiful gift anthology, A Poet for Every Day of the Year, is the perfect introduction to 366 of the world’s greatest ever verse writers.Perfect for reading aloud and sharing with all the family throughout the year, it is bursting at the seams with familiar favourites and exciting new discoveries. Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti and Emily Bronte sit alongside Roger McGough, Wendy Cope, Imtiaz Dharker, Leonard Cohen, Sylvia Plath and Ocean Vuong.Each of the 366 poems features a small introduction that gives a sense of who the writer was, and not just the greatness of their work. Some offer insightful biographical details or key historical context, while others may provide quirky, humorous anecdotes.The day-to-day format of the anthology invites readers to make poetry a part of their daily routine, and makes sure that they discover something inspirational, life affirming, provocative, moving or entertaining each and every day.Trade ReviewIf you feel as though your life is lacking a bit of poetry, this is an excellent place to start. * Best Poetry Books of the Year, The Times *[A Poet for Every Day of the Year] does exactly what it says on the tin, presenting a poet for you to meet and take your time with every day; to savour, enjoy, read, re-read and return to, knowing that there’ll be another one along tomorrow. -- Ian McMillan, award winning poet
£18.00
Faber & Faber Waiting for Godot
Book SynopsisSubtitled â??A tragicomedy in two actsâ??, and famously described by the Irish critic Vivien Mercier as a play in which â??nothinghappens, twiceâ??, En attendant Godot was first performed at the Th_Ãtre de Babylone in Paris in 1953. It was translated into English by Samuel Beckett, and opened as Waiting for Godot at the Arts Theatre in London in 1955.â??I told [Ralph] Richardson that if by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot.This seemed to disappoint him greatly.â??-- Samuel Beckett to Barney Rosset, 18 October 1954All the dead voices.They make a noise like wings.Like leaves.Like sand.Like leaves.[Silence.]They all speak together. Each one to itself.[Silence.]Rather they whisper.They rustle.They murmur. They rustle.[Silence.] What do they say?They talk about their lives.To have lived is not enough for them.They have to talk about it.To be dead is not enough for them.It is not sufficient.[Silence.]They make a noise like feathers.Like leaves.Like ashes.Like leaves.
£9.49
Fitzcarraldo Editions Old Food
Book SynopsisFrom one of the most lauded artists of his generation comes a purging soliloquy: a profound nowt delivered in some spent afterwards. Scorched by senility and nostalgia, and wracked by all kinds of hunger, Ed Atkins’ Old Food lurches from allegory to listicle, from lyric to menu, fetching up a plummeting, idiomatic and crabbed tableau from the cannibalised remains of each form in turn. Written in conjunction with Atkins’ exhibition of the same name, Old Food is a hard Brexit, wadded with historicity, melancholy and a bravura kind of stupidity. Ed Atkins is an artist who makes all kinds of convolutions of self-portraiture. He writes uncomfortably intimate, debunked prophesies; paints travesties; and makes realistic computer generated videos that often feature figures that resemble the artist in the throes of unaccountable psychical crises. Atkins’ artificial realism, whether written or animated, pastiches romanticism to get rendered down to a sentimental blubber – all the better to model those bleak feelings often so inexpressible in real life.Trade Review‘Violent, emetic, immoderate, improper, impure – that’s to say it’s the real thing. Atkins’s prose, which may not be prose, adheres to Aragon’s maxim “Don't think – write.”’ — Jonathan Meades‘Atkins, reflecting on the absence of humans in the exhibition, here favours the visceral impact of associated images and words, pumping the poetry-prose with lines that speak of our primeval instincts, needs and desires, in order to “seek empathic commons”.’ — ArtReview‘Ed Atkins is the artist of ugly feelings – gruesome and smeared and depleted. But everything he does in his videos or paintings, I’ve always thought, he really does as a writer. He uses language as a system where everything gets reprocessed and misshapen – a unique and constant mislaying of tone that’s as dizzying as it’s exhilarating.’ — Adam Thirlwell, author of Lurid & Cute ‘The universe is a rabble of contagion and miasma. The universe is a rabble of spheres, moved by mystical forces. Ed Atkins pokes this condition. He strokes and bursts it. He is the barber who doubles as doctor and a dentist, quick with his knife and flushes of blood. No page of Old Food is dry, it seeps with life, it breathes, bleeds, engorges, sticks you together with spit. Like bacterial cells on an errant loaf, Old Food is language in growth. ’ — Helen Marten, 2016 Turner Prize winner
£9.99
Random House 80 at 80
Book SynopsisA new selection of Paul Durcan's finest poems, published in celebration of his 80th birthday'He has written immortal poems. I revere him' Michael LongleyFor fifty years the poet Paul Durcan has explored and questioned a world both real and imagined. Steeped in the goings-on of Ireland and preoccupied with its concerns, he has delighted, enriched and unsettled his readers. His prodigious output of more than twenty collections bursts with poems that are courageously personal and passionately spiritual a body of work that contains multitudes. The great enemy of art is the ego' says Durcan. It keeps getting in the way. One needs the ego to disappear so that I become you; I become the people walking up and down the street.'First published in 1967, Durcan remains the most of companionable of poets. His vivacity and ability to surprise has never been clearer than in this new selection of eighty of his finest poems, published in celebration of his 80th birthday. EDITED BY NIALL MACMONAGLEWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY COLM TOIBIN
£15.29
Faber & Faber Serious Concerns
Book SynopsisWendy Cope''s first book of poems and parodies, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, went straight into the bestseller lists. Its successor, Serious Concerns has proved even more popular, addressing such topics as ''Bloody Men'', ''Men and Their Boring Arguments'', ''Two Cures for Love'', ''Kindness to Animals'' and ''Tumps'' (Typically Useless Male Poets).
£10.44
Bonnier Books Ltd I Wish I Knew
Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND FROM THE AUTHOR OF WILD HOPE'A little corner of calm within life's storm - wonderful.' Cat Deeley'Donna's much-needed words will no doubt empower and lift our young people today.' Lisa Faulkner 'Like a hug from a wise friend.' Samia Longchambon'Wise and beautiful words to help us reach a place of peace and acceptance.' Lisa SnowdonIn this fast-paced world, I Wish I Knew is a collection of poems and wisdom to guide us through the wilderness of life, navigating self-esteem, body image, emotions, mental health and personal growth.With honest lessons learned from rock bottom, Donna Ashworth will help you to find courage in chaos and rise to every challenge. Sparking joy, kindness, gratitude and self-acceptance on each page, her words will soothe your soul, strengthen your spirit and help you find your own unique voice.I Wish I Knew was a Sunday Times bestseller on 24 July 2022.
£8.54
Oxford University Press Antigone Oedipus the King Electra Oxford Worlds
Book Synopsis
£7.99
Oxford University Press Much Ado About Nothing The Oxford Shakespeare
Book SynopsisSparkling with the witty dialogue between Beatrice and Benedicts, Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare''s most enjoyable and theatrically successful comedies.This edition offers a newly edited text and an exceptionally helpful and critically aware introduction. Paying particular attention to analysis of the play''s minor characters, Sheldon P Zitner discusses Shakespeare''s transformation of his source material. He rethinks the attitudes to gender relations that underlie the comedy and determine its view of marriage.Allowing for the play''s openness to reinterpretation by successive generations of readers and peformers, Zitner provides a socially analytic stage history, advancing new views for the actor as much as for the critic. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth o
£7.59
The New York Review of Books, Inc Grief Lessons: Four Plays By Euripi
Book SynopsisNow in paperback.Euripides, the last of the three great tragedians of ancient Athens, reached the height of his renown during the disastrous Peloponnesian War, when democratic Athens was brought down by its own outsized ambitions. “Euripides,” the classicist Bernard Knox has written, “was born never to live in peace with himself and to prevent the rest of mankind from doing so.” His plays were shockers: he unmasked heroes, revealing them as foolish and savage, and he wrote about the powerless-women and children, slaves and barbarians-for whom tragedy was not so much exceptional as unending. Euripides’ plays rarely won first prize in the great democratic competitions of ancient Athens, but their combustible mixture of realism and extremism fascinated audiences throughout the Greek world. In the last days of the Peloponnesian War, Athenian prisoners held captive in far-off Sicily were said to have won their freedom by reciting snatches of Euripides’ latest tragedies.Four of those tragedies are presented here in new translations by the contemporary poet and classicist Anne Carson. They are Herakles, in which the hero swaggers home to destroy his own family; Hekabe, set after the Trojan War, in which Hektor’s widow takes vengeance on her Greek captors; Hippolytos, about love and the horror of love; and the strange tragic-comedy fable Alkestis, which tells of a husband who arranges for his wife to die in his place. The volume also contains brief introductions by Carson to each of the plays along with two remarkable framing essays: “Tragedy: A Curious Art Form” and “Why I Wrote Two Plays About Phaidra.”
£14.39
Profile Books Ltd I Like You
Book SynopsisA tiny book with a big heart - a favourite gift for weddings, best friends and Valentines When I think something is important You think it's important too We have good ideas When I say something funny You laugh I think I'm funny And you think I'm funny too This is the book that Thelma would give Louise, Bill would give Ted, Charlie Brown would give Snoopy, and you can give to whoever you love. Adorable, a little bit spiky, with lovely illustrations, this is a classic reading for weddings, a charming book for kids and the perfect present for the people who love you best.Trade ReviewAn almost unbearably lovely vintage illustrated ode to friendship ... one of the tenderest and most touching presents I've ever gotten, from one of my dearest friends ... love - that sweetest, most knotless and untroubled kind - is what radiates from these simple, surprisingly profound verse-like meditations on friendship, illustrated with the kindred sensibility of Chwast's simple yet richly expressive black-and-white line drawings. -- Maria Popova * Brain Pickings *
£6.99
Sidekick Books Ten Poets Defend Their Cities from Giant Strange
Book SynopsisTen poem. Ten poets. Ten earth-shattering encounters.
£8.82
Alma Books Ltd Selected Poetry: Annotated Edition
Book SynopsisDuring his short and restless life, Percy Bysshe Shelley produced a great number of poems, three verse plays and numerous prose works, as well as many essays in which he propounded his philosophical views and radical political ideas. These, together with his highly unconventional itinerant life and his literary connections, make him one of the most important and intriguing figures in British Romanticism. This volume provides a generous selection of his poetry, from the sonnet ‘Ozymandias’ to famous lyrics such as ‘Ode to the West Wind’ and ‘Lines Written among the Euganean Hills’, to the longer poems of his maturity, Adonais and Epipsychidion, all thoroughly annotated and presented in chronological order.
£7.99
Vintage Publishing Vertigo & Ghost
Book Synopsis**WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2019****WINNER OF THE ROEHAMPTON PRIZE FOR BEST POETRY COLLECTION 2019**Violence hangs over this book like an electric storm. Beginning with a poem about the teenage dawning of sexuality, Vertigo & Ghost pitches quickly into a long sequence of graphic, stunning pieces about Zeus as a serial rapist, for whom woman are prey and sex is weaponised. These are frank, brilliant, devastating poems of vulnerability and rage, and as Zeus is confronted with aggressions both personal and historical, his house comes crumbling down. A disturbing contemporary world is exposed, in which violent acts against women continue to be perpetrated on a daily – hourly – basis. The book shifts, in its second half, to an intimate and lyrical document of depression and family life. It sounds out the complex and ambivalent terrain of early motherhood – its anxieties and claustrophobias as well as its gifts of tenderness and love – reclaiming the sanctuary of domestic private life, and the right to raise children in peace and safety. Vertigo & Ghost is an important, necessary book, hugely impressive in its range and risk, and dramatic in its currency: a collection that speaks out with clarity, grace and bravery against the abuse of power.**SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE****SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 T. S. ELIOT PRIZE** ‘Misogynistic violence, ancient myth and modern rage confront each other in moving and dynamic verse’ Financial TimesTrade ReviewVertigo & Ghost explodes into furious life with a series of poems and fragments about the Greek god Zeus... jagged, staccato poems that shoot down the pages like lightning bolts... an addictive, thrilling, sickening experience. * Guardian *Vertigo & Ghost knocked the breath from me. Such furious, fierce, ecstatic poems, at once brutal and heartachingly tender; I lay awake at night unable to stop thinking about them. Mothers and children, girls and women, their vulnerabilities and sorrows, fears amidst grave danger, their beautiful animal selves. Against a frightening darkness, these "sore jewels" radiate wild white-heat.This extraordinarily moving collection is a bold confrontation of violence against women. Vertigo & Ghost is one of the darkest, bravest and most unsettling collections I have read in a while. * Observer *An exceptional achievement. -- Paul Bailey * Literary Review *[A] tour-de-force... [Vertigo & Ghost] has generated a lot of (justified) buzz... poems of lasting power. * Telegraph *Poetry Book of the Month* *
£10.00
Penguin Books Ltd Selected Poems Penguin Modern Classics
Book SynopsisOne of the major twentieth-century European poets, Paul Celan wrote poetry of exceptional linguistic brilliance and intensity drawn from his experiences, particularly of the war years and the loss of his parents in the death camps. In his verse he sought to express ''not only what the experience felt like, but also a sense of living, with comprehension, inside the experience''. WINNER OF THE FIRST EUROPEAN TRANSLATION PRIZE
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Hesiod and Theognis Theogony Works and Days and
Book SynopsisTogether these two poets-Hesiod, the epic poet, and Theognis, the elegist-offer a superb introduction to the life and thought of ancient Greece.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 well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Table of ContentsTheology and Works and Days; ElegiesHESIODIntroductionTheologyWorks and DaysTHEOGNISIntroductionElegiesNotesSelect Glossary
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Selected Poems
Book SynopsisSelected Poems brings together some two hundred poems - the largest collection of Borges'' poetry ever assembled in English, including many never previously translated. The brilliance of the Spanish originals is matched with luminous English versions rendered by a remarkable cast of translators, among them W.S. Merwin, John Updike, Robert Fitzgerald, Mark Strand and Alastair Reid.
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd Penguins Poems by Heart
Book SynopsisLaura Barber is not a poet, but she has spent the last few years completely immersed in verse. As the editor of Penguin's Poems for Life and Poems for Love, she has lived, breathed and dreamed poetry - in libraries and on lawns, on beaches and in bed - and can testify to the profound effect that poetry can have on your life. More prosaically, she also publishes contemporary literature and is writing a book. She lives in London.
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Selected Poems and Prose
Book SynopsisThe selected poems and prose writings of Edward Thomas, with a Foreword from Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways''I have come to the borders of sleep, The unfathomable deepForest where all must loseTheir way, however straight,Or winding, soon or late;They cannot choose.''Fired by his abiding love of the English landscape, the poetry of Edward Thomas is some of the most astonishing of the twentieth century. A journalist, essayist and critic for many years, he was encouraged to write verse by his friend Robert Frost. He produced a late outburst of poetry of extraordinary beauty and mystery about the subjects closest to his heart: rural England and its inhabitants, landscape, atmosphere, transience, endurance and death. By 1917, when he was killed on the Western Front, he had earned his place as one of England''s most valued poets. This selection brings together his finest verse with his most vivid prose writTrade ReviewThe father of us all -- Ted Hughes
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Titus Andronicus
Book Synopsis''This is tragedy naked, godless and unredeemed'' Kenneth TynanAn embittered Roman general returns from war, having captured the Queen of the Goths and her three sons. Sacrificing the eldest in memory of his own sons killed in battle, he provokes the queen''s unending hatred. And when she gains power by her marriage to the new emperor of Rome, she quickly begins to plot a murderous revenge of barely conceivable cruelty, in Shakespeare''s first and most savagely bloody tragedy. Used and Recommended by the National TheatreGeneral Editor Stanley WellsEdited by Sonia MassaiIntroduction by Jacques Berthoud
£7.59
Penguin Books Ltd Measure for Measure
Book SynopsisWilliam Shakespeare was born in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.Stanley Wells is Emeritus Professor of the University of Birmingham and Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.Julia Briggs was professor of English at De Montfort University in Leicester.
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Penguin Books Ltd Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals
Book Synopsis''The work of a genuine original ... surreal ... funny ... subversive'' Sunday TimesWhat if a deer did porn? Is it legal to marry a stuffed owl exhibit? And what would Walt Whitman''s tit-pics really look like?Free-wheeling and surreal yet deadly serious, and including the viral hit ''Rape Joke'' (''An oblique mini-masterpiece'' - Guardian), this book shows one of our most original poets at her virtuosic best.''Lockwood has written a book at once angrier, and more fun, more attuned to our times and more bizarre, than most poetry can ever get'' Stephen Burt, The New York Times Book Review, Books of the Year''Lockwood should enter the canon forever . . . her lines left me crying on the subway'' Kat Stoeffel, The Cut''The little hairs on my back rose often while reading Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals . . . That''s biological praise, the most fundamental kind, impossible to fake'' Dwight Garner, The New York TimesTrade ReviewThe poems in [this] collection ... are the work of a genuine original. They are surreal, they are funny, they are subversive. They do what poetry is meant to do: they make you look at things in a different way -- Christina Patterson * Sunday Times *Prismatically witty, sexually slippery, polymorphous, and Millennially mischievous poetry ... I can see [Lockwood] in my mind, post-religion, post-family, a savvy, wounded poet hanging over an electronic abyss ... Can poetry address the massive and systematic degradation of the mental environment? Lockwood, her personae shimmering, her linguistic sensors tingling, is one of the few poets tough enough and shrewd enough to try -- James Parker * The Atlantic *[Lockwood] has written a book at once angrier, and more fun, more attuned to our time and more bizarre, than most poetry can ever get, a book easy to recommend for people who do not read new poetry often - as well as for people who do. -- Stephen Burt * The New York Times Sunday Book Review *The little hairs on my back rose often while reading Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals ... That's biological praise, the most fundamental kind, impossible to fake. -- Dwight Garner * The New York Times *Heroically weird -- Eryn Loeb * Guernica *
£7.99
Oxford University Press Pygmalion Heartbreak House and Saint Joan
Book SynopsisPygmalion, Heartbreak House, and Saint Joan are widely considered to be three of the most important in the canon of modern British theatreTable of ContentsIntroduction Select Bibliography Chronology Pygmalion Heartbreak House Saint Joan Explanatory Notes
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Oxford University Press Selected Poems
Book Synopsis`Verlaine, possessed by the madnesses of love, brimming over with desires and prayers, the rebel railing against the complacent platitudes of society, of love, of language''. Jean Rousselot Verlaine ranks alongside Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Rimbaud as one of the most outstanding poets of late nineteenth-century France whose work is associated with the early Symbolists, the Decadents, and the Parnassiens. Remarkable not only for his delicacy and exquisitely crafted verse, Verlaine is also the poet of strong emotions and appetites, with an unrivalled gift for the sheer music of poetry, and an inventive approach to its technique. This bilingual edition provides the most comprehensive selection of his poetry yet, offering some 170 poems in lively and fresh translations and providing a lucid introduction which illuminates Verlaine''s poetic form within the context of French Impressionism and the poetry of sensation. Parallel text ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s ClassicTrade ReviewIn his sensitive and discerning introduction, Sorrell finds much of what ws to beomce the quintessentially Verlainaian hallmarks in the book: 'sensuality, a disposition to melancholy and to daydreaming, misty half-tones, and patterns of versification straining to break th stricter rules of French prosody. * Stephen Romer, Times Literary Supplement, Friday 19th May 00. *there has been no really substantial selection of Verlaine's work in English ... One of the pleasures this volume affords ia s prolonged chance to examin yet again, through the prism of translation, the different geniuses of the two langauges. Another is to rediscover, thanks to Sorrell's selection, a swath of Verlaine's later poetry, so often occluded in the classic anthologies. * Stephen Romer, Times Literary Supplement, Friday 19th May 00. *Table of ContentsPremiers vers ; Poemes saturniens ; Fetes galantes ; La Bonne Chanson ; Romances sans paroles ; Sagesse ; Jadis et Naguere ; Amour ; Parallelement ; Dedicaces ; Bonheur ; Chansons pour Elle ; Liturgies intimes ; Odes en son honneur ; Le Livre posthume ; Dan les limbres ; Epigrammes ; Chair ; Invectives ; Biblio-Sonnets ; Poemes divers
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Penguin Books Ltd Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That
Book Synopsis''Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!-and you, García Lorca, what were you doing by the watermelons?''Profane and prophetic verses about sex, death, revolution and America by the great icon of Beat poetry.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York''s underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.
£5.63
Faber & Faber Poems New and Collected Faber Poetry
Book SynopsisWhen Wislawa Szymborksa''s View with a Grain of Sand, also translated by Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh, was published shortly after its author''s award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996, the Polish poet, hitherto all but unknown outside her own country, became an international name. More than 10,000 copies of the book have been sold in Britain alone. Yet it was not so much the fame of the prize, as the directness, vigour, wit and honesty with which Szymborska herself writes - qualities deftly captured by her translators - that brought this about. Transcending national and generational boundaries with her rare combination of moral wisdom and down-to-earth manner of speaking to us, she is unquestionably one of the great poetic spirits of the age. Poems New and Collected adds sixty-four new translations to the text of View with a Grain of Sand and includes, as preface, its author''s Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
£15.29
Faber & Faber The Translations of Seamus Heaney
Book SynopsisA huge book, an immense book. Such adventure and variety, such industry, such subjugation of self.' Michael Hofmann, TLSHeaney not only translated classic works of Latin and Old English but also poems from a great number of ancient and modern European languages, not least translations from the Old, Middle and Modern Irish of his homeland. The breadth and depth in evidence here is extraordinary from monastic hymns and prayers, to the civic and familial tragedies of Sophocles and Kochanowski; from Virgil and Dante's living underworld to the stark landscapes of Sweeney's Ireland. As editor, Marco Songzogni frames the translations with the poet's own writings on his works. Collectively these bring us closer to an understanding of the genius for interpretation and transformation that distinguished Heaney as one of the great poet-translators of all time.The Translations . . . is a landmark volume, a striking testament to the particular and generous
£17.09
Faber & Faber Silver
Book SynopsisA work that reminds us of the singular and glorious power of poetry in our complex world.Silver is a collection that shines with a guiding principle, that poetry: part physics, part faith, part void', can be found wherever it is looked for. Virtuosic in style, sharing the dexterity of the legendary Argentinian footballer, Lionel Messi, who is conjured in its pages, the poems shape-shift through blank verse, elegy, terza rima and rap. Phillips is confident in his unconfidence: Not the meaning,' he writes, but the meaningfulness of this mystery we call life'. The poems are luminous and dreamlike in their evocations of time and place, held in the light of a silvery moon that gives them their alluring strangeness and vibrancy.
£11.69
Faber & Faber Juno and the Paycock
Book Synopsis
£10.44
