A haiku, an ode, a sonnet, a limerick, an elegy ... more poetry,please.
Poetry Books
Samuel French Ltd Still Life
Book Synopsis
£11.92
Samuel French Ltd The Hollow Crown
Book SynopsisThis entertainment by and about the Kings and Queens of England includes music, poetry, speeches, letters and other writings. The Hollow Crown has been performed in America and England by stars from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The four readers enact the writings of royals from William I to Victoria; the three singers intersperse songs from the proper period - some of which are sad tunes on the death of kings while others are uproariously funny.1 woman, 3 men
£10.99
Samuel French Ltd Murder on the Nile
Book SynopsisKay Ridgeway has led a charmed life. Blessed with beauty, enormous wealth and a new husband, she embarks on a honeymoon voyage down the Nile. Fatal circumstances await when the idyllic surroundings are shattered by a shocking and brutal murder. Under scrutiny is a multitude of memorable passengers, all with a reason to kill. The tension and claustrophobia builds, as a shocking and audacious conspiracy is laid bare. As slick a vehicle as any theatre company could wish for. THE NEW YORK TIMES
£12.80
Faber & Faber Human Chain
Book SynopsisSeamus Heaney''s new collection elicits continuities and solidarities, between husband and wife, child and parent, then and now, inside an intently remembered present - the stepping stones of the day, the weight and heft of what is passed from hand to hand, lifted and lowered. Human Chain also broaches larger questions of transmission, as lifelines to the inherited past. There are newly minted versions of anonymous early Irish lyrics, poems which stand at the crossroads of oral and written, and other ''hermit songs'' which weigh equally in their balance the craft of scribe and the poet''s early calling as scholar. A remarkable sequence entitled ''Route 110'' plots the descent into the underworld in the Aeneid against single moments in the arc of a life, from a 1950s adolescence to the birth of the poet''s first grandchild. Other poems display a Virgilian pietas for the dead - friends, neighbours and family - which is yet wholly and movingly vernacular. <
£11.69
Faber & Faber Personae
Book SynopsisIf the invention of literary modernism is usually attributed to Joyce, Eliot and Pound, it was Pound''s personality and position in the artistic world that enabled the experiment to transform itself into an international movement. In 1926 Pound brought together the body of his shorter poems into a definitive collection which would illustrate the hallmarks of the new style. This collection, where Pound presented himself in a variety of characters or ''masks'', was called Personae. In 1926, Personae''s publication gave solidity to a movement; today the work stands as one of the classic texts of the twentieth century.
£16.19
Faber & Faber The Burning Perch
Book Synopsis
£11.69
Faber & Faber A March Calf Collected Animal Poems Vol3 A March
Book SynopsisFrom the trembling new-born calf in Season Songs to the gently sleeping one recorded in Moortown Diary, animal life as observed in the pages of Flowers and Insects, Elmet, River, Lupercal and Hawk in the Rain is seen afresh through the diversity and imaginative energy of this collected volume.
£5.99
Harvard University Press Short Epics
Book SynopsisMaffeo Vegio (1407–1458) was the outstanding Latin poet of the first half of the 15th century. This volume includes Book XIII of Vergil’s Aeneid, the famous continuation of the Roman epic, which was popular in the later Renaissance, printed many times and translated into every major European language. It also contains three other epic works.Trade ReviewPutnam's agile translation is a pleasure to read and a revelation to study. -- William J. Kennedy * Renaissance Quarterly *I found Putnam's translation to be accurate and lively and Vegio to be an exciting author with a clear Latin style. This book was truly a delight to read...This well-executed edition will certainly help scholars to form and offer interpretations to these and other questions concerning the writings of Maffeo Vegio. Through making Latin editions of these poems more widely available, this volume will help inspire research on the rich but understudied Latin poetry of the fifteenth century. Of equal importance, the lively English translation will rightly make Vegio's poetry accessible to a much larger audience. -- Brian Maxson * Sixteenth Century Journal *By meticulous comparisons between Vegio's book 13, Vergil's books 1-12, and the work of Ovid, on which Vegio also drew, Putnam teases out the ways in which Vegio transformed the mood of the work as a whole--how he made Turnus, rather than Aeneas, the one who rages, and managed to stage the hero's stellification, in Ovidian terms, not as a Christian rebirth to salvation but as the proper reward for a pagan's supremely virtuous life on earth. Vegio's scenes of festival and feasting have a nice Virgilian feel to them, as Aeneas and Latinus recall the struggles of the past in present tranquility--as well as a vivid period sense of the ways in which public ritual could seal and solidity a new community's identity...Putnam teaches us to appreciate Vegio's artistry--and his ability to reweave a troubling work of art until it clearly embodied the best pagan, but not Christian, morality. In his own way, Vegio glimpsed the incompleteness, the broken arch, that is a prominent feature of the epic's architecture. -- Anthony T. Grafton * New York Review of Books *
£26.96
Harvard University Press Christiad
Book SynopsisMarco Girolamo Vida (1485–1566), humanist and bishop, came to prominence as a Latin poet in the Rome of Leo X and Clement VII. Leo commissioned this famous epic, a retelling of the life of Christ in the style of Vergil, which was published in 1535. This translation, accompanied by extensive notes, is based on a new edition of the Latin text.
£25.46
Harvard University Press Menander Volume II
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 *
£23.70
Smokestack Books Lightyear
Book SynopsisLightyear is the story of a journey from January to December, a walk through the seasons, a year full of outdoor danger and delights. Inspired by the Swedish poet Staffan Söderblom''s Six October Poems, Lightyear tracks the calendar changes of time and the elements on the body-in-the-landscape. The poems were written in over a three year period, in the country and in the city, in North London, Cornwall, Scotland, Greece and the French Alps. Lightyear is a book for all weathers.An exquisite collection. - PN ReviewAlison Fell is one of the finest poets alive. Her vision is clear and bright, her ear for the music of words is perfect. There are golden lines, blue lines, red lines and crystal lines - such shining, such sweet thunder. With their warmth, wonder, sensuality, humour, sorrow, her poems - counter-pointed vividly by the photographs of Ivan Coleman - are various as the weather. Now and then she reminds me of Keats, of John Clare, Basil Bunting, Caryl Churchill or Duke Ellington at the piano. They would all enjoy walking through and flying over Alison Fell''s enchanted landscapes. This is a beautiful book. If it doesn''t lift your heart, go jump in a lake. - Adrian Mitchell
£8.54
Samuel French Ltd Sex Cells
Book SynopsisIn a busy call centre, the four female employees of Aphrodite, a sex toy manufacturer, take telephone orders for Teasey Maids, Titivators and rotating pearl g-strings. Beneath the cheerful customer service and easy banter, however, these very different women nurse their own desires and disappointments. Sylvie is desperate to have a baby, but her single-minded approach is taking its toll on her marriage and causing friction with the her co-workers. With five children, Janice rarely finds time for herself or her husband. Tiffany is young and single, looking for ''the one'', but wary of sacrificing her independence. Star employee Lily, meanwhile, is stuck in a loveless marriage and estranged from her son, but buries her pain in wisecracks and work. Their gentle and innocent manager Mr Causeway attempts to diffuse the tension between his staff while suppressing a longstanding crush on the oblivious Lily. Sex Cells is a very funny, poignant play about motherhood, friendship, love and loss.
£10.99
Samuel French Ltd Say Something Happened
Book SynopsisThe Social Services Department of the council is preparing a register of the elderly in the area and eager but green June Potter (recently transferred from Transport) is despatched to gather information while obtaining some hands-on experience. Mam and Dad are in their sixties and therefore must be in need of registering - but Mam and Dad, perfectly '' alert'', able-bodied and streetwise, have no intention of being registered. Thrown by Mam''s no-nonsense approach the increasingly desperate June resorts to Mr Farquarson ''s detailed notes on Conduct of Interviews while Mam sorts her out. This highly comic, ironic look at patronizing bureaucracy was first televisied in 1982 starring Thoro Hird, Hugh Lloyd and Julie Waiters and is now available for the stage.
£11.63
Samuel French Inc The Diaries of Adam and Eve
Book SynopsisComedy Characters: 1 male, 1 female Exterior Set Originally broadcast on American Playhouse, this delightful adaptation is set in a Victorian garden and is structured as a series of diary entries by Adam and Eve. The play also works as a reader's theatre piece. At first, Adam is puzzled by the new arrival in the garden and he is suspicious of her disturbing appetite for fruit. Eve, believing herself to be some sort of experiment, is curious about another experiment in the garden, perhaps some sort of reptile or possibly architecture. Eve gives names to everything, much to Adam's annoyance. He tries to ignore her, so she seeks companionship among the animals particularly with a certain snake. Adam and Eve grow to love each other and, in the end, an elderly Adam is filled with a realization of that love as he stands at Eve's grave. Sharp and resourceful...played with freshness and theatricality...charming. -Variety ...endearing...a reminder of Twain's storytelling genius and how much fu
£10.99
Samuel French Ltd The 39 Steps
Book SynopsisFrom the Movie by Alfred Hitchcock, Licensed by ITV Global Entertainment Limited and an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby DimonCharacters: 3m, 1fComedyWINNER! 2 Tony and Drama Desk Awards, 2008WINNER! BEST NEW COMEDY Laurence Olivier Award, 2007The 39 Steps, is Broadway''s longest running comedy, playing its 500th performance on Broadway, May 19th, 2009!Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have The 39 Steps, a fast-paced who
£12.80
Samuel French Inc Suicide
Book SynopsisFull Length, Comedy Characters: 9 male, 5 female, plus various minor roles, gypsies, and extras. 2 Interior Sets/2 Exterior Sets A brilliant and penetrating satire about an unemployed man who contemplates suicide and is besieged by spokespeople of discontented groups, from butchers to intellectuals, who want him to turn his suicide into a gesture on their behalf. Erdman's genius was recognized by his contemporaries including Brecht, Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. The latter two competed to do The Suicide. Stalin gave permission to present the play only after Gorki pleaded with him, but it was not allowed to open following a year of rehearsal. A masterpiece...Lights up the sky. Guardian, London
£10.99
Samuel French Ltd Antigone Sams Trans.
Book SynopsisFull Length, Tragedy Characters: 7 male, 4 female Various sets This incisive translation of the classic drama is by the noted British playwright, translator and director.
£10.99
Random House USA Inc Decreation
Book Synopsis
£15.30
Samuel French Inc A Few Good Men
Book SynopsisCharacters: 14 male, 1 female Int. This Broadway hit about the trial of two Marines for complicity in the death of a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay sizzles on stage. The Navy lawyer, a callow young man more interested in softball games than the case, expects a plea bargain and a cover up of what really happened. Prodded by a female member of his defense team, the lawyer eventually makes a valiant effort to defend his clients and, in so doing, puts the military mentality and the Marine code of honor on trial. Enormously entertaining.- New York Daily News Plenty of wise cracking humor and suspense. - Time Magazine Fresh and adroitly updated and conditioned to our time and socio-political climate. - NY Post
£12.80
Faber & Faber Plays 1 The Birthday Party The Room The Dumb
Book SynopsisThis volume contains Harold Pinter''s first six plays, including The Birthday Party.The Birthday PartyStanley Webber is visited in his boarding house by two strangers, Goldberg and McCann. An innocent-seeming birthday party for Stanley turns into a nightmare.''Mr Pinter''s terrifying blend of pathos and hatred fuses unforgettably into the stuff of art.'' Sunday TimesThe Room and The Dumb WaiterIn these two early one-act plays, Harold Pinter reveals himself as already in full control of his unique ability to make dramatic poetry of the banalities of everyday speech and the precision with which it defines character.''Harold Pinter is the most original writer to have emerged from the new wave of dramatists who gave fresh life to the British theatre in the fifties and early sixties.'' The TimesThe HothouseThe Hothouse was first produced in 1980, though Harold Pinter wrote the play
£17.09
Faber & Faber As I Walked Out One Evening Songs Ballads
Book SynopsisA collection of W.H. Auden's light verse, assembled by his literary executor.
£10.44
Faber & Faber Selected Poems of T. S. Eliot
Book SynopsisT.S. Eliot - editor, poet, critic and publisher - was the greatest poet of his generation. The winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature, virtually every English language poet since owes him a debt of gratitude. Voted as Britain''s favourite poet in a 2009 BBC poll, Eliot selected and designed this collection himself in 1954 as an introduction to his work for new readers.Containing ''The Waste Land'' and ''The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'', Selected Poems is the perfect way to begin with one of the defining figures of the twentieth century. This edition also features an introductory essay by Seamus Heaney.
£10.44
Samuel French Ltd The Foreigner
Book Synopsis
£12.80
Hal Leonard Corporation The Tutor
Book Synopsis
£5.99
Ivan R Dee, Inc Clown Scenes
Book SynopsisThe intimacy of the one-ring circus produced the classic clown routines that flourished until the mid-twentieth century and then disappeared with the rise of the grand circus. They have been lost until now. By seeking out the little band of surviving clowns who worked in the old tradition and setting down their scenes, Tristan Rémy, the eminent circus historian, has rescued a theatrical treasure. Thanks to Rémy’s persistence, the forty-eight scenes presented here contain not only the spoken words but the manner of line delivery and the physical turns. So they remain superbly suitable for performance. Most of them are written for just three actors—the white-faced clown, August the stooge, and the supercilious ringmaster. Sets are unnecessary. And their combination of the verbal with the physical has timeless appeal. Bernard Sahlins’s translation is masterfully attuned to present-day audiences. In his foreword, Mr. Sahlins notes that these scenes have been continually remounted in Europe, attesting to their fundamental vitality and universality. “Clearly there is a debt, witting and unwitting, owed to the clown of the ring by the great comedians of our century. With this book these scenes and the clowns who invented and played them now take their honored place in our theatrical legacy.”Trade ReviewA welcomed translation...a fascinating perspective on the world of clowns. -- Joel Schechter * Theater Magazine *Admirable and essential. -- Don Stacey * World's Fair *
£18.04
Graywolf Press All of It Singing New and Selected Poems
Book Synopsis
£15.19
Pan Macmillan Selling Manhattan
Book SynopsisOne of those rare books that is immediately enjoyable yet will repay many re-readings' Poetry ReviewCarol Ann Duffy's highly praised second collection, for which she was given the Somerset Maughan Award, showcases the Poet Laureate's skill even at the very start of her career. Within are poems that reveal the full range of her interests: from the dramatic monologues, to meditations on death and art, to poems of protest and poems of love. Throughout it all, though, is a resounding determination to give voices to those who are usually voiceless, and always apparent is her inimitable wit, wisdom and imagination. At once tender and sharp, moving and humourous, Selling Manhattan has dazzled both readers and critics ever since it was first published in 1987.Trade ReviewCarol Ann Duffy is the most humane and accessible poet of our time * Guardian *Duffy is magnificent, grounded, heartfelt, dedicated to the notion that poetry can give us the music of life itself * Scotsman *Accessible and entertaining, yet her form is classical, her technique razor-sharp. She is read by people who don't really read poetry, yet she maintains the respect of her peers. Reviewers praise her touching, sensitive, witty evocations of love, loss, dislocation, nostalgia; fans talk of greeting her at readings 'with claps and cheers that would not sound out of place at a rock concert. -- Katharine Viner * Guardian *
£7.49
SelfMadeHero Julius Caesar
Book SynopsisThis manga recreation of Shakespeare''s text transfers the action from Ancient Rome to a future Iraq, once again facing dictatorship after its prolonged struggles to establish a democracy. Part of the successful Manga Shakespeare series, a fusion of classic Shakespeare with manga visuals.
£8.99
The New Menard Press A Necklace of Bees Selected Poems
Book Synopsis
£5.95
Loki Books Ltd Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity to the
Book Synopsis
£12.34
Modern Poetry in Translation Between Clay and Star No 2 Modern Poetry in
Book SynopsisMPT's summer Issue Between Clay and Star features a focus on new Romanian poetry: new translations of Liliana Ursu, Dan Sociu, Ana Blandiana and Gellu Naum, and a conversation between Dan Sociu and the younger poet Oana Sanziana Marian. Also a long poem by Aime Cesaire, poems by Khlebnikov, Bonnefoy and the Uruguayan poet Laura Cesarco Eglin.
£7.00
Books of Africa Ltd The Wounded Soul of a Black elephantLame Blessee
Book SynopsisI spent my childhood, like most children brought up in the Congolese bush, among women. Their talk, their songs, their lullabies, their tales, their tears and even their quarrels sprinkled with parables, were all imbued with poetry. For Gabriel Okoundji this childhood was the source of his inspiration - and this fine translation conveys his sense of wonder at the stars, the rain, the wind, the relationship of Man and the natural world. He sees his poetry as an interpretation, an adaptation of the oral poetry which exists naturally in many African societies. The harmonious integration of Man in the world is my raw material. This book contains two series of poems, some short, some longer, all rich in imagery and imbued with the atmosphere of rural Africa. It also contains a fascinating account of Gabriel's contact with Peter and how this translation and publication came about.
£12.99
Lautus Press Washing Lines A Collection of Poems
Book SynopsisWhen we published Washing Lines in 2011, we found to our delight that we were not the only people in the world who love washing lines and poetry. The book sold out quickly, hence this new REVISED EDITION - which replaces some poems with new or previously undiscovered work (highlighted in the contents list).Trade ReviewRadio 2 Arts Programme - 'possibly one of my favourite books of the whole year' Claire Armitstead. Oxford Times - 'the finished product is as satisfying as a clean basket of laundry' 'The most original and entertaining poetry anthology of the year' Sebastian Shakespeare, TatlerTable of ContentsCONTENTS Dashing Away With The Smoothing Iron Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme They That Wash On Monday Louisa May Alcott: A Song from the Suds Dorothy Aldis: Windy Wash Day Moniza Alvi: Arrival 1946 Yehuda Amichai: Jerusalem, trans Irena Gordon (Harvest Books) Ken Arnold: At Shugakuin Anna Laetitia Barbauld: Washing-Day Dawn Bauling: Washing Day: Monday Morning 1966 Amy Benedict: Wood on cloth on cord George Bilgere: Laundry Gillian Clarke: The Lace-Maker Gillian Clarke: Laundry Gillian Clarke: Women's Work *Gillian Clarke: Pegging Out *Gillian Clarke Six Bells Marsha Truman Cooper: Ironing After Midnight *Imtiaz Dharker: Sari Maura Dooley: The Line *Helen Dunmore The Captainess of Laundry Vicki Feaver: Ironing Leontia Flynn: Mangles Liz Gallagher: A Washing Machine Repairman Speaks on Poetry Tess Gallagher: I Stop Writing the Poem Ted Genoways: Anna on the Beach Ted Genoways: Anna at the Ironing Board Magi Gibson: Washing Day in Dublin Sandra Gilbert: Doing Laundry Louise Gluck: A Warm Day Eamon Grennan: A Few Last Lines of Laundry Jo Haslam: Shirt Seamus Heaney: The Clothes Shrine Seamus Heaney: From Clearances 5 Jane Holland: Spin-Cycle Homer: Odyssey Michael Hulse: Washerwomen at Wurzburg Marie Kazalia: That Moment Jane Kenyon: Wash Day Sarah Knight: Hanging Out Washing Anita Lahey: Woman at Clothes Line Carl Little: A Reminder (Great Cranberry Island) Michael Longley: War and Peace Michael Longley: Washing *Olivia McCannon Ironing Dot McGinnis: Our Lady's Shelter/ Mary's Wash Day Ruth Moose: Laundry *Esther Morgan Enola Gay Kelly Morris: In a Magdalene Laundry, County Cork, 1967 Pablo Neruda: Ode To Ironing (Translated by Jodey Bateman) P.K. Page: Planet Earth Fernando Pessoa: The Washerwoman Beats the Laundry (Translated by Richard Zenith) Marge Piercy: Folding Sheets *Katrina Porteous Domestic Craig Raine: Heaven on Earth Rati Saxena: Washing Clothes Anna Swir: I Wash the Shirt Kathrine Varnes: Folding the Laundry I think About Aesthetics Borben Vladovic: Washing on the Line Marilyn K. Walker: Clothesline Deceit *Jo Walton Doing laundry on the last day of the world Joanna M. Weston: Washing Line Walt Whitman: From Song of Myself Richard Wilbur: Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World Hugo Williams: Woman in a New House ILLUSTRATIONS Clifford Harper Anne Hayward: September Morning Beth Krommes: The Zen of Ironing Clare Leighton: Washer Women of Toulon Miriam MacGregor: Mrs Hooper's Garden Pam Pebworth: Lympstone Washday Elizabeth Rashley: Washday Sue Scullard: Vegetable Garden from Lark Rise to Candleford Sue Scullard: Pantaloons/Venice Daniel Waters: Card Sarah Young: Print Garden
£9.50
Focus Publishing/R Pullins & Co Inferno: The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Canticle
Book Synopsis"Tom Simone''s translation is simply superb. Of all the translations with which I am familiar, this is the one that is the most faithful to what''s there in the Italian: no frills, no poetic sallies, no choosing a word because it brings the line closer to iambic pentameterjust unadulterated Dante with good old Anglo-Saxon words and in highly readable prose." Peter Kalkavage,St. John''s University
£17.09
Black Widow Press Essential Poems and Writings of Joyce Mansour
Book SynopsisJoyce Mansour (1928-1986) is widely considered to be one of the most important of the woman Surrealists. Her work has gained more recognition every year since her death. Following the release in France of a 700 page critically acclaimed anthology (in French), this anthology features Mansour's writings.
£21.84
Bower House Crazy Chicana in Catholic City
Book Synopsis
£10.79
University Press of New England The Song of Songs Love Lyrics from the Bible
Book SynopsisAn acclaimed translation of the Bible's celebrated collection of love poetry.
£14.25
Everyman Cavafy Poems
Book SynopsisIn 2009 Knopf published a new translation of Cavafy's Complete Poems by the brilliant and award-winning writer and scholar Daniel Mendelsohn. Now Mendelsohn has made a selection of the poet's best-loved works for a Pocket Poets edition, including such favorites as "Waiting for the Barbarians," "Ithaca," and "The God Abandons Antony." Whether advising Odysseus as he returns home to Ithaca or portraying a doomed Marc Antony on the eve of his death, Cavafy's poems make thehistoric profoundly and movingly personal. A towering figure of twentieth-century poetry, Cavafy is a stellar addition to the Everyman Pocket Poets series.
£11.40
Western Michigan University, New Issues Press It Blows You Hollow
Book SynopsisWith these dark, triumphant poems, Diane Seuss takes us on a journey through the landscape of the souland it's a world full of beauty and violence in equal parts. Relentless and incantatory, these poems are charged with an almost religious intensity as Seuss looks for God's presence in nature and sexuality. Again and again the poet confronts whatever it is that guides us through a life that is sensuous, yet exacting in its terrible cost. Nothing is solved by the end of this book, but much is gained as the quest itself has become a victory of perfectly pitched and furious language. God's still hidden away, but by now the natural world has evolved to replace the absence Seuss feels. In the book's erotically charged universe, one paradoxically begins to feel a calm settle over the burned-up panorama of the soul. It Blows You Hollow is a book, rare these days, that feels as if it had to be written. Diane Seuss goes for broke.
£13.00
Carcanet Press Ltd Breezeway
Book SynopsisThe poems in Breezeway move lightly between the everyday world, with its pleasures and absurdities, and the worlds of literature and art, with theirs. John Ashbery's poems are haunting, surprising, hilarious, and knowing, the work of an old and always a new master with an uncanny understanding of our age, its fears and fragmentation, its fulfilments. Here is Mr Salteena and the station of the Metro, demystified Middle English mysticism and a peculiarly-paced samba, a drugstore, a supermarket, Batman and his dog Pastor Fido, all concluding in 'A Sweet Disorder', in which Herrick is decisively transformed: 'Pardon my sarong. I'll have a Shirley Temple.'
£9.49
BOA Editions, Limited Rose
Book Synopsis Table of ContentsI.EpistleThe GiftPersimmonsThe Weight Of SweetnessFrom BlossomsDreaming Of HairEarly In The MorningWaterFalling: The CodeNocturneMy IndigoIrisesEating AloneII.Always A RoseIII.Eating TogetherI Ask My Mother To SingAsh, Snow, Or MoonlightThe LifeThe WeepersBraidingRain DiaryMy Sleeping Loved OnesMnemonicBetween SeasonsVisions And Interpretations
£12.34
WW Norton & Co Pearl: A New Verse Translation
Book SynopsisOne of our most ingenious interpreters of Middle English, Oxford Professor of Poetry Simon Armitage is celebrated for his “compulsively readable” translations (New York Times Book Review). A perfect complement to his historic translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl reanimates another beloved Medieval English masterpiece thought to be by the same anonymous author and housed in the same original fourteenth-century manuscript. Honoring the rhythms and alliterative music of the original, Armitage’s virtuosic translation describes a man mourning the loss of his Pearl—something that has “slipped away.” What follows is a tense, fascinating, and tender dialogue weaving through the throes of grief toward divine redemption. Intricate and endlessly connected, Armitage’s lyrical translation is a circular and perfected whole, much like the pearl itself.Trade Review"[Armitage] conveys that feeling of the almost-but-not-quite comprehensible, the feeling that can make medieval art at once eerie and wonderful ….Strange art of this kind can give voice to the inarticulable…[By] the end of the poem, via Armitage’s translation (“longing for her”) and the unfolding of the allegory, that sad phrase—literally, love-longing—makes emotional sense. Across centuries, across languages, from dreams into waking life: the speech of the heart invites translation of many kinds." -- The New Yorker"As ever, what makes Armitage’s work so inviting is his approachable turn of phrase…this is an emotional and religious meditation…Armitage continues to contribute the same service to culture as Carson, Heaney, Hughs and Graves; he gives blood transfusions to the texts which deserve preservation." -- Huffington Post, UK"To a modern reader, the simple clarity of the medieval cosmos – with its binary oppositions of saved and damned, flawless and flawed, pearl and dust – is striking. The medieval narrative is therefore not unclear, but instead layered, recursive, ornamented…Re-presenting a simpler eschatology, polishing and burnishing it for today’s reader: this is Armitage’s great success as jeweller." -- The London Magazine"[An] expert translation. . . . Armitage successfully and exquisitely translates this classic poem, providing readers with a clear and complete version that honors the original." -- Library Journal"With his new translation of Pearl, Armitage again makes a medieval classic sing for a new audiences." -- ABC, Australia
£11.99
Focus Publishing/R Pullins & Co Euripides Heracles Focus Classical Library
Book Synopsis
£12.34
Michigan State University Press Silence A Thirteenthcentury French Romance
Book SynopsisDrawing on traditional themes, the Roman de Silence tells of a girl raised as a boy, equally accomplished as a minstrel and knight, whose final task, the capture of Merlin, leads to her unmasking.
£21.74
Bloodaxe Books Ltd Hallelujah for 50ft Women: poems about women's
Book SynopsisRaving Beauties women's theatre company was born out of a deep sense of frustration with domesticity, naivete and a burning need for a creative outlet. It led to an enormous personal, political and professional learning curve. Hallelujah for 50ft Women is their third anthology of women's poetry. Their first book, In the Pink (The Women's Press), sold thousands and was reprinted six times. Our relationship to our bodies is affected by many things including culture, religion, family, sex, hunger, pleasure and pain. This new anthology is inspired by a passionate desire to celebrate our bodies in a fully realised way, leaving Barbie's grotesque silent pliability in her box for good. Instead of pouting, our mouths have the power of language, our romantic fluttering hearts give and receive compassion, skin ages with grace when we see beauty in everything, a pierced belly button connects us to our ancestors and a belly needs to be strong before it's flat. This book has been selected from over a thousand submissions. New poets published here for the first time are proud to share this anthology with established writers such as Selima Hill, Kim Addonizio, Jackie Kay and Helen Dunmore. By revealing the complex depths of our relationships with our bodies Hallelujah for 50ft Women makes a much needed contribution to a compassionate understanding of our evolving selves.Trade Review'In their performances and anthologies Raving Beauties have done a great service to women writers' - Guardian. ' - brilliant, actually' - Observer.
£9.45
Bloodaxe Books Ltd The Mystical Rose
Book SynopsisAdelia Prado was "discovered" she was nearly 40 by Brazil's foremost modern poet, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, who was astonished to read her 'phenomenal' poems, launching her literary career with his announcement that St Francis was dictating verses to a housewife in the provincial backwater of Minas Gerais. Psychiatrists in droves made the pilgrimage to Divinopolis to delve into the psyche of this devout Catholic who wrote startlingly pungent poems of and from the body; they were politely served coffee and sent back to the city. After publishing her first collection, Baggage, in 1976, she went on to become one of Brazil's best-loved poets, awarded the Griffin Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. Adelia Prado's poetry combines passion and intelligence, wit and instinct. Her poems are about human concerns, especially those of women, about living in one's body and out of it, about the physical but also the spiritual and the imaginative life; about living in two worlds simultaneously: the spiritual and the material. She also writes about ordinary matters, insisting that the human experience is both mystical and carnal. For her these are not contradictory: 'It's the soul that's erotic,' she writes. 'Sometimes other poets and critics analyse my writing, and they've said how, even though the text is made of colloquial and everyday language, the work goes to transcendental issues. I don't know, I don't explain things; I simply do what I do. I only know how to write about concrete, immediate and commonplace things. But these commonplace things show me their metaphysical nature. I can only see the metaphysical, the divine, through the concrete and the human.'Trade Review'The life captured in Prado's poems is convulsive: from a dark corner of despair she can rocket to pure joy in one line. All the contradictions, paradoxes, and dualities of our lives thrive here. This is poetry at its hottest and most naked, beautiful poetry of the body and soul' - James Tate. 'Adelia Prado's most recent collection of poems, once more in Ellen Dore Watson's superbly energetic and natural English, is nothing like any poetry I know in our present moment. Her humour, her dancing solidity, her joy in being alive - I think back to Chaucer, and the poems of Grace Paley. Prado is similarly voluble, playful, down to earth, and cheerful; and she seems to have an uncannily easy-going, even merry relationship with God and all his family. She has given us a perfectly crystalline ex-voto' - Jean Valentine. 'A major poet of the Americas. In Watson's hands, Prado's work arrives in English as if it had never left Portuguese. I send - bouquets of gratitude' - Carolyn Forche. 'Adelia Prado's poetry is a poetry of abundance. These poems overflow with the humble, grand, various stuff of daily life - necklaces, bicycles, fish; saints and prostitutes and presidents; innumerable chickens and musical instruments - And, seemingly at every turn, there is food' - Ellen Dore Watson.
£10.80
Currency Press Pty Ltd Cosi
Book Synopsis'Nowra has written a terrific play about theatre, madness, illusion, sanity, life: it's a big, splendidly Australian epic.' - Frank Gauntlett, Telegraph Mirror Set in 1971, Cosi is Louis Nowra's second semi-autobiographical play. Lewis has recently left university and takes up a job in a mental institution directing Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte. Lewis, the non-participant, becomes emotionally involved with his actors' lives as his operatic production lurches forward and anti-Vietnam protests take place in the streets outside. 'Nowra's generous humour offers up a world of the most extraordinary, ordinary people; and a hilarious situation comedy to boot... [but there are] hints of a darkness that lies beyond the light: the real world.' - Angela Bennie, Sydney Morning Herald
£20.57
Currency Press Pty Ltd The Rivers of China Currency Plays
Book Synopsis
£13.49
