Poetry Books

Book SynopsisIn Love, Carol Ann Duffy, one of the English language’s best-loved living poets presents from her own archives, in chronological order, her favourites among her poems on the theme of love, drawing on work written over four decades, and she adds to her selection one new poem. It makes for a sequence that is sensual, stimulating, irresistible.Trade ReviewWonderful . . . a poet alert to every sound and shape of language * Telegraph *Duffy is magnificent, grounded, heartfelt, dedicated to the notion that poetry can give us the music of life itself * Scotsman *Carol Ann Duffy is arguably the nation’s favourite living poet * Jeanette Winterson, author of Frankissstein *Carol Ann Duffy is the most humane and accessible poet of our time * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisA captivating picture book retelling by Shakespeare's Globe for very young readers.William Shakespeare's comedy about mistaken identities and unrequited love in the far-off kingdom of Illyria is unforgettably re-imagined by Shakespeare's Globe as a picture book for very young readers. With exquisite and detailed illustrations from the acclaimed artist Jane Ray, who has previously been shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal, this captivating retelling is a magical way to introduce children to one of the best-loved works of the world's greatest playwright.

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Book SynopsisThe breakout poetry collection by Sunday Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman‘Poetry so alive you want to hold it and protect it’ Malala YousafzaiThe luminous poetry collection captures a shipwrecked moment in time and transforms it into a lyric of hope and healing. In Call Us What We Carry, Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, these poems shine a light on a moment of reckoning and reveal that Gorman has become our messenger from the past, our voice for the future.‘A new collection full of hope and healing from the young American poet who electrified the world’ Guardian‘Reading these poems, I feel at once haunted, heartened and formidably ministered to’ Tracy K. Smith‘The liberating force of the stories these poems tell about our resilience and survival showcases a powerful griot for our times’ Oprah DailyTrade ReviewHaunting... A soaring sense of history and solidarity pervades Gorman's debut collection... Call Us What We Carry is wide awake to the complex strata of human history and restlessly original in its poetic form... This is poetry rippling with communal recognition and empathy * Guardian *A book of poetry so alive you want to hold it and protect it, to read it all at once, and then immediately read it againPowerful... poignant... tender... Amanda Gorman's debut proves that she is poetry's brightest young thing * Tatler *Between breath, light, water and soil, text messages and letters, and visual formations of ships, whales and flags, Gorman's Call Us What We Carry is an inventive literary resurrection * Daily Mail *Amanda Gorman is a seer, a seeker, a speaker of our most difficult and astonishing truths. Reading these poems, I feel at once haunted, heartened and formidably ministered to

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Book SynopsisPoems that incorporate multiple voices to embrace fragmentation, discord, and plurality. At a time of simultaneous isolation and interconnection, this book is an inquiry into the edges of the self. Pushing back on capitalist messages of individuality, CHORUS instead seeks the multifaceted self that engages with the radical diversity that characterizes any healthy ecosystem or society. Moving between a remote canyon in New Mexico, the Pacific Northwest, New York City, the virtual world, the past, and the unstable future, the author asks, “Whose afterimage am I?” The sprawling, celebratory, mourning chorus of this book is the sum of many voices; the words of other writers, poets, and artists are interwoven with the author’s words. This is a celebration of language’s capacity to supersede bodily limits, mortality, and existential loneliness. Daniela Naomi Molnar’s chorus encompasses violence, love, empathy, fear, a burning planet, a pandemic, heartbreak, desire, joy, and grief. Rather than seeking resolution, these poems look through the lens of a fragmented self, dwelling in plurality, discord, and harmony. CHORUS is the winner of Omnidawn’s 1st /2nd Book Prize, judged by Kazim Ali. Trade Review"[A] striking debut. . . . These poems do not deliver tidy answers to the dilemmas of existence, but rather investigate the division and fragmentation with lyric urgency." * Publishers Weekly *"Chorus is a lyric wail stunned into awakening by crises both planetary and personal-- though here, as in the physical universe, the two are not oppositional phenomena. Pieces made of fragmented verse, sinuous prose, and desperate frenzied plea make a rhetoric of salve, or salvation. As the poet writes, ‘The songbird is and is not a metaphor./The songbird is and is not gone.’ What I mean to say to you (I meaning me, you meaning absolutely you, the one reading this) is that this is a book that speaks from a body and to a body. I felt spoken to. Known. ‘Are you there. Is anyone there.’" -- Kazim Ali, judge of the 1st/2nd Omnidawn Book Contest 2021"Tendrilic, electric, Daniela Naomi Molnar’s Chorus traces a mind in swift action. A near daybook, this collection is intimate and expansive, born of the solitudes highlighted in the pandemic, while resistant to the individualisms thrust upon us. It is a choral undertaking that points to the ecosystems of our languages, the subterranean connections between our lives and the world, and the 'open portals' of books in our current fires. A stunning book by a poet I am excited to follow." -- Solmaz Sharif, author of CustomsFinalist, Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry * Oregon Book Awards *

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Book SynopsisA rich introduction to the work of Rumi by the foremost scholar on the great mystical poet, featuring leading literary translations of his verse by Coleman Barks, Robert Bly, Andrew Harvey, Kabir Helminski, Camille Helminski, Daniel Liebert, and Peter Lamborn Wilson.Rumi''s poems are beloved for their touching perceptions of humanity and the Divine. To display the major themes of Rumi''s work, each of the eighteen chapters in this anthology are arranged topically, such as "The Inner Work," "The Ego Animal," "Passion for God," "Praise," and "Purity," uncovering a deep and timeless understanding of Sufism and mysticism. Also included is a biography of Rumi by Andrew Harvey and an introductory essay by Kabir Helminski on the art of translating Rumi''s work into English."The Spiritual Surgeon"Can the water of a polluted streamWash away the dirt?Can human knowledge sweep awayThe ignorance of the sensual self?How does a sword fashion its own hilt?Go, entrust your wound to a surgeon,For flies will gather around the woundUntil it can?t be seen.These are your selfish thoughtsAnd all you dream of owning.The wound is your own dark hole.Mathnawi I, 3221?3224(translated by Kabir Helminski and Camille Helminski)

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Book SynopsisStaying Human is the sequel to the Staying Alive trilogy of anthologies which have introduced many thousands of new readers to contemporary poetry. This fourth Bloodaxe world poetry anthology offers poetry lovers an even broader, international selection of 500 more ‘real poems for unreal times’, with a strong focus on 21st-century poems addressing current issues. The range of poetry here complements that of the first three anthologies: hundreds of thoughtful and passionate poems about living in the modern world; poems that touch the heart, stir the mind and fire the spirit; poems about what makes us human, about love and loss, fear and longing, hurt and wonder; talismanic poems which have become personal survival testaments for many. There’s a strong focus on the human side of living in the 21st century in poems from the past two decades relating to migration, oppression, alienation and the individual’s struggle to hold on, stay connected and find meaning in an increasingly polarised world. Staying Human also draws on poems suggested by readers because they’ve been so important in their own lives, as well as many poems which have gone viral after being shared on social media because they speak to our times with such great immediacy. And there are poems from around the world written just recently in response to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.Trade ReviewThese poems distil the human heart as nothing else… Staying Alive celebrates the point of poetry. It’s invigorating and makes me proud of being human. -- Jane CampionStaying Alive is a book which leaves those who have read or heard a poem from it feeling less alone and more alive. -- John BergerI love Staying Alive and keep going back to it. Being Alive is just as vivid, strongly present and equally beautifully organised. But this new book feels even more alive – I think it has a heartbeat, or maybe that’s my own thrum humming along with the music of these poets. Sitting alone in a room with these poems is to be assured that you are not alone, you are not crazy (or if you are, you’re not the only one who thinks this way!) I run home to this book to argue with it, find solace in it, to locate myself in the world again. -- Meryl StreepTable of ContentsNeil Astley 17 Introduction 1 Staying human Tom Leonard 22 Being a Human Being Patrizia Cavalli 22 ‘Here I am, I do my bit…’ Göran Sonnevi 23 ‘Whose life? you asked’ Fernando Pessoa 24 They Spoke to Me of People, and of Humanity John Barr 24 Bonsai Master Audre Lorde 25 A Litany for Survival Robert Pinsky 26 Samurai Song Zeina Hashem Beck 27 You Fixed It Janet Fisher 28 Life and Other Terms Vincenza Holland 29 Excuse Me U.A. Fanthorpe 30 A Minor Role Pippa Little 31 Against Hate Tatamkhulu Afrika 32 The Woman at the Till Ellery Akers 33 The Word That Is a Prayer Danusha Laméris 34 Insha’Allah David Friedland 35 Blind man Danusha Laméris 35 Small Kindnesses Mimi Khalvati 36 Smiles Mimi Khalvati 37 The Brag Nikola Madzirov 37 When Someone Goes Away Everything That’s Been Done Comes Back Ellen Bass 38 Gate C22 Naomi Shihab Nye 39 Gate A-4 Fred D’Aguiar 41 Excise Thomas Kinsella 42 Mirror in February Charles Simic 42 Mirrors at 4 a.m. Zhang Zao 43 Mirror Rachael Boast 44 Desperate Meetings of Hermaphrodites Werner Aspenström 44 You and I and the World Kaveh Akbar 45 What Use Is Knowing Anything If No One Is Around Tim Liardet 46 Self-Portrait with Aquarium Octopus Flashing a Mirror M. Vasalis 47 The IJsselmeer Dam Stewart Conn 47 Conundrum Valerio Magrelli 48 Vanishing Point Richard Siken 49 Landscape with Fruit Rot and Millipede Marjorie Lotfi Gill 50 Gift Patrizia Cavalli 51 ‘I’m pretty clear, I’m dying…’ Lawrence Sail 51 Recognition Tracy K. Smith 52 Nanluoxiang Alley Dzifa Benson 52 Self Portrait as a Creature of Numbers Wisława Szymborska 53 A Contribution to Statistics Gennady Aygi 55 People Linda Anderson 56 Sanctuary Judith Herzberg 56 The Way Anna Swir 57 The Same Inside Martín Espada 58 Rednecks Natalie Diaz 59 The Beauty of a Busted Fruit Suji Kwock Kim 59 Monologue for an Onion Nadine Aisha Jassat 60 The Years Nadine Aisha Jassat 61 Let Me Tell You Jessica Traynor 62 In Praise of Fixer Women Marie Howe 63 Magdalene Afterwards Marie Howe 65 One Day Tishani Doshi 65 Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods 2 Ten Zillion Things Mark Strand 68 Lines for Winter Linda Pastan 68 Imaginary Conversation Jack Gilbert 69 Failing and Flying Gillian Clarke 70 Snow Vladmír Holan 71 Snow W.N. Herbert 71 Breakfrost Derek Mahon 72 Rising Late Michelle O’Sullivan 74 What Was Mistook Michelle O’Sullivan 74 Lines John F. Deane 75 The Red Gate Alison Brackenbury 75 So Ellen Bass 76 Any Common Desolation Lisel Mueller 77 In Passing Leanne O’Sullivan 77 A Healing Hanny Michaelis 78 ‘It’s terrible…’ John F. Deane 78 The World is Charged David Butler 79 And Then The Sun Broke Through William Stafford 80 You Reading This, Be Ready Hanny Michaelis 80 ‘Over the years…’ Deryn Rees-Jones 81 Meteor Tuvia Ruebner 81 Wonder Blake Morrison 82 Happiness Jack Underwood 82 Happiness Ruth Stone 83 Wanting Mikiro Sasaki 84 Sentiments David Ferry 84 Lake Water Randall Jarrell 86 Well Water Seamus Heaney 87 A Drink of Water Lani O’Hanlon 87 Going to the Well Denise Levertov 88 The Fountain G.F. Dutton 89 The Miraculous Issue George Szirtes 90 Water Moya Cannon 91 Introductions A.E. Stallings 91 Olives Jan Wagner 92 quince jelly Louis de Paor 93 Marmalade Sarah Lindsay 95 If God Made Jam Craig Arnold 95 Meditation on a Grapefruit Aleš Šteger 96 Chocolate Aleš Šteger 97 Egg Thomas Lux 98 Refrigerator, 1957 Connie Bensley 99 Cookery Mary Ruefle 100 Timberland Matthew Dickman 101 The World is Too Huge to Grasp Linda Gregg 102 Let Birds Imtiaz Dharker 103 Carving Alice Oswald 104 A Short History of Falling Aracelis Girmay 105 Ars Poetica Ruth Sharman 105 Fragments Carlos Drummond de Andrade 106 The House of Lost Time Vera Pavlova 107 ‘If there is something to desire…’ Luis Muñoz 107 Leave Poetry Boris A. Novak 108 Decisions: 11 Carlos Drummond de Andrade 109 Absence Mairéad Byrne 109 Facing the Music Ruth Sharman 110 Hilltop Dennis O’Driscoll 110 Nocturne 3 Innocence and experience Malika Booker 112 Cement Malika Booker 113 Erasure Tracey Herd 114 Happy Birthday Sinéad Morrissey 115 Fairground Music Sharon Olds 116 To Our Miscarried One, Age Thirty Now Dorothea Lasky 117 The Miscarriage Fiona Benson 118 Sheep Derry O’Sullivan 119 Stillborn 1943: Calling Limbo Deirdre Brennan 120 Born Dead Noelle Lynskey 121 Still Born Sandeep Parmar 122 An uncommon language Aoife Lyall 124 Sounds of that day Aoife Lyall 125 Ubi Sunt Catriona Clutterbuck 126 Her Body Rebecca Goss 126 The Lights Ciara MacLaverty 127 ‘That’s Quite a Trick If You Can Pull It Off’ Fiona Benson 128 Prayer Hannah Sullivan 128 from The Sandpit after Rain Mona Arshi 129 Delivery Room Doireann Ní Ghríofa 130 Inventory: Recovery Room Justyna Bargielska 130 Different rose Zoë Brigley 131 Star / Sun / Snow Doireann Ní Ghríofa 133 Jigsaw Puzzle Jack Underwood 133 William Rebecca Goss 134 Last Poem Fiona Benson 135 Hide and Seek Ellen Cranich 136 Blasket Sound Niall Campbell 137 Night Watch Niall Campbell 138 February Morning Liz Berry 138 The Republic of Motherhood Rebecca Goss 140 My Animal Fiona Benson 140 Ruins Moya Cannon 141 Milk Esther Morgan 142 Latch Ailbhe Darcy 142 After my son was born Hollie McNish 143 Embarrassed Stephanie Norgate 146 Miracle Lauris Edmond 147 Late song Peter Sansom 148 Mini Van Sharon Olds 148 I Cannot Say I Did Not Katharine Towers 149 Childhood Lucille Clifton 150 daughters Jane Clarke 150 The trouble Brenda Shaughnessy 151 I Wish I Had More Sisters Ann Gray 153 I wish I had more mothers Gretchen Marquette 154 Want Tess Gallagher 155 With Stars Tess Gallagher 156 I Stop Writing the Poem Jane Clarke 156 Hers Naomi Shihab Nye 157 Shoulders Olivia McCannon 158 New Road Leanne O’Sullivan 159 My Father Asks Why Leanne O’Sullivan 160 The Cord Naomi Shihab Nye 161 Supple Cord Gwendolyn Brooks 162 a song in the front yard Tracy K. Smith 162 The World Is Your Beautiful Younger Sister Penelope Shuttle 163 Outgrown Carol Ann Duffy 164 Empty Nest Anna Enquist 165 All at Once Inua Ellams 165 Swallow Twice Jacob Sam-La Rose 166 Never Jacob Sam-La Rose 166 The Other End of the Line Jericho Brown 168 Prayer of the Backhanded Jericho Brown 169 As a Human Being Doireann Ní Ghríofa 170 Tooth Anne Michaels 172 from Correspondences: a poem Abigail Parry 176 The Quilt Safiya Sinclair 177 Family Portrait Pascale Petit 178 My Mother’s Love Pascale Petit 179 Her Harpy Eagle Claws Pascale Petit 180 My Wolverine Jacqueline Bishop 181 Snakes Selima Hill 182 from Grunter Selima Hill 185 from Sunday Afternoons at the Gravel-pits Shivanee Ramlochan 188 from The Red Thread Cycle Zoë Brigley 190 The Eye in the Wall Nicki Heinen 191 Solent Ward, Royal Free Hospital, 2008 Aria Aber 192 Asylum Sasha Dugdale 194 Asylum Sasha Dugdale 195 ‘Perhaps Akhmatova was right’ Xidu Heshang 196 Fictionalising Her Tony Hoagland 197 Personal 4 After Frank O’Hara Frank O’Hara 200 The Day Lady Died Rita Dove 201 Canary John Burnside 201 The Day Etta Died Clare Pollard 202 The Day Amy Died Nick Flynn 203 The Day Lou Reed Died Ian McMillan 205 The Evening of the Day Pavarotti Died Anjum Hasan 205 The Day No One Died Frank O’Hara 206 Autobiographia Literaria Safiya Sinclair 207 Autobiography Geoff Hattersley 208 Frank O’Hara Five, Geoffrey Chaucer Nil Simon Armitage 208 Poem Martina Evans 209 I Want to Be like Frank O’Hara Phoebe Stuckes 210 Kiss me quick Frank O’Hara 211 Katy Roger Reeves 211 Someday I’ll Love Roger Reeves Ocean Vuong 212 Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong Frank O’Hara 213 Why I Am Not a Painter Maria Barnas 214 Why I Am Not a Painter Matthew Sweeney 215 My Life as a Painter Adam Zagajewski 216 Describing Paintings 5 Harmony and discord John Hegley 218 A Declaration of Need Robert Wrigley 218 A Lock of Her Hair Jackie Kay 219 High Land Marie Howe 220 Low Tide, Late August Katharine Kilalea 220 You were a bird Sarah Lindsay 221 The Arms of a Marvelous Squid Warsan Shire 222 for women who are difficult to love Jericho Brown 223 Colosseum Jericho Brown 224 Of My Fury Caroline Bird 225 Marriage of Equals Joan Larkin 226 Want Chen Chen 227 Poem in Noisy Mouthfuls Mary Jean Chan 229 // Jane Clarke 230 Vows Miriam Nash 231 Love Song for a Keeper Seamus Heaney 232 Scaffolding Valerio Magrelli 232 The Embrace Vidyan Ravinthiran 233 Aubade Leanne O’Sullivan 233 Leaving Early Leanne O’Sullivan 234 Note Alex Dimitrov 235 Some New Thing Eavan Boland 236 Lines for a Thirtieth Wedding Anniversary Hester Knibbe 236 Yes Dick Davis 237 Uxor Vivamus… Dick Davis 238 Making a Meal of It Wendy Cope 239 To My Husband Wendy Cope 239 One Day Anne Haverty 240 Objecting to Everything Elaine Feinstein 242 A Visit Tara Bergin 242 Wedding Cake Decorations Ranjit Hoskoté 242 Couple Rebecca Perry 243 Windows Joan Margarit 244 Love is a place John Challis 244 The Love Fleur Adcock 245 Happy Ending Kei Miller 246 Epilogue Conor O’Callaghan 246 Kingdom Come Vona Groarke 247 Ghost Poem Phoebe Stuckes 248 Gold Hoop Earrings Phoebe Stuckes 249 Attempt Cynthia Huntington 250 For Love Bobby Parker 251 Working Class Voodoo Melissa Lee-Houghton 252 Love-Smitten Heart Louis Jenkins 255 Fish Out of Water Sarah Holland-Batt 255 No End to Images Patrizia Cavalli 256 ‘Very simple love that believes in words…’ Natalie Shaw 257 Like when we went to the cinema that time Darío Jaramillo 258 from Impossible Loves Darío Jaramillo 258 Mozart on the Motorway Michael Longley 259 Ceilidh Derek Mahon 260 Aran Paddy Bushe 261 The Rolling Wave Seamus Heaney 262 The Given Note Gerard Fanning 262 That Note Seamus Heaney 263 Song Adam Zagajewski 264 Music Heard with You Elizabeth Burns 265 Listening to Bach’s B Minor Mass in the Kitchen Lars Gustafsson 266 The silence of the world before Bach Adam Zagajewski 266 Chaconne Jane Hirshfield 267 Even the Vanishing Housed Tomas Tranströmer 268 Schubertiana Tomas Tranströmer 270 Allegro Gregory Orr 270 To Be Alive 6 Mortal hurt Tomas Tranströmer 272 The Half-Finished Heaven Jan Erik Vold 272 The Fact That No Birds Sing Galway Kinnell 274 Wait Louise Glück 275 from Averno Caroline Bird 276 The End of the Bed Caroline Bird 277 A Surreal Joke Ken Babstock 278 As Marginalia in John Clare’s The Rural Muse Lieke Marsman 279 The Following Scan Will Last Less Than a Minute Lieke Marsman 279 The Following Scan Will Last One Minute Lieke Marsman 280 The Following Scan Will Last Five Minutes Jo Shapcott 281 Of Mutability Ilyse Kusnetz 282 Harbinger Julie O’Callaghan 283 No Can Do Wayne Holloway-Smith 284 ‘the posh mums are boxing in the square…’ Anna Swir 285 My Body Effervesces Robert Hass 286 A Story About the Body Max Ritvo 286 Poem to My Litter Max Ritvo 288 Heaven Is Us Being a Flower Together Max Ritvo 289 Cachexia Mark Doty 290 Michael’s Dream Ana Ristović 291 The Body Elaine Feinstein 292 Long Life Ruth Stone 293 The Excuse Finuala Dowling 294 At eighty-five, my mother’s mind Finuala Dowling 295 Widowhood in the dementia ward Finuala Dowling 295 Birthday in the dementia ward Judith Herzberg 296 Old Age Roger McGough 296 The Wrong Beds Geraldine Mitchell 297 Sneak Geraldine Mitchell 297 How the Body Remembers Elise Partridge 298 from The Book of Steve Menno Wigman 298 Everyone Is Beautiful Today Michael Longley 299 Age Thomas Lynch 300 Refusing at Fifty-two to Write Sonnets Dermot Healy 300 As You Get Older Mary O’Malley 301 A Lift James Fenton 302 For Andrew Wood Vijay Seshadri 303 Bright Copper Kettles Anne Stevenson 304 Anaesthesia Elise Partridge 305 Last Days Michael O’Loughlin 306 In This Life Zaffar Kunial 308 Prayer Adil Jussawalla 308 Mother’s Ninety-fourth Birthday Menno Wigman 309 Body, my body Janet Ayachi 309 Spooning Stars Matthew Sweeney 310 The Tube Kerry Hardie 311 Ship of Death Sara Berkeley Tolchin 312 Burrow Beach Helen Dunmore 313 My life’s stem was cut Helen Dunmore 314 Hold out your arms Lorna Goodison 316 My Mother’s Sea Chanty Vicki Feaver 316 You Are Not Sharon Olds 318 In the Temple Basement Emily Berry 319 The photo that is most troubling is the one I don’t want to show you Annemarie Austin 320 from Country Annemarie Austin 320 What My Double Will Steven Matthews 321 Last Christmas Cracker Kerry Hardie 322 After My Father Died Valérie Rouzeau 322 from Vrouz Bernard O’Donoghue 323 Ter Conatus Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin 324 The Morandi Bridge Jay Whittaker 325 The call Jay Whittaker 325 Bed fellow Ruth Fainlight 326 Oxygen Mask Ruth Fainlight 327 Somewhere Else Entirely Elaine Feinstein 328 Beds Imtiaz Dharker 328 Screen-saver Imtiaz Dharker 329 Passport photo Imtiaz Dharker 330 Say his name Gillian Clarke 330 Honesty Katie Donovan 331 Off Duty Eunice de Souza 331 Advice to Women Ron Koertge 332 Lily Wisława Szymborska 332 Cat in an Empty Apartment Theresa Lola 333 Tailoring Grief Wisława Szymborska 334 The Day After – Without Us Billy Collins 335 Helium Mary Ruefle 336 Trust Me Lucie Brock-Boido 337 Soul Keeping Company Dean Young 338 Street of Sailmakers Denise Riley 339 Listening for Lost People Dennis O’Driscoll 340 Then Julie O’Callaghan 341 Beyond Julie O’Callaghan 341 Cyber You Alison Brackenbury 342 All 7 Interesting times Selina Nwulu 344 We have everything we need Derek Mahon 345 Insomnia Colette Bryce 346 Helicopters Jennifer L. Knox 347 Drones Colette Bryce 348 Belfast Waking, 6 a.m. Doireann Ní Ghríofa 349 On Patrick Street Imtiaz Dharker 350 Flight Radar Jean Sprackland 351 CCTV Jasmine Ann Cooray 352 Call Centre Blues John Cooper Clarke 352 Bed Blocker Blues David Constantine 354 Pity Jacob Saenz 355 Sweeping the States Jane Commane 356 Midlands kids Sarah Howe 357 On a line by Xu Lizhi Jeong Ho-seung 358 Death of a Cellphone Sabeer Haka 358 Politics Sabeer Haka 359 Mulberries Paul Farley 359 Hole in the Wall Zohar Atkins 360 Song of Myself (Apocryphal) Tim Turnbull 361 Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn Caitlín Nic Íomhair 363 Praise the Young Jessica Mookherjee 363 Ursa Minor Theresa Muñoz 364 Be the first to like this A.E. Stallings 365 Like, the Sestina 8 Roots and routes Deryn Rees-Jones 368 Home Nina Bogin 368 Initiation, II Maura Dooley 369 Dancing at Oakmead Road Eavan Boland 370 Nocturne Tom French 371 The Last Light Peter Sirr 371 from The Rooms Jane Clarke 374 Who owns the field? Kirun Kapur 374 Anthem David Dabydeen 375 Catching Crabs Aleš Debeljak 376 A Letter Home Stanisław Barańczak 377 If China Arundhathi Subramaniam 378 Home Moniza Alvi 378 And if Vidyan Ravinthiran 379 Ceylon Vidyan Ravinthiran 380 My Sri Lankan Family Daljit Nagra 380 Our Town with the Whole of India Roger Robinson 382 To His Homeland Elisabeth Sennitt Clough 382 Potato Season Mir Mahfuz Ali 383 My Son Waits by the Door Alberto Ríos 384 We Are of a Tribe Vahni Capildeo 385 Going Nowhere, Getting Somewhere Imtiaz Dharker 386 Chaudhri Sher Mobarik looks at the loch André Naffis-Sahely 387 Vanishing Act André Naffis-Sahely 387 An Island of Strangers Adam Zagajewski 388 The Three Kings John Agard 389 Checking Out Me History Sujata Bhatt 391 A Different History Karin Karakaşlı 392 History-Geography Amir Darwish 393 Where I come from Imtiaz Dharker 394 Minority Luis Muñoz 395 The Foreigner Hama Tuma 396 Just a Nobody Amarjit Chandan 396 In This Country Keki Daruwalla 397 Migrations Beata Duncan 399 The Notebook Mina Gorji 400 Exit Adam Zagajewski 401 Refugees Wisława Szymborska 402 Some People Bejan Matur 403 Night Spent in the Temple of a Patient God Bejan Matur 404 The Moon Sucks up Our Grief Ribka Sibhatu 406 In Lampedusa Musa Okwonga 408 Hundreds of cockroaches drowned today Azita Ghahreman 408 The Boat That Brought Me Carolyn Forché 409 The Boatman Linda Gregerson 410 from Sleeping Bear Naomi Shihab Nye 411 Mediterranean Blue Kimiko Hahn 411 After being asked if I write ‘the occasional poem’ Reza Mohammadi 412 Illegal Immigrant Moniza Alvi 413 Flight Fadwa Soulieman 414 For Lana Sadiq Audre Lorde 415 Diaspora Philip Gross 416 The Displaced Persons Camp Teresa Samuel Ibrahim 416 Longing Teresa Samuel Ibrahim 417 The last train across Ariat Bridge Warsan Shire 418 Conversations about home Sabeer Haka 420 Home Gabeba Baderoon 420 I Cannot Myself 9 Empathy and conflict Kwame Dawes 422 Land Ho Edward Baugh 422 A Nineteenth-century Portrait Kevin Young 423 Reward Martín Espada 425 How We Could Have Lived or Died This Way Gwendolyn Brooks 426 We Real Cool Terrance Hayes 427 The Golden Shovel Wanda Coleman 429 American Sonnet: 94 Terrance Hayes 429 American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin Terrance Hayes 430 American Sonnet for the New Year Patricia Smith 431 That Chile Emmett in the Casket James Berry 432 Travelling As We Are James Berry 433 In-a Brixtan Markit Elizabeth Alexander 434 Smile Patricia Smith 435 10-Year-Old Shot Three Times, but She’s Fine Jericho Brown 436 Bullet Points Danez Smith 437 the bullet was a girl Evie Shockley 438 supply and demand Dean Bowen 439 mi skin Kayo Chingonyi 440 The N Word Natasha Trethewey 441 Flounder Natasha Trethewey 442 Help, 1968 Hannah Lowe 443 Dance Class Hannah Lowe 443 Sausages Rita Dove 444 After Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed Raymond Antrobus 445 Jamaican British Anthony Anaxagorou 446 Cause Anthony Anaxagorou 447 Departure Lounge Twenty Seventeen Claudia Rankine 449 from Citizen Claudia Rankine 450 from August 4, 2011 / In Memory of Mark Duggan Roy McFarlane 453 from …they killed them Danez Smith 454 dinosaurs in the hood Thomas McCarthy 456 Slow Food Imtiaz Dharker 456 A Century Later Remco Campert 457 Poetry Leanne O’Sullivan 458 Safe House Ilya Kaminsky 459 We Lived Happily during the War Ilya Kaminsky 460 In a Time of Peace Luis Muñoz 461 Breathing Fatimah Asghar 461 If They Come for Us Solmaz Sharif 463 Look Lorraine Mariner 465 Thursday Chrissy Williams 466 The Burning of the Houses Ishion Hutchinson 466 The Garden Major Jackson 468 Selling Out Jay Bernard 470 Clearing Jay Bernard 471 + Jay Bernard 471 – Roger Robinson 472 Doppelgänger Roger Robinson 473 The Portrait Museum Roger Robinson 474 The Father Valerio Magrelli 474 The Boundary André Mangeot 475 Bellwether Deborah Moffatt 475 Eating Thistles Choman Hardi 476 Dispute Over a Mass Grave Choman Hardi 477 A Day for Love Seamus Heaney 478 Chorus from The Cure at Troy 10 The future? Nick Drake 480 Stranger Thing Sarah Westcott 481 The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Maura Dooley 481 Still Life with Sea Pinks and High Tide Polly Atkin 482 Colony Collapse Disorder Frank Báez 483 Exodus Mikeas Sánchez 484 What Is It Worth? David Constantine 484 Dominion Dom Bury 485 The Body’s New Weather Patrick Deeley 486 Two Hundred Million Animals Patrick Deeley 487 The End of the World Jack Underwood 487 Alpha Step Chase Twichell 488 Birdsong Chase Twichell 489 Herds of Humans David Tait 490 By Degrees David Tait 490 The Virus at My Window Imtiaz Dharker 491 Cranes Lean In Peter Sirr 492 Ode Gerda Stevenson 493 Hands Amit Majmudar 494 An American Nurse Foresees Her Death Imtiaz Dharker 494 Seen from a Drone, Delhi Imtiaz Dharker 496 Seen from a Drone, Mumbai Ruth Padel 497 Still life with a map of the world outside the window Joshua Bennett 498 Dad Poem Nick Drake 499 The Future 501 Acknowledgements 510 Index of writers 517 Index of titles and first lines

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Book SynopsisThis new comic-book version of Euripides’ classic The Trojan Women follows the fates of Hekabe, Andromache and Kassandra after Troy has been sacked and all its men killed. The Trojan Women is a wildly imaginative collaboration between the visual artist Rosanna Bruno and the poet and classicist Anne Carson. Both wacky and devastating, the book gives a genuine representation of how human beings are affected by warfare. All the characters take the form of animals (except Kassandra, whose mind is in another world). Anne Carson collaborated with artist Bianca Stone on their Sophokles reimagining, Antigonick, published by Bloodaxe in 2012. This new collaboration with Rosanna Bruno couldn’t be more different. Rosanna Bruno is an artist who makes paintings, comics and bad puns. Her first book, The Slanted Life of Emily Dickinson (Andrews McMeel, 2017), is a book of cartoons based on the myth of her life.Trade ReviewWhat do you get when you cross Euripides’ classic tragedy, the artistic stylings of Rosanna Bruno, and the poetic touch of Anne Carson? This book! Here’s what we know: Troy has been ravaged. Everyone is depicted as an animal (except Kassandra, who is another planet, which actually makes complete sense when you think about it). Need I say more? -- Lithub'In her classical translations, Carson has pursued what T.S. Eliot called “a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity”.' – Will Harrison, BOMB 'Rosanna Bruno’s speculative look at Emily Dickinson’s social media feed is so hysterical, you may find yourself with a case of the vapors. ' – Alison Bechdel 'Anne Carson is a daring, learned, unsettling writer.' – Susan Sontag From the reviews of Antigonick by Anne Carson and Bianca Stone: 'The comic-book translation is zingy and modern... Carson has perfectly captured Antigone's moral fervour and her almost erotic desire for death. The snappiness of her translation hits a different note from Sophocles, but this edition is a treat none the less' – Natalie Haynes, Observer 'Unlike versions of Antigone that try to capture the drama's grandeur (such as Robert Fagles's translation for Penguin) or to make it relevant (including Don Taylor's version, currently at the National Theatre), Carson's aims to show the difficulty of translation, the truly "unbearable" nature of tragedy' – Emily Stokes, Guardian 'Antigonick questions what it means to translate Greek drama... For Carson, her uncompromising solutions are little kidnaps in the dark, a trail of softly glowing lamps that mark the way through the centuries and out of the shadows' – Josephine Balmer, Times 'Antigonick by Anne Carson; everything this classicist-poet writes is worth repeated close reading. This is also a beautiful book.' - Candia McWilliam, Sunday Herald, Books of the Year 2013

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Book Synopsis**Winner of the 2020 Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award**Jay Bernard's extraordinary debut is a fearless exploration of the New Cross Fire of 1981, a house fire at a birthday party in which thirteen young black people were killed. Dubbed the 'New Cross Massacre', the fire was initially believed to be a racist attack, and the indifference with which the tragedy was met by the state triggered a new era of race relations in Britain.Tracing a line from New Cross to the 'towers of blood' of the Grenfell fire, this urgent collection speaks with, in and of the voices of the past, brought back by the incantation of dancehall rhythms and the music of Jamaican patois, to form a living presence in the absence of justice. A ground-breaking work of excavation, memory and activism - both political and personal, witness and documentary - Surge shines a much-needed light on an unacknowledged chapter in British history, one that powerfully resonates in our present moment.'The verse has anger and political purpose, but a rare lyrical precision, too. The combination is powerful' Sebastian Faulks, Spectator, Books of the Year 2020 *Winner of the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry**Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award; T.S. Eliot Prize; Forward Prize for Best First Collection; Dylan Thomas Prize; RSL Ondaatje Prize; John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize**Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2020*Trade ReviewHaunting, historical, archival and imaginative... a stunning debut -- Bernardine Evaristo * New Statesman, Books of the Year *Surge is a radical hybrid, painfully beautiful multigenerational ghost story, a social document, and a work of political archaeology. It is an indictment of this country's systemic hostility to its black, Asian and ethnic minority population, and the scandalous lack of accountability when this system claims lives. It is a heartbreaking and brilliant book about an ongoing tragedy -- Max Porter * Guardian, *Books of the Year* *Politically and lyrically compelling -- Raymond Antrobus * Observer, *Books of the Year* *Sensitive but devastating verse * Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2019* *A searing combination of artistic invention and meticulous research into the 1981 New Cross Fire -- Pascale Petit, *RSL Ondaatje Prize*This affecting poetic exploration of the New Cross Fire of 1981 (dubbed “The New Cross Massacre”) is incantatory, lyrical and documentary. It makes a deep impact both on account of its own narrative and in the wake of Grenfell -- Elizabeth-Jane Burnett * The Sunday Times *A sad and angry consolation, alert to the past... Surge is a mature work, with lyricism both poetic and pop... [One] of British poetry’s most distinctive new voices -- Tristram Fane Saunders * Daily Telegraph *Although the fire, the subsequent protests and the founding of the Black People’s Day of Action were documented by poets Linton Kwesi Johnson and Benjamin Zephaniah among others, Bernard’s work uniquely addresses a new generation encountering this past almost afresh, as it is echoed painfully inthe present... The collection’s major achievement is its unfailing attentiveness to the framing of history through the stories of individuals and collectives that the poet holds, urgently, ethically and so skilfully, in their hands -- Sandeep Parmar * Guardian *If there were ever to be a twenty-first century Auden, with all the invention and cultural understanding, understanding of tradition and sense of the speed and the human outcome of foul politics, Jay Bernard is it -- Ali SmithJay Bernard’s poems sing with outrage and indignation, with fury and passion. They tell the story of two terrible fires of our times, and shockingly show how the past holds up an uncomfortable mirror to the present. They have brio, they have brilliance, they are breathtakingly brave. An astonishingly accomplished debut -- Jackie KayBernard brings alive the archive, evoking ghosts and giving voice to the dead and the aggrieved from moments in recent history all too painful... At each turn, these are poems that make you sit up and take notice * Diva *The poems here seethe with unspoken rage and acerbity; they read like thinned-out paraffin, something on the cusp of explosion... A brutal indictment of Britain’s racist history and hypocrisy in the face of the facts... Bernard’s persistent question drills down, line by line, into Britain’s dark subconscious -- Marek Sullivan * Frieze magazine *Rarely has the idea of the objectified, violated black body been framed so starkly... Bernard’s knack for showing rather than telling [...] ensures that their sustained engagement with tiered identity never feels overdone... Surge is valuable as much for its imaginative acumen as for its unflinching politics -- Camille Ralphs * Times Literary Supplement *Brilliant and unbearably moving… a kind of crowd-poem of different voices, connection the New Cross fire to the Grenfell Tower and all the victims of racism and racist violence in London -- Andy Croft * Morning Star *A range of poetic forms bring energy to this reappraisal of race, nation and embodiment -- Sandeep Parmar * Guardian, *Books of the Year* *Imagined with both tenderness and frankness... Its strong sense of place, patois, demand for justice, curiosity...are reminders that four decade on, the tragedy remains an open wound -- Kehinde Andrews * Observer *Jay Bernard's furious and heartbreaking poetry collection is their response to this outrageous tragedy [of the New Cross fire]. Read and feel rage * Guardian *'The verse has anger and political purpose, but a rare lyrical precision, too. The combination is powerful' * Sebastian Faulks, Spectator Books of the Year *The verse has anger and political purpose, but a rare lyrical precision, too. The combination is powerful -- Sebastian Faulks * Spectator, *Books of the Year* *

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Book SynopsisRead this stunning translation of Homer's great war epic, the legendary tale of honour, love, loss and revenge during the fall of the city of Troy.High on Olympus, Zeus and the assembled deities look down on the world of men, to the city of Troy where a bitter and bloody war has dragged into its tenth year, and a quarrel rages between a legendary warrior and his commander. Greek ships decay, men languish, exhausted, and behind the walls of Troy a desperate people await the next turn of fate.This is the Iliad: an ancient story of enduring power; magnetic characters defined by stirring and momentous speeches; a panorama of human lives locked in a heroic struggle beneath a mischievous or indifferent heaven. Above all, this is a tale of the devastation, waste and pity of war.Caroline Alexander's virtuoso translation captures the rhythms and energy of Homer's original Greek while making the text as accessible as possible to a modern reader, accompanied by extensive extra material to provide a background to the poem.The result of 3,000 years of story-telling, Homer’s epic tale of the fall of Troy has resonated with every age and every human conflict: this is the Iliad at its most electrifying and vital.Trade ReviewVirtuoso * New York Review of Books *Caroline Alexander's Iliad is miraculous. It has the rhythms and even the lineation of the original Homeric text. Its language conveys the precise meaning of the Greek in a sinewy yet propulsive style that drives the reader inexorably forward. In my judgement, this new translation is far superior to the familiar and admired work of Lattimore, Fitzgerald and Fagles -- G.W. Bowersock, Institute for Advanced Study, PrincetonOf the many new translations of Homer’s poem that have come out in the past two or three years, perhaps the most highly readable is Caroline Alexander’s. Thought to be the first woman to have Englished the poem, Alexander embraces Matthew Arnold’s four essential Homeric qualities: rapidity, plainness of style, simplicity of ideas and nobility of manner, in lines that ebb and flow with the tide of battle. The book wears its learning lightly, the introduction pitching the Iliad as the ultimate anti-war poem. * Times Literary Supplement *The Homeric Iliad originates from a rich tradition of performing song. It was meant to be heard. True to the living word of the original Greek, Caroline Alexander’s new translation invites us to engage directly with this tradition. When I read her verses I can almost hear the music of Homeric performance. -- Professor Gregory Nagy, Professor of Classical Greek Literarture, Harvard UniversityCaroline Alexander has done admirably in rendering the meaning of the Homeric text faithfully and suitably dignified language. The format gives a genuine sense of reading a verse epic. Her line-numbers match the Greek, which will make this version convenient for use by college teachers and students -- Martin West, Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford

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Book SynopsisHomer''s Odyssey is the Ancient Greek tale of Odysseus and his eventful voyage home after the Trojan War. His many adventures on his 10-year journey are the subject of this famous prose translation by T.E. Lawrence, which was the first to be aimed at a general readership.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Book SynopsisMick Evans is a writer who takes risks. Never content to remain static, the voice is increasingly explorative, increasingly nuanced and possessed of a compassion that is also clear-sighted. The feel for language, the lyrical pulse, the acuteness of observation and the range and depth of references are signature features of Mick Evans'' work. But with each new collection the reach is extended. There are poems here that unsettle or warn, that celebrate or remember, that surprise and delight, poems that make us laugh or wonder and always there is love not sentiment, not nostalgia, but permeable, authentic, love in all its shades of grief and joy.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisCollected Poems contains the previously published poetry of Rowan Williams, together with a significant body of new work. Also included are his celebrated translations from Welsh, German and Russian poetry. His earlier collections have included pieces prompted by the landscape and literature of West Wales, and a sequence of poems on the varieties of love in the plays of Shakespeare. This Collected adds a sequence commissioned for the fiftieth anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, tributes to writers as different as Alan Garner and John Milton, and a reflection on sculptures by Antony Gormley. The book reflects the poet's wide range of interest and the variety of poetic mediums he has explored. His poems continue to respond vividly to the visual arts, and to the experience and imagination of 'pre-modern' cultures, as well as to the crises and tragedies of our time. He continues to read with uncanny clarity the signs that are manifest in nature and history. Imagination working through language brings us as close as we can get to our condition. 'I dislike the idea of being a religious poet,' he says. 'I would prefer to be a poet for whom religious things mattered intensely.'Trade Review'It's serious, craftsmanly writing on faith, history and mortality - it's the real thing.' - Sean O'Brien; 'the truly successful poems here marry [Williams'] terse precision with an unwavering search for the truth, whatever it is, however elusive it might be.' - Times Literary Supplement; 'Reading this poet, at such a period in our history, is like feeling the first drops of rain after a long season of drought.' - A.N. Wilson, Daily Telegraph; 'His poetry opens windows on a rich and restless imagination.' - Boyd Tonkin, Independent

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Book SynopsisThe poems in Gillian Clarke's The Silence begin during lockdown, whose silences Clarke listens so attentively that other voices emerge.

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Book SynopsisA sequel to Dante's Inferno (Carcanet, 2014), where Dante was relocated to the University of Essex, here the action shifts from Dante's island of Purgatory to Mersea Island in Essex.

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Book SynopsisFollowing his Forward-prize shortlisted Rotten Days in Late Summer, Ralf Webb's breathtaking second poetry collection summons the West Country of his youth, a place where the real and the magical, folklore and modernity, life and death, collideRalf Webb is an ethnographer of the present. He is interested in everyday life in the extreme' Peter GizziHighway Cottage weaves the story of a strange homecoming. A young poet travels to the heart of the English countryside back to the West Country village where he grew up. Descending into the valley where the small riverside community still resides, he finds himself within a dreamlike landscape, peopled by uncanny figures: drone operators and hunters; half-familiar friends; local historians, and braying councillors trying desperately to oust a community of Travellers. Hovering between reality and folklore, the locale is at once idyllic and in decay; the visitor is both unsettled and soothed by it. Slowly, we start to sense that both villagers and poet might be under threat not just from the future, but from the past. This book-length sequence of poems represents a ground-breaking artistic achievement by acclaimed poet Ralf Webb. Blending the eerie musicality of children's rhymes with echoes of traditional balladry and free verse, the collection swells to an extraordinary chorus. With great clarity and affection, but not a trace of sentimentality, Webb conjures a precise vision of a rural community, surfacing the deep and urgent tensions personal, political, and environmental that run through Britain today. The result is a unique portrait of contemporary country life, enchanting and unnerving in equal measure.

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Book SynopsisMukahang Limbu's reputation as a key voice in a new generation of poets has been gathering momentum across a number of years, and its brilliance is captured here in his debut publication. Mother of Flip-Flops is a queering of migrant experience, a love song to the mother, a celebration and questioning of the self. Defiant and shifting, these poems articulate a unique coming-of-age, and what it means to do so with a heightened exchange of empathy.

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Book Synopsis'I promise you more patience, more gratitude. I promise you less vanity, less selfishness, less complaining, less fear. I promise you. You just have to survive.' A Little Life follows the complex relationships of four college friends in New York City: Willem, an actor; Malcolm, an architect; JB, an artist; and, at the centre of their group, Jude, a lawyer. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, changed by ambition, addiction and pride. Yet their greatest challenge is Jude himself, whose secrets – and shame – define not just his own life, but that of his friends as well. A bruising and beautiful story of love, the limits of human endurance, and the tyranny of memory, Hanya Yanagihara's novel A Little Life has sold over a million copies and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction. The stage adaptation – conceived by Ivo van Hove, and adapted by Koen Tachelet, van Hove and Yanagihara herself – was first performed in a Dutch-language production at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam in the Netherlands in 2018, before transferring to New York in 2022. This English-language version opened in London's West End in 2023, directed by Ivo van Hove and with a cast led by James Norton as Jude.Trade Review'A masterpiece of modern theatre... a triumph of emotional richness and devastation' * Telegraph *'Utterly compelling' * Daily Express *'A superb piece of theatre, staged with consummate skill' * Evening Standard *'Close to Greek tragedy… a production of cool temperature, handling atrocity with clinical precision, and moments of grace with an economical elegance… leaves its mark like a livid, tender bruise on the imagination' * The Stage *'Unrelenting but magnificent… in the interstices of horror and abuse, there are transcendental moments of love and affection' * iNews *'Keeps a grip so tight that it is impossible to turn away' * WhatsOnStage *'Compelling viewing… such an emotional and affecting piece of theatre' * Gay Times *'Sophisticated and searing... an almost anthropological study of pain, staged with the utmost intelligence' * Guardian *'A deftly crafted adaptation, beautifully staged' * Time Out *

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Book SynopsisIn Lord Byron''s lifetime, details of his travels were widely known through poems set in different countries, ranging from his homes in Scotland and England, through Europe and the Middle East, to the South Pacific and into extra-terrestrial realms. At the same time, a much more personal story was being shared with friends and family. Even when divided from those whose company he most enjoyed, Byron continued to share his thoughts and feelings about wherever he happened to be. His compulsive letter-writing reveals a strong desire to reach across space, to connect and reconnect with those elsewhere. While his memoirs did not survive the ceremonial posthumous bonfire at 50 Albemarle Street, many of Byron''s correspondents treasured every word in their possession. This means a remarkable legacy has been preserved in letters that still seem as alive with conversational energy as when they were dashed off more than two hundred years ago. Through Byron''s letters and journals, we are still a

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Book SynopsisSculpture has the longest memory of the arts: from the Paleolithic era we find stone carvings and clay figures embedded with human longing. And poets have long been fascinated by the idea of eternity embodied by the monumental temples and fragmented statues of ancient civilizations.From Keats's Grecian urn and Shelley's 'Ozymandias' to contemporary verse about Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Janet Echelman's windborne hovering nets, the pieces in this collection convert the physical materials of the plastic arts - clay, wood, glass, marble, granite, bronze - into lapidary lines of poetry. Whether the sculptures celebrated here commemorate love or war, objects or apparitions, forms human or divine, they have called forth evocative responses from a wide range of poets, including Homer, Ovid, Shakespeare, Baudelaire, Rilke, Dickinson, Yeats, Auden and Plath. A compendium of dazzling examples of one art form reflecting on another, Poems About Sculpture is a treat for art lovers.

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Book SynopsisPoems of London brings together a remarkably wide range of poems inspired by the storied city, from its teeming medieval streets to the multicultural metropolis it is today.The pantheon of classic English poets, from Shakespeare and Donne to Wordsworth and Blake to T. S. Eliot and Ted Hughes, provide their views of London alongside tributes by notable visitors including Arthur Rimbaud, Samuel Beckett, and Sylvia Plath. Here, too, are poetic contributions by an array of immigrants and the children of immigrants, including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Fleur Adcock, Patience Agbabi, and Booker Prize-winner Bernardine Evaristo. All the famous sights of London, from the Thames to the Tower, are touched on in this vibrant collection, and denizens of its busy streets, ranging from princes to pub-goers to pickpockets, wander through these pages. The result is an enthralling portrait of an endlessly varied and fascinating place.

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Book SynopsisRivers were the arteries of our first civilizations - the Tigris and Euphrates of Mesopotamia, India's Ganges, Egypt's Nile, the Yellow River of China - and have nourished modern cities from London to New York, so it is natural that poets have for centuries drawn essential meanings and metaphors from their endless currents. English poets from Shakespeare and Dryden, Wordsworth and Byron to Ted Hughes, John Betjeman and Alice Oswald; Irish poets - Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, to name but a few; Scottish and Welsh poets from Henry Vaughan and Robert Louis Stevenson to Robin Robertson and Gillian Clarke. A whole raft of American poets from Whitman, Emerson and Emily Dickinson to Langston Hughes, Mary Oliver, Natasha Trethewey and Grace Paley. Folk songs. African-American spirituals. Poems from ancient Egypt and Rome. From medieval China and Japan. And a truly international selection of modern poets from Europe (France, Italy, Russia, Serbia), India, Africa, Australia and South and Central America, all combining in celebration of the rivers of the world. From the Mississippi to the Limpopo. From the Dart to the Danube. Plunge in.

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Book SynopsisIn this powerful, evocative collection, master storyteller John O'Donohue explores themes of love and loss, beginnings and endings. Inspired by the ancient wisdom of the Celtic tradition and the rugged, majestic landscape of his birth, the west of Ireland, here he also creates a unique vision of a place and time, and the echo of a memory that will never fade.Trade ReviewHis taut concise pieces use words and syntax with the sort of freedom that comes after mastery * Books Ireland *In these poems, the west of Ireland landscape and climate in all their harshness are metaphors for the emotional climate of the work * Poetry Ireland Review *

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Book SynopsisPoems to celebrate spring. A sublime bedside companion to enjoy as the frost melts and days grow longer, with poems to immerse yourself in the season. From William Blake and Emily Dickinson to Robert Browning and Eleanor Farjeon, some of the finest poets that ever put pen to paper describe this wondrous season of new beginnings. With one entry for every day through spring, from 1st March until 31st May, this collection of 91 poems will invigorate you in the warmer and wetter months of Spring, from Robert Herrick’s first drops of March dew and the breaking blossoms of Laurence Binyon’s April day to William Blake’s meadow-sweet May and Emily Dickinson’s promise of light to come. This beautiful and collectable anthology of poems derives from the popular A Poem for Every Night of the Year and features poems inspired by springtime by Laurence Binyon, Margaret Cavendish, Amy Lowell, William Wordsworth and many more.

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Book SynopsisA classic of 20th-century theatre, Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden ran for a year in the West End, was a hit on Broadway and was filmed by Roman Polanski starring Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver. A woman seeks revenge when the man she believes to have been her torturer happens to re-enter her life. Death and the Maiden was given a first reading at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London in November 1990. After a workshop production staged in Santiago, Chile, in March 1991, the play had its world premiere at the Royal Court Upstairs, London, in July 1991, transferring to the Main Stage at the Royal Court in October. The play then transferred to the West End, at the Duke of York's Theatre, in February 1992. Death and the Maiden won the 1992 Olivier Award for Best New Play.Trade Review'A play for today, for the age of revenge, when dictatorships crumble right and left and the victims, the living dead, emerge from the shadows and present their accounts...' * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisAn intense psychological drama set in a women's prison, in which a mother and daughter try to break through the barriers of time, memory and punishment which separate them. Josie is seeing her mother Fay for the first time in a while – she's never walked into a prison before, and she's been putting it off for fifteen years. Fay is serving life for murdering her husband with a kitchen knife. Her daughter needs to find out why she can't remember anything that came before that terrible night, why her own mother would kill her father. Uncovering the memories they share is going to be more perilous than either of them can imagine... Rona Munro's play Iron was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in July 2002, transfering to the Royal Court Theatre, London, in January 2003. It went on to win the 2003 John Whiting Award.Trade Review'An exceptionally gripping and deeply moving play... psychological drama at its best - tense, harrowing, yet also powered by an unsentimental fund of compassion' * Daily Telegraph *'Rona Munro's quietly impressive play seems simple enough on the surface, but, like her characters, it has hidden depths. It is a love story about how women love men unwisely and too well, and about the painful, twisted, sacred love between mothers and daughters. There is something of Josie and Fay in almost every mother-and-daughter relationship' * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisBlake's explosive lyrical genius is here represented by the full text of 'Songs of Innocence' and 'Songs of Experience', plus a wide range of marvellous short poems unpublished in his lifetime. In addition there is a selection from the Prophetic Books in which the poet develops his own story of creation - alternately crazy and magnificent and from his dramatic and didactic poems and prose writings which reveal Blake as a major poet of the Romantic movement.

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Book SynopsisThis edition of Sir Thomas More is the first to bring the play into the context of a major Shakespeare series, to provide a substantial critical analysis, and to offer a comprehensive modern stage history. The introduction deals with issues such as the strange involvement of the anti-Catholic spy-hunter Anthony Munday as chief dramatist, the place of Sir Thomas More as a Catholic martyr in Protestant late Elizabethan culture, and the play's representation of a multi-cultural London.The text itself, supported by a searching and detailed commentary, adopts a distinctive presentation that enables readers to keep track of the manuscript and the hands that produced it, whilst engaging with the play as a fascinating theatrical piece. Sir Thomas More deals with matters so controversial that it may never have reached performance on stage. The authors' determination to deal with rioting and religious politics led to a play that is compelling in its own right but also intriguing as a document of what could, and could not, be articulated in the early modern public theatre. Surviving only as a manuscript text on which Shakespeare was thought to have worked, it can be considered to be the most important play manuscript of the period, owing to its highly complex witness to collaboration between dramatists and to censorship.Trade ReviewJohn Jowett’s edition of More is one of the triumphs of the [Third Series] as a whole, elucidating a nightmarishly complex textual history with exemplary clarity. * The New Criterion *‘...Jowett, one of the most gifted and exciting textual scholars around, whose Oxford edition of Richard III belongs right up there in the pantheon of truly great Shakespeare editions, has completed the job boldly, accurately and courteously.' ‘The textual treatment is as full and cogent an analysis as you are ever likely to find, and one of its most refreshing characteristics- apart from the expertise with which it is written- is its honesty...this publication represents its official entry into the Arden Shakespeare canon- and Jowett's excellent edition amply justifies this inclusion.' * The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, June 2011 *John Jowett's edition of Sir Thomas More is indispensable reading concerning issues of Elizabethan collaboration and authorship. It implicitly asks: how do we identify a Shakespearean play?...' Sean Elliott, The London Magazine * The London Magazine, August 2011 *'It is an impressive piece of scholarship, surpassing its predecessor edited by Gabrieli and Melchiori in attention to technical detail, and in tackling the complexities of what some have considered the most politically incorrect Elizabethan play that we possess... The Arden edition succeeds in opening a can of worms which challenges contemporary critical thinking.' * Notes and Queries, OUP, September 2011 *

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Book SynopsisTransitional Spaces, Kate Behrens's fourth collection, is concerned with inner lives and the secret doings of damage and repair. Touching on politics, sickness, sex, art, global warming and the messages of fantasy and dream, it looks at the lost and the longed-for, and at what happens when the bonds between us rupture. Nature appears as mirror, pointer or consolation. Creativity is explored in lines that include poets, a painter, a pattern-cutter and tapestry-maker, but also in our instinctual methods of surviving trauma. Behrens does not attempt an answer, rather she maps the trackways of feeling.

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Book SynopsisThis is a little pocket book, full of humour - in both poetry and prose.

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