A haiku, an ode, a sonnet, a limerick, an elegy ... more poetry,please.
Poetry Books
Two Rivers Press Some Other Where
Book Synopsis'Some Other Where' is about steps and missteps, disconnection, and connection, both in relationships and between ourselves and the world. Matthews’s poems, which have been described by Bernard O’Donoghue as ‘life enhancing,’ embody those sudden jolts when we see our lives differently. Work here touches on the climate crisis, on how the ancient past speaks to our present lives, and on moments glimmering with the extraordinary and the sacred.Trade Review‘Questions of now and then frame the spatial and temporal concerns of Some Other Where. Always attuned to nature, these poems are deeply implicated in the stories they arise from and the role they play in the now. In many ways, though beset with loss, these are fraught love poems addressed to nature and creativity that carry a solicitude from the personal to the universal. Always precise and un-laboured, the poems become suddenly familiar and necessary’ – John Kinsella; ‘Some Other Where is a fine and echoing new collection, a kaleidoscope of scene and thought and feeling that together tumble and resolve in a series of vivid and deeply personal encounters with the past. In the interplay between his elegiac evocations of absence and his vital sense of historic presence, Matthews carves a hauntingly poetic space in which his searching imagination comes movingly and musically alive - not least in the superb final fantasia sequence “The Valley of the Temples”’ – Jane Draycott
£9.89
Two Rivers Press The Third City
Book SynopsisIn The Third City, his most remarkable collection to date, James Peake once more offers us his unique combination of dream-like fluency and intellectual rigour, and who in poem after poem uncovers our capacity to love in full knowledge of the odds.
£10.79
Five Leaves Publications The Stories In Between
Book Synopsis
£6.65
Dedalus Press Storm Damage
£10.45
And Other Stories Mirror Nation
Book Synopsis
£13.49
Stairwell Books Exiles
£9.00
Partnership Publishing The Emboldened Heart
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£11.69
CavanKerry Press The Snow`s Wife
Book SynopsisThe Snow’s Wife presents a dispassionate examination of the final months of a marriage, ending with a spouse's death. It examines the daily minutiae of caregiving, both the tender and the distasteful, that lend startling poignancy to unbearable hardship. Frannie Lindsay’s poems chronicle how these challenges shock both self and God, dismantling that spiritual partnership and creating a new one that seems at first a temporary refuge, but is later revealed to be sturdy and permanent. This collection explores the ways in which intimacy becomes at once tender and gritty in the face of loss. These poems investigate how we remember, and how we begin the patient reshaping of the bereft self.The Snow’s Wife reaches beyond the sorrow of the poems’ speaker and includes the reader in the difficult, loving acceptance of mortality. Unafraid to look beyond the sentimentality of grief, Lindsay draws an unflinching and intimate portrait of a conflicted yet tender relationship. Illustrating the strain that an expected death can place upon a marriage, and the myriad and surprising ways in which such strain expands the heart, The Snow’s Wife examines the crises of faith that arise naturally during intimate end-of-life caregiving.Trade ReviewGrand Prize Honorable Mention * Eric Hoffer Awards *“Frannie Lindsay’s poems recall Tsvetayeva’s epistolary prose in which corporeality is freed from its external boundaries, embracing, instead, the transcendent where, as Tsvetayeva wrote, ‘a dream hand take/Another hand’s dream.’ The sleeper, Lindsay’s late husband, is guided back home: ‘do not be afraid/here is a harpsichord/here is a greyhound/here the first phrase of a cello sonata/and the slowed wind of your wife’s silver hair.’ The book extends beyond elegies to other hard-hitting evocations. In a prayer for her rapist, Lindsay offers ‘I hope he has learned/to slink unnoticed across the nights’ sad meadows, leaving the aster/alone in their clusters.’ God, Lindsay beckons, is both ‘beloved and exiled’ …‘we can/no longer awaken/even one star. The Snow’s Wife is a remarkable book of unbroken, emphasized silences, of enduring heart and intuition: ‘The snow, if it was kind, would fall again like old magnolia petals/loosening all at once because it’s time.’” -- Dzvinia Orlowsky, author of Bad Harvest“Why, when Frannie Lindsay calls me to walk with her on the way of the cross, do I find myself saying yes, yes, thank you? Is it because her beautiful, pungent, sensual laments confirm that I'm not crazy, that the world is in fact as sad and full of grace as I thought? Is it because Lindsay has already written several fiercely lovely books of poems that are essential to me, such that now I will follow her voice absolutely anywhere? Yes, and yes, and thank you.” -- Patrick Donnelly, author of Little-Known OperasTable of ContentsFalconPart One - God with us BeadInvitationDying BoyElegy in October RefugeBedtime StoryPrayer without a VoiceIn November, Everything Departsto alienationPrayer for My RapistCrymorningIn the burning childhood house ImpressionismGeoffComfortLouisePart Two - AugustBrushing the HorseSaturdayGrapes for the Action FiguresSaving the Yew TreeNovember on Fresh PondAngelFarewell BlessingTo a Mourning Dove Rescued from the CurbGoldfinchsmall remembranceOxThe End of the Walk to BethlehemThe Arrival at the Manger of Those Who MournThe Good WorldPart Three - VesperIn the BeforeThe Listening Room Golgotha BenedictionUnctionAfterself Receiving the HostElegy Against ItselfClairvoyanceThe CremationSnowdropsA WelcomeClear Summer Night MobileThe Rabbits of Upland RoadHarpsichordAfterListening ElegyAndanteAfterwordLullaby One Year Later
£14.25
Wake Forest University Press Where Love and Imagination Colour the Dark
Book Synopsis
£25.46
Archipelago Books Say Fire
£13.49
Double 9 Booksllp The Pawns Count
Book Synopsis
£12.74
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Top Girls
Book SynopsisAt a restaurant party thrown by Marlene of the Top Girls Employment Agency are Isabella Bird, the 19th-century traveller, Lady Nijo, courtesan to a 13th-century Japanese Emperor, Brueghel's Dull Gret, Pope Joan and Patient Griselda, wife of Chaucer's Clerk.Trade Review"Top Girls has a combination of directness and complexity which keeps you both emotionally and intellectually alert. You can smell life, and at the same time feel locked in an argument with an agile and passionate mind." The Sunday Times, John Peter
£10.44
Drag City Actual Air
Book Synopsis
£24.79
Orion Publishing Co Dylan Thomas Omnibus: Under Milk Wood, Poems,
Book SynopsisAll Dylan Thomas' major works gathered together and featuring a bold new livery in celebration of the Dylan Thomas centenary.A rich collection of Dylan Thomas' best-loved poems and stories, such as PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DOG, and pieces he wrote for radio and magazines, including the celebrated radio play UNDER MILK WOOD. The DYLAN THOMAS OMNIBUS highlights the full range and genius of this tempestuous and meticulous artist.
£10.44
Michael O'Mara Books Ltd Love is Enough: Poetry Threaded with Love (with a
Book SynopsisIn this truly beautiful book, Andrea Zanatelli combines his extraordinary artworks with a selection of classical love poetry by Anne Brontë, William Blake, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, Percy Shelley and many more.Drawing its inspiration from the past, Love is Enough references the decorative arts of a bygone era, and is a combination of romantic imagery, antique fabrics and allegorical illustrations, mixed with poems and mottos. Often mistaken for real embroidery pieces, the artworks are in fact very detailed and intricate digital collages, made to look and feel like handcrafted works.Zanatelli is strongly influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and the Pre-Raphaelites as well as eighteenth-century collage artist and creator of the Flora Delanica, Mary Delany, among others. Recurring themes in his work are romantic love, magical symbols, Victorian era craftsmanship, historical nun’s work and relics. Details of paintings, ancient fabrics, antique jewellery and miniatures are also returning elements as they often become an integral part of the inspiration for the collages themselves.This stunning book is full of intricate detail and brimming with romance, so you can return to its pages again and again.
£9.49
Vintage Publishing The Gap of Time
Book SynopsisA shining delight of a novel'New York Times ''Clever and beautiful...it soars''Financial Times A baby girl is abandoned, banished from London to the storm-ravaged American city of New Bohemia. Her father has been driven mad by jealousy, her mother to exile by grief. Seventeen years later, Perdita doesn''t know a lot about who she is or where she''s come from - but she''s about to find out. Jeanette Winterson's cover version of The Winter's Tale vibrates with echoes of Shakespeare''s original and tells a story of hearts broken and hearts healed, a story of revenge and forgiveness, a story that shows that whatever is lost shall be found.Emotionally wrought and profoundly intelligent... A supremely clever, compelling and emotionally affecting novel that deserves multiple readings to appreciate its many layers'Mail on Sunday ''There are passages here so coTrade ReviewShe makes us read on, our hearts in our mouths, to see how a twice-told story will turn out this time * Publishers Weekly *The intricacy with which Winterson has plotted her novel against each Shakespearean detail will delight readers familiar with the original … it’s part of a vision of a world in which past, present, and future are lived simultaneously, original and adaptation existing in the same moment. * The Times *A book of considerable beauty… Winterson’s fiction is a fine invitation into this deeply Shakespearean vision of imagination as the best kind of truth-telling -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman *Winterson’s stage, like that of Shakespeare, is filled with wonders -- Frances Wilson * Times Literary Supplement *Winterson is faithful to both the narrative and the spirit of the play, while transposing it to an utterly different and modern setting… There is lightness here, in the frisky prose and the author’s delight in invention, but you are never free of the awareness of dark shadows where danger and corruption lie in wait. -- Allan Massie * Scotsman *Clever and beautiful...it soars * Financial Times *A deeply felt, emotionally intelligent and serious novel, which resists easy answers and yet expresses the hope that human beings can muddle through, and that bad pasts can have good outcomes... Pulsates with such authenticity and imaginative generosity that I defy you not to engage with it. -- Andrew Dickson * Independent *The Winter’s Tale, one of the late, 'problem' plays, is about loss, remorse and forgiveness, and the nature of time. Winterson has captured all this with respect and affection for Shakespeare’s text, and made it new with her own bold and poetic prose and her insights into love and grief. There are passages here so concisely beautiful they give you goosebumps. -- Lucasta Miller * Radar *Emotionally wrought and profoundly intelligent it will pull you into its troubled, wise world of jealousy, paranoia, grief, revenge and forgiveness in some of the most stunning prose you’ll read this year … Winterson masterfully interweaves layers of narrative and themes so that reading the novel is like listening to a Bach prelude and fugue … A supremely clever, compelling and emotionally affecting novel that deserves multiple readings to appreciate its many layers. -- Hannah Beckerman * Mail on Sunday *Engrossing, almost soapily addictive * Independent *
£7.99
Pan Macmillan Let Them Eat Chaos: Mercury Prize Shortlisted
Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 MERCURY MUSIC PRIZELet Them Eat Chaos, Kae Tempest's new long poem written for live performance and heard on the album release of the same name, is both a powerful sermon and a moving play for voices. Seven neighbours inhabit the same London street, but are all unknown to each other. The clock freezes in the small hours, and, one by one, we see directly into their lives: lives that are damaged, disenfranchised, lonely, broken, addicted, and all, apparently, without hope. Then a great storm breaks over London, and brings them out into the night to face each other - and their last chance to connect. Tempest argues that our alienation from one another has bred a terrible indifference to our own fate, but they counters this with a plea to challenge the forces of greed which have conspired to divide us, and mend the broken home of our own planet while we still have time. Let Them Eat Chaos is a cri de coeur and a call to action, and, both on the page and in Tempest's electric performance, one of the most powerful poetic statements of the year.Trade ReviewIn terms of visibility, Kate Tempest is currently way ahead of her performance-poet peers. Out on her own, she sounds like a woman who knows exactly what she's doing -- Alexis Petridis * Guardian *Kate Tempest’s Let Them Eat Chaos is this year’s antidote to Brexit and Trump. Across genre, across politics, across imagination. Rapper. Ranter. Run-a-way. Runway -- Jeanette Winterson * Guardian *
£11.39
Wisdom Publications,U.S. The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy
Book SynopsisOver 125 poetic companions, from Basho to Billy Collins, Saigyo to Shakespeare.The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy received the Spirituality & Practice Book Award for 50 Best Spiritual Books in 2017 by Spirituality and Practice Website. The poems expertly gathered here offer all that one might hope for in spiritual companionship: wisdom, compassion, peacefulness, good humor, and the ability to both absorb and express the deepest human emotions of grief and joy. The book includes a short essay on “Mindful Reading” and a meditation on sound from editor John Brehm—helping readers approach the poems from an experiential, non-analytical perspective and enter into the mindful reading of poetry as a kind of meditation. The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy offers a wide-ranging collection of 129 ancient and modern poems unlike any other anthology on bookshelves today. It uniquely places Buddhist poets like Han Shan, Tu Fu, Saigyo, Ryokan, Basho, Issa, and others alongside modern Western poets one would not expect to find in such a collection—poets like Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, William Stafford, Denise Levertov, Jack Gilbert, Ellen Bass, Billy Collins, and more. What these poems have in common, no matter whether they are explicitly Buddhist, is that all reflect the essential truths the Buddha articulated 2,500 years ago. The book provides an important poetic complement to the many prose books on mindfulness practice—the poems here both reflect and embody the dharma in ways that can’t be matched by other modes of writing. Its unique features include an introduction that discusses the themes of impermanence, mindfulness, and joy and explores the relationship between them. Biographical notes place the poets in historical context and offer quotes and anecdotes to help readers learn about the poets’ lives.
£11.69
Oneworld Publications The Little Book of Love
Book SynopsisOne of the world’s favourite poets, Kahlil Gibran was never more profound than when he wrote about love. He believed it was the raison d’être of the universe. With the simplicity and lyrical beauty of The Prophet, his reflections on love and friendship have been gathered together in one volume and illustrated with the poet's own paintings. Compiled by the world’s leading expert on Gibran, this beautiful collection is a timeless celebration of humanity’s most enduring force, and a perfect gift for those tired of clichéd romantic verse.
£6.99
Canongate Books Poetry Unbound
Book Synopsis
£11.69
HarperCollins Publishers Under Milk Wood
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.We are not wholly bad or good, who live our lives under Milk Wood.On a dark moonless night in spring, the seaside town of Llareggub sleeps. Dreams of hope and heartache unfurl, revealing the innermost desires and fears of its inhabitants. But when morning arrives, the chaotic muddle of everyday life begins again: the hardships, the gossip, the quarrels, the moments of tenderness and love, all intertwined in a spectacular chorus of voices.A much loved and celebrated modern classic, Dylan Thomas originally wrote Under Milk Wood as a radio drama and it was first broadcast by the BBC in 1954. Since then, Thomas's masterful and humorous depiction of his characters continues to entertain and resonate with readers today.
£5.62
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Kane Complete Plays
Book SynopsisThis volume contains the complete collection of Sarah Kane's plays, including "Blasted"; "Phaedra's Love"; "Cleansed"; "Crave"; "4.48 Psychosis"; and "Skin".Table of ContentsBlasted; Phaedra's Love; Cleansed; Crave; 4.48 Psychosis; Skin
£20.89
Faber & Faber The Ash Girl
Book SynopsisWhen an invitation to The Ball arrives at the Ash girl''s house, from Prince Amir, she can''t bring herself to believe that she, like her sisters, can go. With her mother dead and her father away, she must learn to fight the monsters that have slithered and insinuated their way into her heart and mind. In this wondrous drama Timberlake Wertenbaker explores the beauty and terror inherent in growing up.The Ash Girl premiered at Birmingham Rep in 2001.
£999.99
Penguin Books Ltd Averno
Book Synopsis''Brilliant poems of complex, haunting power... Averno may be Glück''s masterpiece'' The New York Times Book ReviewAn acclaimed collection from the Nobel prize-winning poetThis startlingly original reworking of the Persephone myth takes us to the icy shores of Averno, the crater lake regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld. Here, the consolations of rebirth and renewal are eclipsed by the immediacy of loss - by a mother''s possessive grief, an abducted girl''s equivocal memories, a farmer''s lament for a lost harvest. This chorus offers neither comfort nor solace but deepened understanding, its sorrow textured by the poet''s luminous wit. Together, the poems of Averno swell to a staggeringly powerful lamentation, through which the reader glimpses the ecstasy of the inevitable, only to find it resisted by the insistent, impersonal presence of the Earth.Trade ReviewBrilliant [poems of] complex, haunting power... Averno may be Glück's masterpiece. Certainly it demonstrates that she is writing at the peak of her powers. -- Nicholas Christopher * New York Times Book Review *Few poets can shoulder the weight of the myth the way Glück does...The poems brilliantly display a poet's insight, a mother's warmth, and a mortal's empath. There is wry humour, too, and, amid much that is dark, there are fragments of hope. * New Yorker *[An] intense and ambitious collection. * Guardian *An important collection...Averno has the feeling of an urgent inner dialogue between the believer and the skeptic. * Boston Review *An ageing soul's lyrical book of days ... The title poem will break your heart every time you read it but also affirm you in the toughest moments ... When Glück takes a broader look, the scope can be truly epical; when she looks inward you can sometimes hear your own voice. And her tenderness is breathtaking. -- Ilya Kaminsky * Library Journal *
£8.54
Faber & Faber The Poetry of Derek Walcott 19482013
Book SynopsisThe Poetry of Derek Walcott 19482013 draws from every stage of the poet''s storied career. Here are examples of his very earliest work, like ''In My Eighteenth Year'', published when the poet himself was still a teenager; his first widely celebrated verse, like ''A Far Cry from Africa'', which speaks of violence, of loyalties divided in one''s very blood; his mature work, like ''The Schooner Flight'' from The Star-Apple Kingdom; and his late masterpieces, like the tender ''Sixty Years After'', from the 2010 collection White Egrets. Across sixty-five years, Walcott has grappled with the themes that have defined his work as they have defined his life: the unsolvable riddle of identity; the painful legacy of colonialism on his native Caribbean island of St Lucia; the mysteries of faith and love; the trauma of growing old, of losing friends, family, one''s own memory. This collection, selected by Walcott''s friend the poet Glyn Maxwell, will prove as enduri
£17.00
Pan Macmillan Macbeth
Book SynopsisDark and violent, Macbeth is also the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's tragedies. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated throughout by Sir John Gilbert, and includes an introduction by Dr Robert Mighall.Promised a golden future as ruler of Scotland by three sinister witches, Macbeth murders the king to ensure his ambitions are realized. But he soon learns the meaning of terror - killing once, he must kill again and again, and the dead return to haunt him. A story of war and witchcraft, Macbeth also explores the relationship between husband and wife, and the risks they are prepared to take to achieve their desires.Trade ReviewEvery generation continues to be in his debt. Shakespeare’s plots, which are brilliantly polyvalent, continue to inspire ceaseless adaptations and spin-offs. His unforgettable phrase-making recurs on the lips of millions who do not realise they are quoting Shakespeare * Guardian *
£9.49
Andrews McMeel Publishing Oaths
Book SynopsisThe poems within Oaths contain a promise made to oneself for a better future. Read with all the hope you can muster.A stunning and emotional follow-up to 2022’s Serenity, poet F.S. Yousaf continues his exploration of the self along the journey into adulthood in Oaths. This earnest collection picks up where Serenity left off, speaking to young readers who may be struggling with finding purpose in life and feeling hopeless in the face of recession, war, and division. Yousaf doesn’t offer answers, but a welcoming hand and a warm embrace to remind us all that we are not alone on the journey toward hope, love, and a life of meaning.
£11.69
Profile Books Ltd The Lady in the Van
Book SynopsisIn 1974, the homeless Miss Shepherd moved her broken down van into Alan Bennett's garden. Deeply eccentric and stubborn to her bones, Miss Shepherd was not an easy tenant. And Bennett, despite inviting her in the first place, was a reluctant landlord. And yet she lived there for fifteen years. This account of those years was first published in 1989 in the London Review of Books. The play premiered in 1999, directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Dame Maggie Smith, who reprise their roles in this new film adaptation. Shot on location at Bennett's house, Alex Jennings plays the author, alongside household names including Frances de la Tour, Jim Broadbent and Dominic Cooper.Trade ReviewPraise for Alan Bennett: 'Has you laughing as well as mopping your eyes. Utter genius * Daily Mail *Clear-eyed, touching, occasionally waspish ... ever honest * The Times *Alan Bennett continues to surprise and delight -- John Banville * Daily Telegraph *A perfect stocking filler for just about anyone -- Monica Ali * Guardian *
£6.99
Faber & Faber Englander N What We Talk About When We Talk About
Book SynopsisA viciously funny and intelligently provocative play about family, friendship and faith, adapted by the author from his Pulitzer-finalist short story. Who in your life would you trust to keep you alive?
£10.44
Faber & Faber Magnetic Field
Book SynopsisGrowing up in Marsden among the hills of West Yorkshire, Simon Armitage has always associated his early poetic experiences with the night-time view from his bedroom window, those private, moonstruck observations' and the clockwork comings and goings in the village providing rich subject matter for his first poems. Decades on, that window continues to operate as both framework and focal point for the writing, the vastness of the surrounding moors always at his shoulder and forming a constant psychological backdrop, no matter how much time has elapsed and how distant those experiences.Magnetic Field brings together Armitage's Marsden poems, from his very first pamphlet to new work from a forthcoming collection. It offers personal insight into a preoccupation that shows no signs of fading, and his perspective on a locality he describes as transcendent and transgressive', a genuinely unique region forming a frontier territory between many different worlds. Magnetic Fi
£11.69
Granta Publications Ltd Heritage Aesthetics
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023 What does it mean to have 'heritage', and how do we perform or undo it? In these daring and sonorous poems, Anaxagorou conducts a researched unpacking of two countries whose dividing lines of a colonial past are still visible and felt. Uniquely engaged with the complexities of Cyprus and the diasporic experience, these poems map both an island's public history alongside a person's private reckoning. They offer a ferocious and uncompromising look towards the damaging historical structures that have led to now. Fearless, intensely honest and hopeful, Heritage Aesthetics merges Anthony's gift for performance and his brilliant experimentation with form to create a vivid insistence to communicate a self in the world.Trade ReviewOne of the most politically engaged poets of our time... Uncompromisingly inventive, Heritage Aesthetics taps into the discordant music of our time and stops us in our tracks -- Kit Fan, author of Diamond HillAn education in empathy and its limitations, the liminality and porousness of nations, histories, races and memory... This is poetry bordering on pure imagination, one that makes its own conditions for living in the now -- Sandeep Parmar
£999.99
Faber & Faber Nachtland
Book SynopsisThe people who buy paintings like this aren't just driven by aesthetic desire. People who buy paintings like this want a story. A story that catapults them into the orbit of the Führer.As Nicola and Philipp are clearing out their late father's house, they find an old painting stashed in the attic: a quaint watercolour of a church on a pale summer day, signed A. Hitler'.Nicola wants to sell it. Philipp wants to keep it. Philipp's wife Judith wants to burn it.A jagged satire from one of Germany''s foremost playwrights, Nachtland opened at the Young Vic Theatre, London, in February 2024.
£10.44
Carcanet Press Ltd A Responsibility to Awe
Book SynopsisRebecca Elson's A Responsibility to Awe reissued as a Carcanet Classic. A Responsibility to Awe is a contemporary classic, a book of poems and reflections by a scientist for whom poetry was a necessary aspect of research, crucial to understanding the world and her place in it, even as, having contracted terminal cancer, she confronted her early death. Rebecca Elson was an astronomer; her work took her to the boundary of the visible and measurable. `Facts are only as interesting as the possibilities they open up to the imagination,’ she wrote. Her poems, like her researches, build imaginative inferences and speculations, setting out from observation, undeterred by knowing how little we can know.
£11.69
Oxford University Press The Lady Of Shalott
Book SynopsisOne of the nation's favourite poems in a beautifully illustrated edition for children.Trade ReviewKeeping's illustrations are amongst the most powerful images ever to have appeared in children's literature. * Books for Keeps *The striking quality of these classic poems is such that they still offer excitement and intensity for today's young readers with Keeping's unique interpretation providing a marvellous way into the poetry. * Dave Chant, Carousel *
£8.54
Nick Hern Books Machinal
Book SynopsisA powerful expressionist drama from the 1920s about the dependent status of women in an increasingly mechanised society, based on the true story of Ruth Snyder. Sophie Treadwell was a campaigning journalist in America between the wars. Among her assignments was the sensational murder involving Snyder, who with her lover, Judd Gray, had murdered her husband and gone to the electric chair. 'This is a play written in anger. In the dead wasteland of male society – it seems to ask – isn't it necessary for certain women, at least, to resort to murder?' - Nicholas Wright Sophie Treadwell's play Machinal was first seen on Broadway in 1928, in London in 1930, and was later revived in the 1990s. This edition of Machinal includes an introduction by Judith E. Barlow.Trade Review'Gripping... doesn't loosen its hold on the senses until its shattering climax' * Independent *'Stingingly fresh and provocative' * Time Out New York *'[A work of] rare and disturbing beauty' * New York Times *'Gaspingly intense... Machinal remains pretty extraordinary stuff... [Treadwell's] spare, percussive language frequently feels like it could have been written yesterday' * Time Out *'A dazzling piece of work... Machinal, written in 1928, has lost none of its cold fury, its expressionistic power to depict a woman trapped by a society that expects her to marry and conform. It is astonishingly modern' * Whatsonstage *'An unforgettable portrait of a particular woman and of America itself as a hellishly dehumanised assembly line' * Guardian *'Feels strikingly modern: its sharp, splintered depiction of a young woman breaking apart in a dehumanising, mechanised world could have been written yesterday… an eloquent and groundbreaking play' * Financial Times *'Machinal was decades ahead of its time and still feels astonishingly, and depressingly, pertinent' * Radio Times *'Captivating, intense and resonant... a fascinating piece, a formally bold and explicitly feminist study of an ordinary woman who snaps under societal pressure... demonstrates Treadwell’s adventurousness as a playwright' * The Stage *
£999.99
Penguin Books Ltd Arthurian Romances Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisFantastic adventures abound in these courtly romances: Erec and Enide, Cligés, The Knight of the Cart, The Knight with the Lion, and The Story of the Grail.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Table of ContentsTranslated with Introduction and Notes by William W. Kibler; Erec and Enide translated by Carleton W. CarrollIntroductionA Note on the TranslationsSelect BibliographyErec and EnideCligésThe Knight of the Cart (Lancelot)The Knight with the Lion (Yvain)The Story of the Grail (Perceval)Appendix: The Story of the Grail ContinuationsGlossary of Medieval TermsNotes
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Book SynopsisRevered in eleventh-century Persia as an astronomer, mathematician and philosopher, Omar Khayyam is now known first and foremost for his Ruba''iyat. The short epigrammatic stanza form allowed poets of his day to express personal feelings, beliefs and doubts with wit and clarity, and Khayyam became one of its most accomplished masters with his touching meditations on the transience of human life and of the natural world. One of the supreme achievements of medieval literature, the reckless romanticism and the pragmatic fatalism in the face of death means these verses continue to hold the imagination of modern readers.
£8.54
Carcanet Press Ltd New York Poets: An Anthology
Book SynopsisFor the first time, "The New York Poets" gathers in a single volume the best work of four extraordinary poets: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler. By the early 1950s all four were settled in Manhattan, collaborating, competing and encouraging each other's radical experiments with language and form. Much of their work reflects their participation in the creative energies of the New York art scene, 'the floods of paint', to quote James Schuyler, 'in whose crashing surf we all scramble'. Believing that anything could be material for a poem, they transformed American poetry with their irreverent wit and daring. Mark Ford's anthology is an essential introduction to four poets whose work has influenced poetry around the world. It includes detailed background information and a substantial bibliography.Table of ContentsFrank O'Hara John Ashbery Kenneth Koch James Schuyler
£13.46
Pearson Education Limited A Streetcar Named Desire
Book SynopsisThe "Heinemann Plays" series offers contemporary drama and classic plays in classroom editions. Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. This play depicts the conflict between a fading Southern belle and the brash lower-class society of her sister's family.
£20.04
Oxford University Press The Iliad
Book Synopsis''Fitzgerald has solved virtually every problem that has plagued translators of Homer.'' Atlantic Monthly The Iliad is the story of a few days'' fighting in the tenth year of the legendary war between the Greeks and the Trojans, which broke out when Paris, son of King Priam of Troy, abducted the fabulously beautiful Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. After a quarrel between the Greek commander, Agamemnon, and the greatest of the Greek warriors, Achilles, the gods become more closely involved in the action. Their intervention leads to the tragic death of Hector, the Trojan leader, and to the final defeat of the Trojans. But the Iliad is much more than a series of battle scenes. It is a work of extraordinary pathos and profundity that concerns itself with issues as fundamental as the meaning of life and death. Even the heroic ethic itself - with its emphasis on pride, honour, prowess in battle, and submission to the inexorable will of the gods - is not left unquestioned. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade Review'Fitzgerald has solved virtually every problem that has plagued translators of Homer.' Atlantic Monthly
£7.59
Penguin Books Ltd Selected Poetry
Book SynopsisThis is to be the first verse translation of Goethe''s poetry in penguin classics and replaces Luke''s own 1964 prose translation which has been in print continously since then (life sales 43,000).
£11.69
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.
£10.80
Josef Weinberger Plays Playscript Of Mice and Men
Book Synopsis
£10.44
Oxford University Press The Masnavi Book Three
Book Synopsis''Your soul each moment struggles hard with death -Think of your faith as though it''s your last breath.Your life is like a purse, and night and dayAre counters of gold coins you''ve put away''Rumi is the greatest mystic poet to have written in Persian, and the Masnavi is his masterpiece. Divided into six books and consisting of some 26,000 verses, the poem was designed to convey a message of divine love and unity to the disciples of Rumi''s Sufi order, known today as the Whirling Dervishes. Like the earlier books, Book Three interweaves amusing stories with homilies to instruct pupils in mystical knowledge. It has a special focus on epistemology, illustrated with narratives that involve the consumption of food. This is the first ever verse translation of Book Three of the Masnavi. It follows the original by presenting Rumi''s most mature mystical teachings in simple and attractive rhyming couplets.
£9.49
Everyman Irish Poems
Book SynopsisWith its roots in the devotional verse of the early Christian church and the long lyric poems of the Irish bards, Irish poetry has a rich and robust tradition both of engagement and self-reflection. It has grappled long with politics and has provided the most eloquent response to Ireland's turbulent history, mediating and mitigating histories of loyalty and loss; it has soaked itself in the Irish landscape and Celtic myth; it has encompassed religion, so much a part of Ireland's cultural heritage. At the same time Irish poets have given their own original slant to everyday experience and affairs of the heart.Thematically organized and spanning many centuries, this selection also features a section of Gaelic poetry in translation, notably excerpts from the 18th-century epic masterpiece, Brian Merriman's The Midnight Court.
£10.80
Bloodaxe Books Ltd Over the Moon
Book SynopsisImtiaz Dharker was born in Pakistan, grew up a Muslim Calvinist in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. Her main themes are drawn from a life of transitions: childhood, exile, journeying, home, displacement, religious strife and terror, and latterly, grief. She is also an accomplished artist, and all her collections are illustrated with her drawings, which form an integral part of her books. Over the Moon is her fifth book from Bloodaxe. These are poems of joy and sadness, of mourning and celebration: poems about music and feet, church bells, beds, cafe tables, bad language and sudden silence. In contrast with her previous work written amidst the hubbub of India, these new poems are mostly set in London, where she has built a new life with - and since the death of - her husband Simon Powell.Trade Review'This is a passionate, uplifting collection of poems about language, love and loss, grief and joy, elegy and celebration. The loss of a great love makes poems of piercing beauty. In her finest book to date, Imtiaz Dharker finds resolution in language itself, and in a world the more loved for the sharpness of loss' - Gillian Clarke. 'Imtiaz Dharker's new collection is the crown to a celebratory, humane, wholly utterable, subtly crafted poetry. Its dark jewels are the magnificent poems of bereavement, which will surely endure. Reading her, one feels that were there to be a World Laureate, Imtiaz Dharker would be the only candidate' - Carol Ann Duffy.
£10.80
Manchester University Press The Duchess of Malfi By John Webster Revels
Book SynopsisBased on the reprinted Revels Plays Edition of 1964, the notes to this play have been augmented to cast futher light on Webster's dialogue. A new introduction sets the tragedy in the context of pre-Civil War England and discusses the play's themes, action and visual imagery.
£12.28
Penned in the Margins WITCH
Book Synopsis"WITCH is sexy, frightening and cerebral. Rebecca Tamás is the real deal." KATHERINE ANGEL; WITCH is a strange, visceral and darkly witty debut by a startling new voice in British poetry. Rebecca Tamas reckons with blood and earth, mysticism and the devil, witch trials and the suffragettes, gender and sexuality. At turns lyrical, philosophical and obscene, WITCH evokes the intimate, sensual power of nature and merges it with the revolutionary potential of women's voices. These are poems as spells - spells against suppression, silence and obedience; hexes that cling to your body like sweat, full of a messy, violent joy, `a small, bright, filthy song'. Feminist, ecological and occult, WITCH grabs history and shakes it, demanding: `Wake me up when it really gets started'.Trade Review'My heart pounded as I read WITCH; I felt as if Tamas's words were burning the page as I read. WITCH is sexy, frightening, and cerebral at once; full of the weight of history, while also being witty, contemporary, and playful. What Tamas does with language, and with the legacy of the witch, is thrillingly strange. She is the real deal.' -Katherine Angel; 'Emerging from the gloom, in tar, grit and blood, WITCH is an occult trip, a miasmic universe without stricture. A fissure through the lyric mode, the poems ooze up through the cracks like lava. Demons, vomit, eggs, agony; I want to live inside this book.' -Rachael Allen; 'Sharp-witted, trenchant and bold, Rebecca Tamas' WITCH constellates the characteristics of instinctual life by pulling sexuality into the realm of the archetypal, where we are challenged to face witch qualities within our own unconscious. By targeting the body, these stunning poems awaken primordial parts of our being, releasing energy that had been mobilized towards repression, so that we become free to taste the radical eroticism of volcanic God-speaking feelings. These spells and hexes reanimate historical female silence, demanding that we listen to all that had been kept latent for so long. Can we accept the witch - the female within ourselves - as she is, without trying to make her conform to our expectations? To do so, we would have to adjust our thinking instead of forcing adjustment in the Other-we would have to change ourselves. WITCH leads the way.' -Nuar Alsadir; 'Rebecca Tamas' WITCH is the book of poems we need in 2019. Part poetry book, part questionnaire, and part spell book, WITCH is immediate and vibrant, talking directly to us with its eyes on us from the first page and relentlessly until the end. Like a vengeful hornet, the persona in these pages waits for us as we swim idly by in the lake until we come up for air so that it can sting us again. Like a demon, the persona hides under the table until we lift up the tablecloth and see its shining eyes. This is a book that stays with you, long after you are done reading it. WITCH makes us question what or who we pray to, what we write poems for, and how we are living and if this is really the right way. More than anything, WITCH asks to reconsider our relationship to humanity and how we use the terms good or evil to explain any universal human action. In the midst of gorgeous and horrific imagery, which cuts us like glass, it tells us to be kind to each other. WITCH is such a wise book. It tells us what we need to hear. ' - Dorothea Lasky.
£9.49
