Poetry Books

Book SynopsisFilled with hickeys puttanesca and tart wit, BITER is an apt title for Claudia Jardine’s debut collection of verse. Fresh translations of erotic Greek epigrams are threaded through boozy sonnets, ecstatic odes and startlingly vulnerable love poems. Jardine weaves ancient and modern together into a rich, glitzy, idiosyncratic tapestry – and in doing so crafts a poetic voice that is at once classical and frisky.

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Book SynopsisIn Gleam, Sarah Broom's powerful poems explore the effect of a life-threatening condition by way of the landscapes of the natural world, charting the hardest things in beautiful language. Broom's forte is encapsulating, expressing and making sense of strong internal feeling and turmoil through metaphor. This impressive collection examines basic human truths with clarity and force - 'we are flesh and blood after all / and we do not like to die' - and will open out painful, rewarding vistas for its readers.

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Book SynopsisHow can language contain the world that spillsFrom its torn rinds, how can my ode holdOn to language that ejects itself like birdsongFrom pine trees still shady with dawn . . . ‘To Mount Victoria’, The Commonplace OdesIan Wedde has been a major presence in New Zealand poetry since his work began appearing in journals in the late 1960s. His first book of poetry appeared in 1971; his sixth book won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry in 1978; his sixteenth and most recent was a finalist in 2014. By the mid-1980s, as well as shaping his own verse, he had become an influential critic and shaper of larger trends in poetry as one of the co-editors of The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse (1985) and The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry – Ng? Kupu T?tohu o Aotearoa (1989). After a quiet spell in the mid- to late 1990s came the much celebrated The Commonplace Odes in 2001, in which Wedde offered the Horatian/Keatsian ode as transformative a moment as Baxter had given the sonnet back in 1970. Three excellent books followed, most recently The Lifeguard: Poems 2008–2013, published at the end of his tenure as New Zealand Poet Laureate. While Wedde has constantly experimented with and pushed boundaries of form and influence in his poetry, his work returns often to key themes and ideas, preoccupations and effects that this book throws into brilliant relief: a politics of language, social and ecological relationships, how memory works, the perceptual world. The son Carlos of Earthly: Sonnets for Carlos (1975) is now a father himself; Ian Wedde’s poems are now more likely to feature grandchildren. But the ranging, tenacious, conceptual-romantic poet, with his linguistically rich but intellectually rigorous voice, is the same, and tracing that voice through nearly five decades will be one of the many pleasures readers take from this book.With selections from 1971’s Homage to Matisse all the way through to 2013’s The Lifeguard, Ian Wedde’s Selected Poems will introduce readers new and old to one of New Zealand’s most distinguished contemporary poets.

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Book SynopsisUneasy nights out with dead Russian poets, dalliances with German gasfitters and emotionally fraught games of badminton are brought together for the first time, along with a brand new body of work, in this time-spanning selection of Anna Jackson's poetry. Local gothic, suburban pastoral and answerings-back to literary icons are all enhanced by Jackson's light hand and sly humour. Pastoral yet gritty, intellectual and witty, sweet but with stings in their tails, the poems and sequences collected in Pasture and Flock are essential reading for both long-term and new admirers of Jackson's slanted approach to lyric poetry.Trade ReviewI feel that I must start by mentioning the cover, its stark black and white trees and hens and just a tiny drop of red for the hen's combs, the title and the authors name. Very bold and very pleasing, rather like the poems themselves. - Marcus Hobson

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Book SynopsisHaare Williams grew up with his Tuhoe grandparents on the shores of Ohiwa Harbour in a te reo world of Tane and Tangaroa, Te Kooti and the old testament, of Nani Wai and curried cockle stew - a world that Haare left behind when he learnt English at school and moved to Auckland. Over the last half-century, through the Maori arts movement, waves of protest and the rise of Maori broadcasting, Haare Williams has witnessed and played a part in the changing shape of Maoridom. And in his poetry and prose, in te reo Maori and English, Haare has a unique ability to capture both the wisdom of te ao Maori and the transformation of that world. This book, edited and introduced by Witi Ihimaera, brings together the poetry and prose of Haare Williams to produce a work that is a biography of the man and his times. The book is a celebration of a kaumatua and an exemplar of his wisdom.Trade Review`In this collection, we are privileged to obtain the wisdom of a Maori elder of the old school. And how fortunate we are to hear his songs in a life where, like the kopara he, too, has often had to beat against the storm.' - from the introduction by Witi Ihimaera

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Book SynopsisOur mother's clouds and insects fly to embrace your clouds and insects. Her architecture, roads, bridges and infrastructure rush to greet yours. Her molecules on their upward trajectory entwine with yours, the colour of her eyes, hair and skin. Her language, with its past participles, figures of speech, the sounds and tremors which are its flesh and bones these words go out to greet your words and to greet you - these words which will never leave her. House & Contents is a moving meditation on earthquakes and uncertainties, parents and hats, through Gregory O'Brien's remarkable poetry and paintings.Trade Review'Since I taught Greg O'Brien almost forty years ago, his writing has matured and developed in cunning and wisdom; but it is still the work of the writer as I first encountered him. His combination of visual and verbal art was and is extraordinary. Greg loves beautiful things, and creates them of words and in paint. He has established his identity as poet, craftsman, painter, a sort of impresario of aesthetic order-in-disorder. Admired both at home and abroad, he is unique among New Zealand poets in the way he combines his two arts and makes them one, each enhancing the other. Bright, fresh and surprising, bordering on the surreal yet peculiar in its literalness, House & Contents is a challenge to the reader - one of rare quality and true originality.' - C. K. Stead

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Book SynopsisTunui Comet is the first collection in more than a decade by one of our most important living Maori poets. Rolling easily between korero Maori and the canonical traditions of English-language poetry, through karakia and powhiri, treaty training and decolonisation wikis, Robert Sullivan takes readers on a marvellous poetic hikoi. Guided by Maui and Tawhirimatea, Moana Jackson and Freddie Mercury, we walk from K'Rd council flats to Kaka Point, finding ourselves and our ancestors along the way.Trade Review'Tunui | Comet displays all the elegance, eloquence and craft one would expect from this Maori writer, who is one of the outstanding poets of his generation. This is a distinctive and rich collection about unity and location, using the compass of poetry to celebrate our archipelago of islands. Robert Sullivan has deftly fused the classicism of the European tradition with Maori animism and a new world wonder, even as he defamiliarises the ordinary.' (David Eggleton)

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Book SynopsisI was Dick. I teased Anne and George. I was Edmund, betrayed my friends for a sweet. Something rotten in me. — from ‘My childhood’ In his third poetry collection, award-winning poet Tim Upperton takes us to the end of the driveway, over the Manawatū – twisting like an eel – and on to Topeka and Paris. These are poems of acid wit (‘I have been to Paris / and apart from the architecture / and the food and some very fine cemeteries / and of course the language / it’s quite like Palmerston North’), intimations of loss (‘The wrong life cannot be lived rightly. I should know’) and unexpected resolution (‘like pollen, / like grace so available nobody wanted it’). Unpredictable and restive, A Riderless Horse stands in the everyday and then runs with it.Trade Review‘I greatly admire Upperton’s virtuosity as a poet (so much variety of tone, form and feeling) – and how much of the world he manages to get into his poems. This arresting, sometimes zany, sometimes mordant collection will further add to his literary standing.’ — Harry Ricketts

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Book SynopsisFrom the South Auckland Poets Collective to regional writers festivals, at poetry slams and open mic nights, in theatre works like Show Ponies and Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, performance poetry has taken off in Aotearoa. In this anthology, ninety performance poets, rappers, spoken-word artists, slam poets, theatre makers, genre blenders and storytellers come together to celebrate the diverse voices and communities within Aotearoa – including Ben Brown and Mohamed Hassan, Grace Iwashita-Taylor and Tusiata Avia, Nathan Joe and Dominic Hoey, Freya Daly Sadgrove, David Eggleton and Selina Tusitala Marsh. Rapture is a parallel narrative about contemporary poetry in Aotearoa – one that doesn’t just sit on the page, but leaps from it.

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Book SynopsisWhere is my tongue? On display, a trophy of war. Where is my tikanga? Kept in the basement. Where is my mana? Locked in the museum. And where are my whānau? Scattered like dandelion seeds, from the grating city, to the harnessed horizon. Drawing moko kauae on Barbies. Reading Ranginui Walker in rāhui. Spitting on the statue of Captain Cook. Āria is a first collection of poems by Jessica Hinerangi in which the author reconnects with her tūpuna and with te ao Māori. He kākano ahau i ruia mai i Rangiātea ā, ka tipu tonu. Tihei, mauri ora!

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Book SynopsisAlthough he is best known for his high-energy, humour-laced performances seen at comedy nights, punk gigs and poetry shows across the UK, this collection shows a more intimate side of T.S. IDIOT. Written between 2019-2022, these poems document a fictional 12-hour window as the poet walks through 3 years' worth of grief for lost friends, broken relationships, mental breakdownsand ultimately, the scraps of love, resilience and belonging found along the way that might just help us get through this.

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Book SynopsisThe first Yiddish/English bilingual edition of one of Yiddish literature's most vital post-war poets. Born in the Ukrainian town of Haysin and raised in Crimea, Yosef Kerler was perhaps the only Yiddish poet to publish poetry written in the gulag. He would later become one of the first prominent refuseniks. This collection proves strikingly timely, with the poet's complicated relationship to his "cradle-land" echoing throughout, in poems of Ukrainian forests and folk heroes, of the Vorkuta Gulag and Babi Yar.

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Book SynopsisThree mini-plays by the German wunderkind and asylum-dweller.Trade Review"One of the most profound creations and one that is enough on its own to explain why the most powerful of all writers was a favorite author of the merciless Franz Kafka." -- Walter Benjamin"A Paul Klee in prose—as delicate, as shy, as haunted. A cross between Stevie Smith and Beckett." -- Susan Sontag"If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place." -- Hermann Hesse

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Book SynopsisThis accessible edition for students brings the Agamemnon, Aeschylus'' opening play in the Oresteia trilogy, to life for first-time readers. A hugely popular play in antiquity and with a rich reception history to the present day, this is an essential play for students of classics, drama and the canon of western literature. Leah Himmelhoch provides a helpful guide for students and instructors wishing to study and teach the play, building on her over twenty-five years of experience teaching college and university students. A quick introduction sets out Agamemnons historical, literary, and performative context, its use of imagery and themes (especially gender conflict and the perversion of sacrificial ritual), and its subsequent literary and cultural impact while extensive commentary notes guide students through every line of the Greek text. Difficult passages are carefully explained while the power and beauty of the language is brought out at every opportunity. HimmTable of ContentsIntroduction Text Commentary Bibliography

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Book SynopsisWith a preface by Elizabeth Macneal and original illustrations by Laurence Housman.Two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, are enticed by the smells, sounds and sights of the goblin market, tempted by the ripe figs, plump cherries and fragrant berries. Whilst Lizzie resists, Laura is slowly destroyed by her insatiable longing for the goblin’s forbidden fruit.Complete & Unabridged. 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. Here is Christina Rossetti’s first critically acclaimed collection of poetry. Published in 1862, as well as ‘Goblin Market’ it contains some of her most treasured work, such as ‘A Birthday’, ‘An Apple Gathering’ and ‘Remember’. It launched her career as the foremost female poet of her time and, more than a century later, modern readers are still seduced by its symbolism and sensual language.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Book of the YearAstrid is returning home from art school on Mars, looking for inspiration. Darling is fleeing a life that never fit, searching for somewhere to hide. They meet on Deep Wheel Orcadia, a distant space station struggling for survival as the pace of change threatens to leave the community behind.Deep Wheel Orcadia is a magical first: a science-fiction verse-novel written in the Orkney dialect. This unique adventure in minority language poetry comes with a parallel translation into playful and vivid English, so the reader will miss no nuance of the original. The rich and varied cast weaves a compelling, lyric and effortlessly readable story around place and belonging, work and economy, generation and gender politics, love and desire – all with the lightness of touch, fluency and musicality one might expect of one the most talented poets to have emerged from Scotland in recent years. Hailing from Orkney, Harry Josephine Giles is widely known as a fine poet and spellbindingly original performer of their own work; Deep Wheel Orcadia now strikes out into audacious new space.Trade ReviewA symphony o yotuns, peedie suns and langships tae Mars, in Deep Wheel Orcadia Harry Josephine Giles hauds the starns in the loof o thier haun, terraformin new warlds in Scots. (A symphony of giants, miniature suns and longships to Mars, in Deep Wheel Orcadia Harry Josephine Giles holds the stars in the palm of their hand, terraforming new worlds in Scots.) -- Matthew FittDeep Wheel Orcadia is a mysterious and moving novel in verse about finding home in the farthest reaches. Giles lifts us to new worlds, in space and in language, we could never have imagined. A singular and numinous work -- Morgan M Page * author of One From the Vaults *I can't remember the last time I was this beguiled, this engrossed and this inspired by a book. It's like nothing else I've ever read. It was a joy to feel so entranced by the possibilities and complexities of each and every word. Harry Josephine Giles is a true original and a vital voice – don't miss this. -- Kirsty Logan * author of The Gracekeepers *

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Book SynopsisA stunning new edition of T. S. Eliot''s beloved cat poems Old Possum''s Book of Practical Cats, containing beautiful original colour illustrations by Axel Scheffler.Cats! Some are sane, some are mad and some are good and some are bad.Meet magical Mr Mistoffelees, sleepy Old Deuteronomy and curious Rum Tum Tugger. But you''ll be lucky to meet Macavity because Macavity''s not there!In 1925 T.S. Eliot became co-director of Faber & Faber, who remain his publishers to this day. Throughout the 1930s he composed the now famous poems about Macavity, Old Deuteronomy, Mr Mistoffelees and many other cats, under the name of ''Old Possum''. In 1981 Eliot''s poems were set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber as Cats which went on to become the longest-running Broadway musical in history. If cats, witchy or not, are your child''s thing don''t miss the new Old Possum''s Book of Practical Cats.' The

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Book SynopsisThe Epic of Ram, Volume 7 completes Tulsidas’s grand epic. Ram reunites with his family and begins his long reign. Then, an immortal sage embodied in a lowly crow reflects on Ram’s life. This edition features the Avadhi text in the Devanagari script alongside a new free verse English translation of the beloved Ramayana story.Trade Review[A] cause for celebration—one of India’s most influential texts has been translated into contemporary English by a pivotal scholar who has devoted much of his career to the text, and its afterlives…Gives us a firm starting point for charting horizons and pathways into still-living traditions. -- Nikhil Govind * Scroll.in *Lutgendorf manages a simplicity, elegance and dignity, whereas attempts to rhyme or alliterate by other translators have often resulted in bathos…If this graceful and eminently readable translation can win more readers for this great scripture, which is also the greatest poem ever written in Hindi, it would have served to reaffirm Tulsi’s belief in the countless multiplicity of Ramayans. -- Harish Trivedi * IIC Quarterly *

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Book SynopsisBarron paints a wholly plausible picture of teenage insecurity and ambition ... a play that wittily shows how dance can be a source of liberation without ever quelling the tremulous terrors of adolescence. - The GuardianSomewhere in America, a revolution is coming.An army of competitive dancers is ready to take over the world, one routine at a time.With a pre-teen battle for power and perfection raging on and off stage, Dance Nation is a ferocious exploration of youth, ambition and self-discovery.Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and The Relentless Award, Dance Nation is Clare Barron's explosive play about the challenges of being young, and competitive dancing. Published for the first time in Methuen Drama''s Modern Classics series, this edition features a brand new introduction by Eboni Booth and Purva Bedi.Trade Review[A] flat-out extraordinary play... nothing here is remotely predictable... Barron channels the rollercoaster emotions of adolescence: her girls are electric with potential, heavy with self-doubt... I loved it. * Times *Barron paints a wholly plausible picture of teenage insecurity and ambition... a play that wittily shows how dance can be a source of liberation without ever quelling the tremulous terrors of adolescence. * Guardian *Though occasionally we witness the joy of adolescence, mostly this is a vision of its messy strangeness. Barron makes it clear that her characters are fierce and feral. They’re played by adults, with the result that we sense the repercussions of their teenage turmoil — a time of fear and sharp-fanged rivalry... a perceptive account of the pain and wonder of growing up, witty about the ways in which the young are programmed to behave, and memorably alert to the particular power of female adolescence. * Evening Standard *Barron has a brilliant ear for the almost monotonous self-deprecation of young girl speak... in Barron’s signature achievement, ‘Dance Nation’ segues into scenes that border on magical realism. At the gentler end, one girl, Maeve (Nancy Crane) offers a dreamy account of her belief that she has the ability to fly. Elsewhere, though, ‘Dance Nation’ seethes with maenad frenzy. * Time Out London *

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Book Synopsisan audio version of Nan Shepherd's brilliant poetry collection, read by award-winning performer Gerda Stevenson.

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Book SynopsisEtel Adnan’s evocative new book places night at its center to unearth memories held in the body, the spirit and the landscape. This striking new book continues Adnan’s meditative observation and inquiry into the experiences of her remarkable life.Trade Review“Trained in philosophy, Beirut-born author/activist Adnan blends a meditation on the meaning of memory with memories themselves, dredged up from a long life. And surely night, her setting here, is the time for such dredging. Adnan rigorously asserts that “reason and memory move together.” But she argues that “a remembered event is a return to a mystery,” and her writing is eye-openingly lush, gorgeous, even surreal (“waves of roses are blanketing memory”), showing us the mind at work on its unstructured, uncertain edges. The epigrammatic ending, “Conversations with my soul” (“Why are we lonelier when/ together”), will feed even those who don’t typically read poetry. VERDICT A good way for sophisticated readers to recall why they first loved verse.”—Library Journal“These poems engage in a daring, meditative exploration of perception and her own experiences. Adnan does this with a courageous interiority that becomes universal as the text unfolds. Memory is a particularly notable leitmotif as it relates to identity, whether personal or collective.” —Publishers Weekly

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