Poetry Books

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTripping Over Clouds issues a bold challenge to Ezra Pound’s maxim to `go in fear of abstractions’. Underpinning this is a re-imagining of abstraction as a prior state of possibility and potential from which the world and ourselves are constantly re-emerging – as abstraction to, not from. Both philosophical and fresh, the poetry trips off and back onto the page, like the fellrunner in its opening section: `to talk about / the pleasure principle / of falling downhill fastly’. Lucy Burnett’s second collection explores how we fetch up with the world in all its variety, difficulty and beauty, ranging across encounters with mountains, love, contemporary politics and visual art. Ultimately this is a poetry which asserts hope, and playfulness, as strategies for navigating an inherently changeable sense of now.Trade Review`There is something of Dylan Thomas in the exuberant wordplay and feeling for place, and something of W.S. Graham in her exploration of language and landscape as the twin territories within which we live... Burnett’s subjects are serious ones, but her poems are joyful to read, revelling in the endless possibilities of language and of the world itself, “in whatever colour you might come”.’ - Helen Tookey; `Lucy Burnett’s poems involve us in a vivid experience of the self in landscape and language, moving playfully but with an intensity that at times leaves us breathless and amazed.’ - Grevel Lindop

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn folklore, pelican mothers feed their young on their own blood. Today, four sisters are trying to come to terms with their mother's death – and divide their mother's house between them. Joy wants a baby, Storm wants to be seen, Sage wants to be paid, Maya doesn't want anyone to find out her secret. Granny's in a wheelchair on day release – and Mum's presence still seeps through the ceiling and the floors. The Pelican Daughters are home for the last time. The Wardrobe Ensemble's play The Last of the Pelican Daughters is a comedy about four sisters trying to come to terms with their mother's death. It combines the company's trademark irreverent humour and lovable characters to tackle the idea of what it means for young people to grapple with inheritance, loss and justice. The Last of the Pelican Daughters was first staged at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019. In addition to the full script of the play, this published edition includes an extensive oral history of The Wardrobe Ensemble by its members, and a workshop plan for two people of different generations to communicate and collaborate in person or online.Trade Review'Just wonderful. The show captures the little rifts and rivalries that exist between the sisters and it has an ace up its sleeve in the form of a gorgeous, heart-flooding movement sequence' * The Stage *

Read more less

Book SynopsisSurveys the life and work of the Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay, who is best known for his extraordinary garden, Little Sparta, a unique 'poem of place' in which poetry, sculpture, and horticulture intersect. This book directs sustained attention to Finlay the verbal artist, revealing the full breadth and richness of his poetics.Trade Review"A hugely enjoyable anthology of Finlay's writings, in prose, and truly beautiful-especially when surreal-verse." -- Andrew McNeillie Country Life "[Finlay's] temples are mock-historic edifices, but who are we to say that they are not sacred sites?" Booktryst "This welcome new volume ... is full of revelations that cast new light on the subject." -- Gerald Mangan Times Literary Supplement (TLS)Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Autobiographical Sketch Introduction: Picking the Last Wild Flower EARLY WRITINGS Postcard from Glenlednoch The Money Walking through Seaweed From The Dancers Inherit the Party: The Dancers Inherit the Party Angles of Stamps O.H.M.S. Love Poem Ah, So That Is Why Bedtime Black Tomintoul Gift Frank the Bear Writes His Deb Friend Orkney Interior Optimist Milk Bottles Archie, the Lyrical Lamplighter The Writer and Beauty Finlay's House (in Rousay) The Chief Crop of Orkney Bi-Lingual Poem Island Moment Castles Jess The Island Beasts Wait for the Boat Two Variations on an Orkney Theme, with Notes Orkney Lyrics Twice Spring Holiday Catch Art Student Scene Poet End of a Holiday The Tug Glasgow Beasts, An a Burd Voyage Fishing from the Back of Rousay Another Huge Poem for Hughie Blossom Quarry, Rousay How to Be Happy Lucy's Wee Brother My Little Beat Mill in the West Poem on My Poem on Her and the Horse Such Is the World Lucky Midhope (All Gone) Dalchonzie The Pond of Oo (in Orkney) No Thank You, I Can't Come LATER WRITINGS Concrete, Fauve, Suprematist, Sequential, Kinetic and Optical Poems: Detached Sentences on Concrete Poetry Homage to Malevich A Peach an Apple Lullaby Acrobats Ring of Waves Green Waters First Suprematist Standing Poem Cythera Column Poem 3 Happenings Little Calendar Arcady Purse-Net Boat Net / planet Seams Net 3 Blue Lemons Names of Barges Point-to-Point 3 Norfolk Dishes From 'The Analects of Fishing News' From 'TA MYTIKA of Fishing News' From 'The Illuminations of Fishing News' From 'The Metamorphoses of Fishing News' Headlines, Pondlines One-Word Poems: a bird of dawning sea a heart-shape a spray, from a breton sea-hedge a sea-saw a water-lily pool osiris drip-dry curfew the boat's blueprint elegy for 'whimbrel' and petrel the cloud's anchor an orchard of russets a scotch daisy hill wave a grey shore between day and night a pinnate evergreen a patch for a rip-tide a keel with a tuck in it a machine for fishing from purse seine a sepia wild flower eec sea channel light-vessel automatic One-Line Poems and Monostich (I): The ABC of Tea Epicurus at Chatou A Pittenweem Fancy The Sea's / Waves Elegiac Inscription Stem Sea Your Name From Domestic Pensees Steam Drifter Evolution of the Boat Magic Vessel Sound Poem Kit Elegy for A From A Mast of Hankies: Preparations The Hanky Sails The Harbour The Old Nobby The Stopped Sailboat The End So You Want to Be a Panzer Leader? Fly Navy After Gael Turnbull Sundial Inscriptions: The Four Seasons as Fishingboats The Four Seasons in Sail The Four Seasons as Fore-and-Afters H)Our / Lady Be in Time Dividing the Light Earth * Air * Fire Umbra Solis Sundial (After Paul Claudel) From Detached Sentences on Gardening From Detached Sentences on the Pebble From Detached Sentences on Exile Two Translations Errata of Ovid Ovidian Flowers From Interpolations in Hegel The Months From Camouflage Sentences A Dryad Discovered Arbre (Tree) Hitler's Column From Table Talk of Ian Hamilton Finlay From Detached Sentences on Weather in the Manner of William Shenstone Heroic Anagrams Aphrodite Detached Paragraphs on the Anagram Anagrams: A Postscript Idylls Myosotis arvensis Memory Wildflower Stiles I One-Line Poems and Monostich (II): Dove, Dead in its Snows Poverty Pitted with Larks Fax, Idling in its Sails Monostich An Eighteenth Century Line on a Lukewarm Hotwaterbottle A Classic Monostich A Line Struck from James Thomson's Seasons A Valentine The Colours of the Vowels A Question for Lovers Posters (from The Little Spartan War) Some (Short) Thoughts on Neo-classicism And Even As She Fled (1) And Even As She Fled (2) It Is Not True In the First Chapters For the Best of the Jacobins You Cannot Step The French Revolution From The Ivory Flute Selected Dispatches of Louis Antoine Saint-Just: Clay the Life King The Sound of Running Water Heard through Chinks in a Stone Dyke His Bed a Meadow Mystic Sublime The Revolution 1794 From 'Clerihews for Liberals' A Reflection on the French Revolution Streiflichter From Proverbs for Jacobins From Detached Sentences on Friendship The Inscriptions From Flakes From Spring Verses Images from the Arcadian Dream Garden Epitaph The Brewster Buffaloes From Glider Days In the Manner of the Early Winters From New Proverbs From A Book of Wildflowers Homage to Lorine Niedecker Creels and Creels Lines of Foam Found Free-style Haiku Oak / Bark / Boat Line Light Lade Adaptation Variations Expectation Romanticizing 10 Sentences Cinema-Going Event A Stone Lemons without Bitterness Boat Boat Lore A Last Word Pledge (for Pia) Frisson Schlachtschiff The End ... Notes A Note on the Critical Heritage Selected Bibliography Credits

Read more less

Book SynopsisAs Is gathers everyday poems written over time and mostly at the poet’s home in the Ridge and Valley province of northern Appalachia.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWritten largely in the words of a fifteen-year-old survivor, these poems provide historical entry into the Holocaust. Put simply, the poems explore the reality of the events experienced by Judith Sherman in her determination to survive.Table of Contents Foreword Arthur Kleinman Preface Poems of Before This Time I Too Have a Dream Because My Grandfather Serious Men Poems of the Holocaust My Village of Kurima It Is the Law The Law of the Land My Suitcase and I Morning Mass Toothbrush Gestapo Prison Mirjam's Letter from Hiding Unhiding in the Forest Hiding in the Forest Karpu in Auschwitz Such Good Taste Wagon Train Auschwitz Lord SS Man Knew You Then Morning Prayer During Appell Appell Guard Magda Speaks kein Deutsch Come Messiah Hunger Hunger, Do Not Intrude Let Not Flowers Here The Invitation An Apple in Ravensbruck My Ravensbruck Love Song I Know a Dog Ravensbruck Jesus, Tell Your Father Stand Still, Sun The Roma Girl Ravensbruck Friend Shoes for Life The Mirror in My Right Shoe A Brief Reprieve You Are Invited to My Funeral Reluctant Witness Resistance of Prisoner 83,621 Death March I Say Damn You Liberation Trees I Say Death, Stand Aside at My Liberation Time Poems of After Once You Survive No More Hide-and-Seek Tell Me This This Year in Jerusalem That You Should Know Legacy Poem Do Something Accountability 9/11: Has Anybody Seen My Dad? My Darfur Mother Bosnia Boy To Walk in My Shoes I Smile, I Smile Fresh Washed Sheets Sunrise Summer Woods If God Is Dead Are Things Changed in Heaven How You Are? Oversight If You Apologize Let Me Win A Ladder for God We Should Talk Survivor's Voice Today Survivor's Message Say the Name Afterword Ilana Gelb Acknowledgments Contributors

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis collection by Teresa Palomo Acosta—poet, historian, author, and activist—spans three decades of her writing, from 1988 through 2018. The collection is divided into four parts: poems, essays, a children’s story, and plays. Each work addresses cultural, historical, political, and gender realities that she experienced from her childhood to the present.The plays, set in the Central Texas Blackland Prairies where Acosta was raised, provide a unique Latina vision of memory, identity, and experience and are a vital contribution to Chicana feminist thought. The essays focus on Acosta’s literary heroes Jovita GonzÁlez de Mireles, Sara Estela RamÍrez, and Elena Zamora O’Shea, important writers who contributed significantly to Tejana literature and to Texas letters. The children’s story, “Colchas, Colchitas,” is based on Acosta’s most notable poem, “My Mother Pieced Quilts,” which pays homage to her mother and the many women of her generation who employed needles and thread, creating both practical and symbolic artifacts.This collection is a creative and, indeed, essential expansion of boundaries for what we think of as history, offering a unique and compelling look into the lived experiences and interior contemplations of a Texas artist well worth knowing. Readers will increase their understanding of Tejana experience in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Tejanaland promises to become an important addition to the cultural record, informing historical perspectives on the experiences of Tejana women and contributing significantly to the existing body of work from Tejana writers.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Nate Klug’s Hosts and Guests examines the sometimes uneasy, shifting economies between what serves as host and what is hosted in an array of contexts, from the Anthropocene to mother and fetus. . . . But it is perhaps in his delicate, intricate syntactical suspensions and arrangements, as much as in his arresting image systems, that Klug conveys the beautiful struggle of risking love and belief in bodies seemingly made to be lost to us."---Lisa Russ Spaar, Los Angeles Review of Books"Klug is writing some of the strongest poetry you can find in American letters these days. Stoically fierce and vividly alert. The signature surfaces of a Nate Klug poem . . . are often somehow simultaneously beautifully smooth and a little edgy. But they are also chiseled and efficient, and these qualities together are a sign of the richness in the depths they signify."---Jesse Nathan, McSweeney's"Intelligent, wry, learned, and at times witty . . . Klug bears witness to the fruitful cross-pollinations of contemporary poetry and contemporary religious faith…he is worth watching. - Library Journal""Klug is a poet of attention for whom metre is a slow-mo technology that lets you notice what’s in front of you. But he also finds words for interiority, helping you notice emotions that get lost in the rush of the everyday. - James K.A. Smith, Image Journal newsletter""Klug, at his best, can marry image, movement, and melody into precise order… I find myself…so refreshed by the poems of Hosts and Guests. - Christian Detisch, 32poems.com""Quirky and philosophical. . . . the poems in Hosts and Guests are . . . both exploratory and concise; they wander without filler or clutter. Klug’s descriptions are sharp, subtle, perceptive. . . . Here is the startling opposite of dogma’s violence: a free thinker who keeps running into God despite his disavowals."---Caroline Pittman, Threepenny Review

Read more less

Book SynopsisFirmly rooted in frostbitten, fire-haunted landscapes that are at once psychological, emotional, and fiercely real, Patrick Errington’s first collection traces the brittle boundaries between presence and absence, keeping and killing, cruelty and tenderness.Trade Review“Radiant in its ache and teeming with beauty, the swailing absorbs the haunted geographies of home, forest, field, fire, and snow while delivering a stunning introspection through poems steeped in the winter of their own grief. So many of the last lines blew me away, and I found myself continually returning to savour their longing.” Mai Der Vang, author of Afterland and Yellow Rain“The swailing is a powerful, unstintingly honest exploration of memory, loss, the subtle play of presence and absence, and the risks to selfhood that longing poses, explored in poems shot through with dark humour, urgency, and exemplary precision.” John Burnside, author of Black Cat Bone“Among the many virtues of Patrick Errington’s impeccably constructed debut is its nearly forensic attention to the minutest particulars: ‘Last night’s rain is pearling the spruce, the timothy.’ What is most astonishing about this exactitude is that rather than dispelling the mystery of being in the world, it fills the reader with renewed marvelling and reverence.” Timothy Donnelly, author of The Problem of the Many“Patrick Errington's poems are conceived in attention, crafted in grace, and finished in wisdom. ‘They told me as a child to be exact with pain,’ Errington writes, and his poems are true to his credo, leaping wildly through the mysteries of mourning while extending to us the compassionate hand of form. Here is a poet who knows that form and freedom can be one, that sorrow can have an ecstasy within it, that hope might just be ‘loss finding what form it can keep.’ Here, in poem after poem, is truth.” Joseph Fasano, author of The Swallows of Lunetto“Gorgeous poems which seem to shimmer on that constantly shifting border between the body and the landscape.” Andrew McMillan, author of pandemonium“From the beginning of the book to the end, the poet sets the reader’s mind on fire with the luminous language, lyric intensity, and emotional heat of these poems. Patrick Errington’s gorgeous, superbly crafted gems each shimmer under the poet’s fierce gaze, and taken together achieve something grand and powerful.” Jennifer Franklin, author of If Some God Shakes Your House “The slow burn of these poems culminates in evocative and expansive lyricism.” Poetry Foundation

Read more less

Book SynopsisA Topsy-Turvy World presents English translations of shorter late Ming and early Qing plays. Satirical and often earthy, these mostly one-act plays provide a glimpse of Chinese daily life and mores even as they question or subvert the boundaries of social, moral, and political order.Trade ReviewThis treasure box of eleven short plays, most available in English for the first time, will delight anyone interested in early modern Chinese drama, culture, and society. Ranging from Buddhist charades to human puppet shows, from sword dances to drag masquerades, these thematically diverse and inventive plays are admirably translated with erudition and panache. -- Judith Zeitlin, author of The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese LiteratureA splendid expansion of the canon of traditional Chinese drama translations—the short plays offer a riotous deep dive into a world of laughter, while the scholarly commentary succinctly explores some of the fault lines of the early modern imagination. -- Patricia Sieber, coeditor of How to Read Chinese Drama in Chinese A Language CompanionA brilliant collection of rare and original works that provides a broad and varied view of Chinese performance traditions. The dominant leitmotif of these translations is the ingenuity and audacity with which writers subvert convention while questioning the sociopolitical order. -- Regina Llamas, translator of Top Graduate Zhang Xie: The Earliest Extant Chinese Southern PlayZaju plays of the Ming and Qing dynasties have long been a neglected area both in China and elsewhere. For that reason, this anthology is a timely translation. It provides new materials not only for general readers interested in premodern Chinese zaju plays but also for students and scholars to engage in further studies of the genre. -- Hongchu Fu, author of Chinese DramaTable of ContentsIntroductionTable of Dynasties1. Cracking a Dumb Chan Riddle2. The Mad Drummer: Thrice-Played Yuyang3. Chan Master Yu Has a Dream of Cuixiang4. Real Puppets5. Sublime Jokes from the Back of Beyond6. Pinning Flowers in His Coiffure7. A Song for a Laugh8. Ramblings with Magicians in Lyrics and Songs9. Black and White Donkeys10. Zaju from the Studio of Singing on the Wind11. Song of Dragon Well TeaAppendix: A List of Short Plays from the Period 1400 to 1850 Already Available in English TranslationContributorsReferences

Read more less

Book SynopsisA compilation of Robin Blaser's prophetic meditations on the histories, theories, emotions, experiments, and countermemories of the late twentieth century.Trade Review"Blaser's new collected ... further entrenches him as a seminal figure in postwar North American poetry." -- Seth Abramson Huffington Post "Erudite, conversational and witty." Berkeley Daily PlanetTable of ContentsForeword by Robert Creeley A Note on the Text Author's Note THE BOSTON POEMS (1956--1959) CUPS 1--12 (1959--1960) THE PARK (1960) THE FAERIE QUEENE (1961) THE MOTH POEM (1962--1964) IMAGE-NATIONS 1--4 (1962--1964) LES CHIMERES (1963--1964) CHARMS (1964--1968) GREAT COMPANION: PINDAR (1971) IMAGE-NATIONS 5--14 AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS (1965--1974) STREAMS I (1974--1976) SYNTAX (1979--1981) PELL MELL (1981--1988) GREAT COMPANION: ROBERT DUNCAN (1988) STREAMS II (1986--1991) EXODY (1990--1993) NOTES (1994--2000) GREAT COMPANION: DANTE ALIGHIERE (1997) WANDERS (2001--2002) SO (2003) OH! (2004) Afterword by Charles Bernstein Index of Titles and First Lines

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisFrancesco Petrarca (1304–1374), one of the greatest Italian poets, was also a leader in the Renaissance movement to revive ancient Roman language and literature. This new critical edition of the Invectives, intended to revive the eloquence of Cicero, are directed against scholastic philosophy and medicine and the dominance of French culture.Trade ReviewImpeccably edited and translated by David Marsh. -- Anthony T. Grafton * New York Review of Books *

Read more less

Book SynopsisLucas Bender considers Du Fu's pivotal role in the transformation of Chinese poetic understanding over the last millennium. Du Fu anticipated important philosophical transitions from the late-medieval into the early-modern period and laid the template for a new and perduring paradigm of poetry's relationship to ethics.Trade ReviewInformative and insightful, with articulate arguments and nuanced explications. …In this day and age, it takes tremendous courage, assiduous scholarship, and fresh thinking to write an excellent book on Du Fu’s poetry. Bender’s is one such book. -- Xiaoshan Yang * Journal of the American Oriental Society *A well-researched, beautifully executed work, Bender’s book has succeeded in unfolding an innovative and complex narrative of Du Fu’s transformation… [A] valuable and timely contribution to our understanding of this iconic poet, inviting students of traditional Chinese poetry and literature to further explore the perennial and dynamic tension between tradition and the individual talent. -- Ji Hao * Tang Studies *

Read more less

Book SynopsisBabyn Yar brings together the responses to the tragic events of September 1941. Presented here in the original and in English translation, the poems create a language capable of portraying the suffering and destruction of the Ukrainian Jewish population during the Holocaust as well as other peoples murdered at the site.Trade ReviewRemind[s] the reading public of not only the necessity of remembering history and taking a stand against evil, but also about the necessity of poetry as witness during a time of great atrocity. -- Nicole Yurcaba * New Eastern Europe *Temporally and stylistically expansive, Babyn Yar keeps company with other recent poetry that confronts the costs of war and genocide: Solmaz Sharif’s Look, Monica Sok’s A Nail the Evening Hangs On, and Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic. Each poetic work catalogs grief intimately in the aftermath of political violence. That the Russia–Ukraine War is ongoing at the time of this writing infuses the anthology with a terrible urgency. -- Kathryn Savage * World Literature Today *

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe defeat of the Ottomans by the Holy League fleet at Lepanto (1571) was among the most celebrated international events of the sixteenth century. The Battle of Lepanto anthologizes the work of twenty-two poets who composed Latin poetry in response to the news of the battle, the largest Mediterranean naval encounter since antiquity.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe variety of contemporary American poetry leaves many readers overwhelmed. Critic, scholar, and poet Stephanie Burt sets out to help. Beginning in the early 1980s, where critical consensus ends, she presents 60 poems, each with an original essay explaining how the poem works, why it matters, and how it speaks to other parts of art and culture.Trade ReviewIt is refreshing to find a book that gives equal weight and relish to avant-garde minimalism, New Formalism, and so many of the stations in between…The poems Burt selects would alone comprise a valuable anthology of the American poetry of its time, and [she] is an entertaining, thought-provoking and eager guide to them, keen to ask all the questions that occur to [her] in [her] reading, and to engage with the chicanery of thought it engenders. Each essay is obviously a product of enjoyment, and encourages us to treat poems with the same enthusiasm—to embrace difficulty and difference in exchange for the articulate and involved pleasure that poetry, of all the arts, can best provide. -- Rory Waterman * Times Literary Supplement *[Burt] approaches a stunning variety of verse with the obsessiveness and knowledge of a scholar and a fan. Burt is an ideal guide for this trip through contemporary American poetry…Burt’s close readings are sharp and illuminating…The death of poetry has been proclaimed time and time again. But the sixty universes that Burt uncovers in these poems show us how alive poetry is, and how it needs to be read and appreciated for all its weirdness and cacophonous music…Whether you dip in and out of this book over months or read it all in a matter of days, it will help you pay better attention to the nuances, difficulties, identities, and music in American poetry…What comes through here is Burt's sheer, voracious love of contemporary poetry, and it's infectious. This book is a series of doors that all lead back to the poems themselves, and it will likely be used in classrooms across America. At least I hope so. -- Gibson Fay-LeBlanc * Bookforum *A fabulous guide…Each poem is introduced by an essay sketching out how it works, why it matters, how it speaks to the wider worlds of art and culture. * The Guardian *The Poem Is You is a collection of knowledgeable, useful and affectionately committed short essays on sixty recent poems by sixty American poets…[Burt writes with] unselfconscious erudition, light touch, even tone. -- Caleb Klaces * Poetry Review *Throughout, the style of Burt’s writing is as relaxed and inviting as its content is trenchant and learned. If the sheer capaciousness of contemporary American poetry is one of its defining features, Burt’s achievement here is to have been an enviably capacious critic, responding to the event of each poem in labile and unpredictable ways. -- Benjamin Madden * Australian Book Review *Drawing on endlessly deep wells of enthusiasm and acuity, The Poem Is You offers not so much a sequence of explanations as a series of invitations: Burt is more intent on describing how to think about a particular poem than on telling us what to think. Unpredictable yet unfailingly useful, The Poem Is You is a joyous book. -- James Longenbach, author of The Virtues of PoetryThis is a splendid book. Many critics and poets have published essays or reviews of contemporary poetry, but Burt is doing something else here. She lavishes the poems with extraordinarily nimble, alert, luminous attention. It’s hard to think of a better introduction to contemporary American poetry. -- Jahan Ramazani, author of Poetry and Its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of GenresPoet and critic Burt’s ambitious anthology of recent poems by American authors, from 1981 to 2015, creates a coherent body of work out of the vast landscape of recent American poetry. Burt’s 60 selections are eclectic, mingling instantly recognizable names (John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich) with newer talents (Lucia Perillo, Claudia Rankine.)…Burt’s many ways of looking at a poem will inspire new students and accomplished poets, especially as many of [her] meditations circle the question of what poetry does, or should do: making readers pay attention, ask questions, and experience new things. Burt’s formidable breadth of knowledge about the practice of poetry, from Virgil up to 2015, allows [her] to make nimble connections among authors and establish an ars poetica for current American lyric poetry, an impressive feat given the diverse selection just within this book. * Publishers Weekly *[Burt’s] critique is not only accessible to most all readers, but it also shows [her] depth of knowledge and love of American poetry. [Her] essays are very good at finding the meaning of the work while placing each poem in context within the landscape of poetry…This book is for anyone interested in the state of American poetry today. -- Jeremy Spencer * Library Journal *

Read more less

Book SynopsisJohn Berryman was an energetic correspondent. Assembled here for the first time, his letters tell of generosity, ambition, and struggle. He has encouraging words for fellow poets and younger writers and is deeply engaged in literary culture. But also visible are the struggles of a working artist grappling with alcoholism and depression.Trade ReviewThough the outer world of politics and civil strife may occasionally intrude, it proves no match for the smoke-filled rooms inside the poet’s head…Anyone who delights in listening to Berryman, and who can’t help wondering how the singer becomes the songs, will find much to treasure here. -- Anthony Lane * New Yorker *Happiness was as transformative for Berryman as suffering, and his accounts of ecstasy and contentment are as wonderful as his depictions of anxiety and despair are piercing…The voice of these letters is recognizably the voice of much of Berryman’s poetry. Language was, for him, not functional or utilitarian but a performance medium…[There’s] tremendous pleasure and fascination [in] this long-overdue collection. After too long an absence, it is wonderful to see Berryman once again resurrected. -- Troy Jollimore * Washington Post *Now, in addition to his poetic oeuvre, here are all the letters by Berryman you’ll ever want to read…His letters show much wide-ranging thoughtfulness, as in [his] wholly appropriate definition (written to New Yorker editor Katharine White) of originality in poetry…There are comparably fine statements made to Edmund Wilson about Jane Austen’s art, or about Mozart’s Figaro, or to Robert Frost about Ezra Pound…Perhaps the most useful thing any collection of letters provides is a fresh look at the work of their author. -- William H. Pritchard * Wall Street Journal *[A] most welcome book…The hundreds of pages of letters gathered here offer the most enjoyable and direct portrait of this wild poet we are ever likely to get. The composite figure who emerges from them is—although difficult, strange and occasionally hurtful—chiefly a lovable one…Makes for a new and much needed reckoning with Berryman’s astonishing, insurmountable mind. -- Tom Cook * Times Literary Supplement *Panic, procrastination, recrimination, anticlimax and farce: standard fare in a Berryman letter, and all to be found in abundance [in this volume], unobtrusively and expertly edited by Philip Coleman and Calista McRae…Though he appears the most biographically available of poets, the self that emerges from his letters is chaotic, elusive, and overflowing—a perpetual work in progress…Selected Letters is a book of volcanic energies. -- David Wheatley * Literary Review *Allows us to see Berryman trying on different personae, speaking in different styles and, in doing so, holding his many selves in vibrant, tensile relation…Through the accumulation of so much correspondence, we come to see Berryman’s style of writing, which tells us a lot about his style of being. -- Anthony Domestico * Commonweal *There is little in Berryman’s lettristic oeuvre—and this is no surprise to those who have admired the ambition of the poems—that does not depict the heart in all its convolutions, unsettled, unsatisfied, distracted, petty, combative, conflicted, and, often, sad…It is fair to say that in this case, more than 600 pages of letters amount to a page-turner…It seems that as with many voices of the confessional era of American poetry, it was his to burn this briefly, in real anguish. The Selected Letters well preserves that drama for those still wishing to know. -- Rick Moody * Poetry Foundation *An addictive volume, as full of drama as a literary soap opera, Berryman alternately grasping and sabotaging opportunities. The Berryman revealed in these letters is passionate, tortured, irascible, out of control, deeply moved and moving…It’s thrilling to read these letters as Berryman’s tragic genius unfolds. -- Meryl Natchez * Hudson Review *Pre-fax, pre-email, pre-text, here are hundreds of pages of loving and painful letters, of hopeful and disappointed letters, of joyful and death-haunted letters, of cautious and gossipy letters, of merry and hurt letters, of phallic and fatigued letters, of self-deprecating and vain letters, of admiring and critical letters. John Berryman, this great American poet of imagination, love, intellect, and pain, comes into optimistic, crystalline focus. -- Henri ColeLearned, literary correspondence…[The] meticulous editing, as well as the poems quoted in the letters, made me reappraise Berryman’s work…These letters, with rage simmering below the surface, made Berryman more of a human being to me, less of a one-sided self-destructive wreck…[A] superb selection. -- Marian Janssen * Berfrois *This capacious, warts-and-all selection of Berryman’s letters is a landmark…There are riches here…The letters can be entertaining, covering a range of tones reflecting his multi-voice verse…When Berryman talks about writing, he soars, and he talks about writing much of the time. -- Martina Evans * Irish Times *Berryman the wag is very much in evidence in his letters, as is Berryman the professor, Berryman the son, the husband, the wooer, all with their complement of registers…But it is Berryman the poet who keeps on reminding us how astonishingly life-giving his vocation can be. -- Ange Mlinko * Book Post *What makes The Selected Letters enjoyable is its utter capaciousness…The editors…have performed valuable, painstaking work. -- Chelsie Malyszek * Threepenny Review *We should be grateful for this fresh insight into Berryman and his starry, competitive circle. * The Spectator *Fills the major gap on the shelf of his books…This meticulous and generous selection of the poet’s typed and scrawled outgoing mail is infinitely suggestive. The editorial accuracy, especially where Berryman was writing by hand, seems all the poet could have wished for. -- William Logan * New Criterion *This sumptuous selection of John Berryman’s letters affords a welcome conspectus of the great poet’s life and work, from the protracted apprenticeship to the hard-won triumphs of the mature years, and covering even the brilliant but still underrated narrative of Love & Fame. By turns precocious, histrionic, hilarious, self-tormenting, rivalrous, shrewdly critical, abrasive, and abusive—and always ambitious for his poetry—Berryman in these extraordinary letters is shown to be the consummate craftsman and critic, as well as the hero-worshipper, the generous mentor, the fervent lover, and the tender father. -- John Haffenden, author of The Life of John Berryman and coeditor of The Letters of T. S. Eliot‘We asked to be obsessed with writing,’ wrote Robert Lowell in his elegy ‘For John Berryman,’ ‘and we were.’ The dizzying extremes to which that obsession pushed Berryman are on harrowing display in these letters, which oscillate between troughs of alcoholic abjection and peaks of manic creative confidence. Berryman was both a superbly conscientious craftsman and authentically crazed original; the publication of his letters to his gifted circle of friends—a circle that included Saul Bellow, Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, and Lowell himself—will reconfigure forever our understanding of mid-century American poetry. -- Mark Ford, author of This Dialogue of One: Essays on Poets from John Donne to Joan MurrayA revealing window into the poet’s mind and work through his own words…It is well worth the serious attention of any literary scholar. * Publishers Weekly *The publication of his selected letters suggests that a new look at the poet’s faith is not merely warranted but essential to understanding his art…Berryman’s letters reveal not only his continual shifting between belief and doubt but also that Catholicism remained his point of reference in life. -- Nick Ripatrazone * National Review *Offers an inside view of the poet’s chaotic life and storied literary career—his growth from precocious boarding school student and Columbia undergrad to prolific, opinionated man of letters to flamboyant, boundary-breaking father of Confessional poetry…A hymn to both the excitement and the challenges of a life lived in poetry. -- Andrew Epstein * On the Seawall *

Read more less

Book SynopsisProvides the English-speaking reader with what he needs to read and understand the Purgatorio. This volume consists of the prose translation of Giorgio Petrocchi's Italian text (which faces the translation on each page).Trade Review"With the publication of Singleton's edition of The Divine Comedy, we have in English ... A truly scholarly edition which can at last vie with ones in Italian and German... This monumental work will be indispensable for all lovers of this masterpiece who wish to root it in its linguistic, historical and social reality."--Speculum

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year""A New Statesman Book of the Year""A Daily Telegraph Best Poetry Book of the Year""A Tablet Book of the Year""Mendelson is to be congratulated on this magnificent addition to our generation’s definitive Auden."---John Fuller, Times Literary Supplement"A dazzling, scholarly triumph."---Michael Dirda, Washington Post"[Auden’s] oeuvre has been given a new life. . . . [in these] two new and heavily annotated volumes. . . . [Mendelson’s] mastery of this sprawling material is legendary."---Brad Leithauser, Wall Street Journal"Mendelson has championed a reassessment of the poet’s later work. He has not achieved this through polemic, but rather through a patient and careful effort. . . . I have been reading and teaching and writing about Auden’s poetry for many years, but I have taken the opportunity offered by these two volumes to try, as best I can, to encounter it all anew."---Alan Jacobs, Harper's Magazine"Glorious."---Bel Mooney, Daily Mail"[The Complete Works of W.H. Auden is] an astonishing act of literary scholarship and personal dedication on Mendelson’s part, and readers the world over should be thankful for it. . . . The poems [are] strange, rich, authoritative."---Nick Laird, New York Review of Books"A complete delight."---Alexander McCall Smith, New Statesman"Worth reading."---Sam Sifton, New York Times"A remarkable editorial enterprise."---David Bromwich, Times Literary Supplement"A grand thing."---Tristram Fane Saunders, Daily Telegraph"These volumes show the poetic beauty and intellectual audacity of Auden’s work with a power that left me exultant."---Richard Davenport-Hines, Times Literary Supplement"Exhilaratingly prospective. . . . some of the most vivid poems ever committed to English . . . these two books are a monument to the acumen, scholarship, and perseverance of Edward Mendelson."---Ron Horning, Brooklyn Rail"Magnificent. . . . Mendelson’s Auden has long been regarded as a monument of literary scholarship, and these two heavy poetry volumes complete the grounds for that acclaim. . . . An amazing thicket of scholarship and commentary draped around some of the most-studied and most-quoted poetry of the 20th century."---Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review"To read Auden’s Complete Works therefore is not just to encounter the inventions of a polymathic, often ingenious writer and poet, but to enter into a ‘whole climate of opinion,’ to explore an age by way of one of its representative figures. . . . Edifying."---James Matthew Wilson, National Review"The new two-volume set of W. H. Auden's complete poems, meticulously assembled and presented by Edward Mendelson, is highly recommended."---David Lehman, Best American Poetry blog"This book is so good."---Michael Glover, The Tablet"Auden is not an occasional poet, nor does he prove the (in my opinion, wrongheaded and incorrect) theory that even good poets only produce a few memorable poems. This is an amazing body of work, composed by a writer who wrote his way through life, always thinking and paying attention. . . . Writers write, and Auden did. What wonderful stuff it is."---Rupert Loydell, Tears in the Fence"These two handsomely produced volumes from Princeton University Press are not only a monument to their editor’s scholarship but a timely reminder of the enduring importance of poetry and, in particular, the contribution made to it by W.H. Auden."---David Cooke, The High Window"As authoritative a presentation as we are likely ever to get. . . . Wonderful books."---David Mason, Hudson Review"In a remarkable work of scholarship, editor Edward Mendelson has assembled every poem and every revision—and explains every reference. . . . For the budding or mature poet, it’s indispensable." * Mosaic *"Auden can be magically conversational, charming and sophisticated, vivid, lyrical and amusing. A master of rhyme and metre, he has a brilliant range of allusions and important ideas, wisdom and moral force."---Jeffrey Meyers, PN Review"Mendelson could not have conceived a more fitting tribute to this poet than doing for Auden’s work what Auden was always attempting to do for his own life: organize it intellectually into a grand system that takes in every detail and provides aesthetic satisfaction to the soul. . . . The definitive edition of Auden’s poetry."---Stephen J. Schuler, Ad Fontes"[These two volumes] compiled and magisterially edited by Edward Mendelson, a leading Auden authority, should show readers what a versatile and commanding voice the poet possessed."---Andrew Rosenheim, The Tablet"Mendelson has put together an impres­sively comprehensive and rigorously thor­ough literary compendium that charts one of the twentieth century’s most influential expat poets." * The American *"With the publication of Auden’s Complete Poems, no one interested in twentieth-century poetry can fail to see that we owe Edward Mendelson an immeasurable debt."---Mary Jo Salter, Literary Matters"Edward Mendelson’s two-volume collection of Auden’s poems, spanning 1927 to 1973, is a welcome arrival, compiled by sage hands. . . . [Mendelson] is perhaps the poet’s best reader."---Nick Ripatrazone, National Review"To this day, Auden continues to promote the poetic bar; while The Complete Works of W. H. Auden – Poems – Volume 1 (1927-1939) is confirmation of said promotion. As not only has this veritable tomb been lavishly put together, but also meticulously and superbly edited by Edward Mendelson. Inspired and terrific beyond terrific."---David Marx, David Marx Book Reviews

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Selected as One of the Top 10 Poetry Books of Spring 2020 by Publisher's Weekly""The delightful fifth book from poet and critic Burt brings the ancient poet Callimachus, respected by later Greeks and Romans, to 21st-century audiences. Burt’s contemporary translations and adaptations musically and playfully build on Callimachus’s themes . . . Burt engages deeply and originally with Callimachus, and the result is a wonderfully rich collection that reveals how the past can cast new light on the present." * Publishers Weekly *"Burt’s translations and adaptations of the works of the ancient Greek poet Callimachus introduce new readers to the poet’s lyric writing, whose topics range from sex and gender to technology. Modern readers will find this voice stirring and relevant to the 21st century." * Publishers Weekly *"I've savored in spurts a couple of the many fine books of poems out this spring—among them, After Callimachus, by Stephanie Burt, which reimagines a campy version of a real but ancient Greek poet."---Tess Taylor, CNN.com"With consummate skill and considerable powers of invention, Stephanie Burt has taken an imaginative leap which enables those who read her to gain some insight into an unfamiliar world and which, at the same time, may tell them much about their own. [After Callimachus is] a collection that deserves to be widely read."---David Cooke, The High Window"After Callimachus is a substantial, fresh and entertaining collection, and a fine work of translation."---David Caddy, Tears in the Fence ​​​​​​​

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"A delicate and dynamic work, one that reaches toward a painterly simultaneity. One can, as the title suggests, enter the poems without words, only to find fields of them scattered across the pages, in spacious formations, at times rippling or craggy, ready to be combined and recombined."---Heather Green, Poetry Foundation"Formally innovative. . . . [An] impressionistic, lyric work with an experimental edge." * Publishers Weekly *"[An] intriguing new collection. . . . Readers with a taste for experimental poetry will be delighted." * Seven Days *"An exciting odyssey through . . . three-dimensional pages, where sparse words make up what looks like gravitational fields."---Susan McCabe, Los Angeles Review of Books

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisLucan's great poem, Pharsalia, recounts events surrounding the decisive battle fought near Pharsalus in 48 B.C. during the civil war between the forces of Pompey and Julius Caesar. Though the subject of this unfinished masterpiece is historical, many...

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis anthology serves as an introduction to Robinson Jeffers' work for the general reader and for students in courses on American poetry. Jeffers composed each volume of his verse around one or twolong narrative or dramatic poems.Trade Review"For too many decades Jeffers has been the forgotten giant of American poetry. The Wild God of the World gathers his best and most central work. For those who would discover Jeffers, the intense beauty of his poems of the California coast; the reach of his meditations on history, science, and God; and the lyricism of his personal poems, this is the place to start-and a place to return again and again." -Tim Hunt, Washington State University "Of all the poets of his generation, [Robinson Jeffers] made our relation to this earth and sea and sky and wheeling seasons and the evolutionary processes that made trees and salmon runs and hunting hawks, his subject. As that relation grows more troubled, his words become more necessary. To have this beautifully edited and freshly seen anthology is a gift." -Robert Hass,University of California, Berkeley

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe first English translation of two captivity plays by Cervantes, set in Algiers and Constantinople. Featuring a lively cast of corsairs, captives, and renegades, they offer important insights into early modern Spain's conception of the world of Islam.Table of ContentsIntroduction The Bagnios of Algiers Act I Act II Act III The Great Sultana Act I Act II Act III Bibliography Acknowledgments

Read more less

Book SynopsisA tangled tale of love, sex and ethics among a quartet of men and women in their 30s as engrossing as it is ferociously funny, like a big box of fireworks fizzing and crackling across the stage from its first moments to its last. New York Times From the moment that Becky arrives overdressed for her blind date with straight-talking Max, it''s clear the evening won''t go to plan. In the immediate fallout, Becky becomes an object of devotion for her boss Andrew, who appears to have a fetish for vulnerable women. In turn, Andrew''s wife Suzanna turns to her step-brother Max for comfort, and their mutual desire begins to resurface.A biting American comedy with sharp, witty dialogue about ambition, the cost of being truthful, and the perils of a blind date. This Modern Classics edition features an introduction to the play by Julia Listengarten.Trade ReviewGina Gionfriddo's comedy of bad manners, a tangled tale of love, sex and ethics among a quartet of men and women in their thirties, is as engrossing as it is ferociously funny, like a big box of fireworks fizzing and crackling across the stage from its first moments to its last…deftly plotted, scabrous and sharp-witted… * New York Times *The characters in Gionfriddo’s blind-date-gone-bad black comedy share the potential to revolt…They’re also subversively funny—and improbably charming. Grade: A. * Entertainment Weekly *Scathing, class-conscious comedy…Becky Shaw exerts a hypnotic pull, thanks in large part to the wonderfully witty dialogue and complex characterizations. * New York Post *

Read more less

Book SynopsisTim Price''s play about two hackers is tumultuous, energetic and ultimately touching in its vision of a global network of young people dedicated to challenging the status quo. Guardian A sixteen-year-old London schoolboy and an eighteen-year-old recluse in Shetland meet online, pick a fight with the FBI and change the world forever. This brave and challenging play gets behind the code with the original Anonymous members, offering an anarchic retelling of the birth of hacktivism. Teh Internet is Serious Business is a fictional account of the true story of Anonymous and LulzSec, the collective swarm who took on the most powerful capitalist forces from their bedrooms. The play received its world premiere at the Royal Court, London, in September 2014.This new Modern Classics edition features an introduction by Hamish Pirie.Trade ReviewTim Price's play about two hackers is tumultuous, energetic and ultimately touching in its vision of a global network of young people dedicated to challenging the status quo. * Guardian *

Read more less

Book SynopsisOli Forsyth is a playwright, poet and actor from London. In 2013 he established new writing theatre company Smoke & Oakum Theatre which has to date, produced two of his plays. In 2014 Tinderbox had two productions in London and one at the Edinburgh Festival, where it was nominated for an Amnesty International Award. In 2015 Cornermen premiered at The Old Red Lion before running at The Pleasance and transferring to both The New Diorama and the Vaults. As a poet Oli performs his work at venues and festivals around the UK.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisPoems that break down, expose, and reconsider our notions of time. This collection speaks the language of the clock as a living instrument, exposing the sensory impacts of our obsession with time. In oh orchid o’clock, lyrics wind through histories like a nervous system through a body. The poems speak to how we let our days become over-clocked, over-transactional, and over-weaponed. With an instrumental sensibility, Endi Bogue Hartigan investigates what it is to be close to time—collective time, with its alarms and brutalities, and bodily time, intricate and familial. She considers how can we be both captured and complicit within systems of measurement, and she invites us to imagine how to break from, create, or become immune to them. Her poems use language to expose the face of the clock to reveal how gears press against interconnecting systems—economic, capitalist, astronomical, medical, governmental, and fantastical. Trade Review"The clock—its histories, oddities, dominance—is the mechanism of Endi Bogue Hartigan’s oh orchid o’clock. . . . As she evokes the timeless simultaneous information and activity our internet age allows, with its WebMD and newsfeeds and everything else searchable that is packed into these poems, the poet continues to make space for what is before and beyond our conceptions of time. . ." * Harriet Books *"oh orchid o’clock is a book about time, from delineations and attentions to the very loss of time: time sits at a marker from which all else is perceived, written, achieved or ignored. . . . Hartigan offers time as both metaphor and structure, writing of end times, lost times, made-up time, violent time, the times we pay for in advance. She composes this collection as an expansive tapestry of lyric squares, temporal shards and narrative moments, some in motion and others held in amber; time held and held up, turned slowly in the light." * rob mclennan’s blog *“Hartigan’s oh orchid o’clock fluidly rotates constructions of time: our violent times; scientific and philosophical time; the ‘orbit’ of digital time we frequently ‘visit’; the transportive materiality of deep time; the ruling ‘grip of time’ within the timepiece; the illusory ‘streaming of time’ that is ‘a perception trick’; and, critically, time ‘resolved’ or defeated by nature by ‘the orchid opal sky calculating nothing;’ by the imprecision of water, which is ‘the nemesis of all clocks;’ by fire, where the ‘clock surrounds . . . a foliage of flame, clockless.’ Here, in the book’s free rotation of poetic time, which is ‘something pure and round,’ we are not ‘absorbed’ by the ‘vertical worlds’ that ‘fall horizontally.’ Here, in the linguistic rotations constructed by poetry, we are not mere visitors of time or ‘tethered as a clockhand.’ Here, in oh orchid o’clock, we are new rotations, where ‘one side of the orchid is pointing at everything close.’” -- Amy Catanzano, author of Starlight in Two Million: A Neo-Scientific Novella“Time is in the center of this extraordinary poetry collection by Hartigan, who drives us (through a kind of incantatory speech) into a world of subversive syntax, of compressed and expanded language and, most of all, of meaning. This ‘apparatus,’ as the poet subtly refers to the compositions on these pages, rearranges the outlines of matter versus organic matter, of the objective versus the subjective in our known (and unknown) spaces, giving them a new range of expression, a new clarity, to signify and bridge. These poems connect the molecular to the universal to the public to the personal in a single breath. It’s a wildly original and ingenious book, but what catapults us into the bliss of this reading is a sense of finding (astonished) the 'arrows and notches' of our earthly human print.” -- Flávia Rocha, author of Exosfera“Hartigan, in this wondrous and fearsome mélange of meditation, rhyme, and wordwelding, pursues the vortex of Emily Dickinson’s dark conjuncture even as she mounts a Blakean charge against the modern tyranny of clock-time. Her oh orchid o’clock is rife with natural and mechanical marvels—scent clocks and snowflakes, marigolds and gym ellipticals—but its terribly ubiquitous mechanisms are the Taylorized workplace and the AK-15. Counter to these rapacious devices, Hartigan weaves a lush tangle of perceptions, drawn from the everyday, heightened by her deliriously acute ear. Not a knife-beak, not an ink fluke: public events toll ever more ominously in her Northwestern US, and yet these poems, lounging in the clock like certain creatures, lyrically undo the incremental fiction of the hours.” -- John Beer, author of Lucinda“Swirling with condensations and collisions of language, observations, societal and personal conditions, at the center of which abides a constantly fervently spinning heart, these poems also ask: ‘Can the clock burn?’ I think the clock does burn in these poems, also morphs and contracts and grows second (and third, fourth, other) second-hands, seeks alternate ways of counting, amplifying and expanding time inside the interstices that nest beneath and beyond what we can count, what we can comprehend. These poems are clocks of their own count and their own making, setting their tiny pulses against our current collective sense of an impending clock, to dream and create their own intricate, delicate music and meter and measure of what it means to be and feel at this particular moment in time.” -- Dao Strom, author & songwriter of Instrument/Traveler’s Ode“I am awed by Hartigan’s ability to inhabit time’s perplexities. Her sonically sensitive and wondrous meditations on continuity and chronology, accumulation and containment, contemplate the ‘measure of measure,’ each one finding a different way to mesmerize time to investigate its constructions. Never have I so intimately felt the bewilderment of being ‘off the clock’ and of the clock. I love oh orchid o’clock’s quality of deep prayer, how it attends intimately to the feeling of time in lived experience, how it lets go of instrumentality to consider the instrument.” -- Mary Szybist, author of Incarnadine"Open oh orchid o’clock, and you find yourself inside the clockwork maze of a Chinese incense box that releases each hour with a distinct scent. Let the hours teach, sing, dismantle and restore. These poems by Hartigan fathom time’s mythos in nesting dolls and gunshots, measures in galactic orbits and fractals or intervals between ravages and respite as by the Nilometer—the unit that ancient Egyptians used to calculate the precisely rising levels of the Nile between successive flooding. Hartigan’s work shows us the cuckoo in the clock but also the clock in the cuckoo: how time resides in the body, grips the imagination, how it is transactive, a factory of simulacra, a secret seam between what has passed and what is yet to come. The extraordinary richness of this book lies in its showcasing of language as a worthy opponent in wrestling the giant of time; how a phrase, even a phoneme can lock as well as set time free, how poetry can contend with the eternal and the sudden, how the lyric can subdue time’s machinations with a pulse all its own: chiming, colliding or stilled at will—'I am free to fill the silence with denser silence,' the poet declares—a triumph for us all." -- Shadab Zeest Hashmi, author of Ghazal Cosmopolitan

Read more less

Book SynopsisA new translation of Rilke's great work with close readings of each of the ten elegies elucidating how their poetic attributes constitute their meaning. Rilke continues to be the most read and discussed German poet of the modern period. The Duino Elegies, together with the Sonnets to Orpheus, remain his greatest achievement. The themes of the ten elegies - and the conceptual world unique to Rilke from which they emerge - can best be understood through their poetic form: their imagery and neologistic formations, their angular syntax, their abrupt changes of tone and linguistic register, their use of multiple personae and speaking voices, and the often-ironic self-presentation of the author. Commentators, however, have often treated these features as mere formal devices that we can somehow see through to get to what really matters, that is, to what Rilke has to say about the human condition or the meaning of life, to his philosophy or worldview. On the contrary, they are constitutive of meaning in the elegies, and understanding them is crucial to our experience of reading Rilke's work. The purpose of this book is to make such features visible and to explain them to the reader as clearly as possible. This is the first full-length book in English devoted to the elegies in over thirty years. It offers an entirely new translation of each elegy, paired with the original German text, and a close reading of each.Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments Note on the Translation Works Frequently Cited Introduction Elegy 1 Elegy 2 Elegy 3 Elegy 4 Elegy 5 Elegy 6 Elegy 7 Elegy 8 Elegy 9 Elegy 10 Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisYannis Ritsos (1909–90) is generally considered to be – along with Cavafy, Seferis and Elytis – one of the most significant Greek poets of the last century. His life was, to say the least, troubled. From an early age, he was dogged by the tuberculosis that killed his mother and brother. His father and sister suffered breakdowns and spent time in institutions. His poem Epitaphios (1936), a lament for a young man shot dead by the police during a tobacco workers’ strike, was publicly burned by the Metaxas regime and his books banned. During the post-World War Two civil war – because he sided with the left – Ritsos was arrested and sent to prison camps. Then, in 1967, when the Papadopoulos military junta took control of the country, he was again arrested, again his books were banned, again he spent time in prison camps, before being confined to house arrest on the island of Samos. The violence and tyranny of dictatorship is often fractured by the surreal. In the poems collected here, written by Ritsos while in prison and under house arrest, that fracture in perception is a wound. A Broken Man in Flower has an introduction by John Kittmer and includes the text of an illuminating and vivid letter sent by Ritsos to his publisher in 1969 while under house arrest on Samos describing his life – and the lives of Greeks – under the repressive rule of the Colonels. David Harsent’s thirteen collections have won a number of awards, including the Forward Prize, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Griffin International Prize. He is also a librettist: his collaborations with composers, chiefly with Harrison Birtwistle, have been performed at major venues worldwide.Trade Review'These are "versions" of Ritsos by a major English poet. Yannis Ritsos, one of the most celebrated Greek poets of the 20th century, has at last found a "companion translator" up to the task. The work that is experimental and revolutionary in Greek is experimental and revolutionary in English. Ritsos's output is enormous, his life heroic and eventful, his voice an embodiment of national courage.' * The Times Literary Supplement, on David Harsent's In Secret *'[Ritsos] records, at times celebrates, the enigmatic, the irrational, the mysterious and invisible qualities of experience.' * The New York Times Book Review, on David Harsent's In Secret *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION by John Kittmer 11 I Karlovasi on Samos, 2 April 1969 Yannis Ritsos, under house arrest at Karlovasi on Samos, writes to his friend and publisher, Nana Kallianesi 21 II The Broken Man in Flower 40 Timeline of Ritsos’s life and key work A BROKEN MAN IN FLOWER I Partheni Prison Camp, Leros 47 The Treaty 48 Penelope 49 The Plough 50 Unmarked 51 The Argo 52 The Studio 53 A Painting 54 A Break in Routine 55 Naked 56 Growing Old 57 Blocked 58 Newspeak 59 The Wax Museum 60 Endgame 61 Hindsight 62 Knowledge 63 The Blue Jug 64 Cancer 65 On the Edge 66 Blockade 67 Words 68 Content 69 Midnight 70 The Message 71 Things Shift 72 Double 73 Something and Nothing 74 Stones 75 Watermelons 76 No News 77 All of Us 78 Convalescence 79 Shame 80 In Short 81 At Dusk 82 The Corridor II Homeland: Eighteen Bitter Songs Partheni Prison Camp / Samos 85 1: Baptism 86 2: Q&A 87 3: In Time 88 4: The People 89 5: Memorial 90 6: Dawn 91 7: ‘Freedom’ 92 8: Green 93 9: Theology 94 10: To Greece 95 11: The Song 96 12: Offshore Trees 97 13: Feast Day 98 14: Epitaph 99 15: The Tides 100 16: The New House 101 17: One Thought 102 18: No Tears For Romiosini III Samos: house arrest 105 Abandoned 106 Poem 107 Ceremony 108 As If Loukas 109 Underwater 110 Fear 111 Substitution 112 Separate Ways 113 The View from Here 114 Just This 115 Squaddies 116 Reversals 117 Kollyva 118 Saturday 11 a.m. 119 Aware 120 Birdcall 121 Why? 122 Connections 123 Wrong 124 Out in the Open 125 The List 126 Followed 127 From Nowhere to Nowhere 128 Circle 129 Plans 130 Old Clothes 131 Memory’s Thread 132 Himself Alone 133 Frost 134 Departures III 135 Suspicion 136 That Other Man 137 Numbers 138 Absentee 139 In Reverse 140 Soldier Dolls 141 Waiting to Die 142 Almost 143 Before She Sleeps 144 Motionless 145 Woodworm 146 Omens 147 White 148 The Tree – The Hanged Man 149 The Other House 150 White Night 151 Life in Phares 152 Midnight 153 Masquerade 154 After Rain 155 Nausea 156 Habit 157 Leaves 158 Quotidian 159 Rain 160 By the Window 161 In Flower 162 Three-storey House with Basement 163 Call 164 Locked Off 165 Changes 166 Lies and Secrets 167 Ever 168 Fakes 169 Pointless 170 The Girl Who Regained Her Sight 171 Interrogation Centre 172 Locked 173 Badge of Honour 174 Midnight Knock 175 This 176 The Green Armchair 177 Sleepless 178 Baptism of Blood 179 The Summons 180 Renewal 181 In Readiness 182 Report 183 Greece 184 Hints 187 Broken 188 Testament

Read more less

Book SynopsisTwo of Henry Newbolt’s poems, ‘Vitaï Lampada’ and ‘Drake’s Drum’, became staples of poetry anthologies and were able to be recited by every school-boy. His poetry was also deeply significant in constructing ideas around late Victorian/Edwardian imperial manliness. A consequence of this was that Newbolt became in his own time one of the best known and most popular of writers. However, in the years since his death, his work has fallen into comparative critical neglect and he has been seen as a mouthpiece for the worst aspects of his age. The aim therefore of this new edition is to place the poet’s literary work in a broader context that has hitherto not been addressed as well as offering a fresh appraisal of a significant literary figure. Aside from careful consideration of the poetry, of equal interest is Newbolt’s active public life. He contributed widely to government committees and debates on education, as well as working for the propaganda bureau in the First World War and advising on the Irish question. The links between his poetry - which spanned over three decades - and the socio-economic changes under way in the British Isles at the time are a primary theme of John Howlett’s substantial Introduction to the work. Exploring this wider historical context means that this book is an essential research tool for the field of Victorian and Edwardian poetry but also cultural studies.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisA celebration of a great English heroine, Anne Boleyn dramatises the life and legacy of Henry VIII's notorious second wife, who helped change the course of the nation's history. Traditionally seen as either the pawn of an ambitious family manoeuvred into the King's bed or as a predator manipulating her way to power, Anne – and her ghost – are seen in a very different light in Howard Brenton's epic play. Rummaging through the dead Queen Elizabeth's possessions upon coming to the throne in 1603, King James I finds alarming evidence that Anne was a religious conspirator, in love with Henry VIII but also with the most dangerous ideas of her day. She comes alive for him, a brilliant but reckless young woman confident in her sexuality, whose marriage and death transformed England for ever. Howard Brenton's play Anne Boleyn was first performed at Shakespeare's Globe, London, in July 2010, and was named Best New Play at the Whatsonstage.com Awards in 2011. The play was revived at the Globe in 2011 and toured regionally in 2012 in a joint production between Shakespeare’s Globe and English Touring Theatre.Trade Review'The play bursts through the constraints of costume drama. Brenton understands how to work the audience at the Globe' * Independent *'It takes a big, generous spirit to fill the Globe, and in this Brenton follows Shakespeare - not just with asides and soliloquies, but with a large colourful canvas' * Daily Mail *'Anne Boleyn has drama, royalty, sex, scheming... in short, as much entertainment value as a Tudor execution' * Time Out *'This is no dry and dusty history lesson... a witty and engrossing impression of the times that gave birth to our first Elizabethan age, and the subsequent reformation' * British Theatre Guide *'What an absolute delight... a beautifully written piece of theatre that instantly draws you in into the life and times of both Anne Boleyn and King James I' * Whatsonstage.com *

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis delightful stage adaptation combines all the joy and mystery of Kenneth Grahame's much-loved classic with the lightness of touch and playful theatricality that award-winning playwright Mike Kenny is known for. Tired of spring-cleaning, Mole leaves Mole End and ventures out to the riverbank, where he befriends the resourceful Ratty, the gruff Badger and the infamous Toad of Toad Hall (Poop-poop!). Together they explore the Wide World, and the Wild Wood, and try to keep Toad out of trouble…! With ample opportunities for creativity on stage and wonderful character parts for actors, it is ideal for schools and youth theatres, or any drama groups looking for a fresh new version of an old favourite. This version of The Wind in the Willows was first staged at the Theatre Royal, York, in 2010.Trade Review'Mike Kenny's script is funny, clever and pointed in its championing of riverbank life. It has a warm heart but is never twee' * The Stage *'Taps into the novel's prevailing mood of wistful nostalgia for a timeless, pastoral England' * Guardian *

Read more less

Book SynopsisMoving across Scotland, Ireland and Europe, The Oasis uniquely considers the intersecting complexities of social class, masculinity and selfhood, challenging tradition and recreating aesthetic possibilities with an invigorated joy in language. These are poems of deep attention, reaching for the solace to be found in community.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA spine-chilling play by Hugh Janes, based on several original ghost stories by Charles Dickens. In an ancient, crumbling mansion, sheltering from the howling winds that tear across the surrounding desolate moorland, two men stumble across a dark and terrifying secret that will change both of their lives. When a young book dealer, David Filde, is employed by a former associate of his uncle to catalogue a private library, he finds an incredible array of rare and antiquated books. But as a series of strange and unexplained events conspires to keep Filde from his work, he realises that if he is to convince his sceptical employer that the mysterious phenomena he is experiencing are real, they must journey together to the very edge of terror, and beyond... Hugh Janes' play The Haunting was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Windsor, in 2010. The play offers rich material for amateur theatre companies or student groups who want to introduce their audiences to another side of Dickens' work - and have them jump out of their seats at the same time.Trade Review'The Haunting revels in the old-fashioned power of simple theatrical tricks, and basks in the shrieks and gasps of an audience that is clearly part of the event' * Scotsman *'Great pace and terrific suspense... guaranteed to raise goosebumps' * Maidenhead Advertiser *'Gripping... and fascinating too' * British Theatre Guide *'It hits all the right notes and entertains' * www.informededinburgh.co.uk *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn anthology of three collections bringing three poets together around the subjects of birth and war. The styles of these poets differ, but their imagery and intensity echo each other.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less