Poetry Books

Book SynopsisFrom a fountain where 'all the roads in the village unite', concentric circles expand into the distance: the young and old, fields, a river, a mountain - the fountain's stone counterpart, where the roads end, human time superimposed on geological time. Renowned as a lyrical poet of austere intensity, in "A Village Life Louise Gluck" evokes a Mediterranean world with luminous precision. Her focus is on moments of speculation and reflection in a dreamlike present tense.

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Book SynopsisA thrilling, funny and spectacular adaptation of Joan Aiken's classic children's novel, perfectly suited to performance by theatre companies and drama groups of any size. A thrilling adventure set in an alternative history of England, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase tells the story of two brave and determined girls as they fight against ferocious wolves, snowy wastelands and their very evil guardian, Miss Slighcarp. The opening of the Channel Tunnel has led to dangerous wolves roaming Britain, but this is not the only danger that cousins Bonnie and Sylvia, and their friend Simon the Goose-boy, must face as they encounter unforgettable characters and mysterious scheming. Russ Tunney's magical adaptation of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was first performed at the Layard Theatre, Wimbourne, in 2010. It was originally performed by a cast of five, but it has also been staged by – and is suitable for – much larger casts. Featuring a chorus who narrate, sing and comment on the action, and plenty of opportunities for song and dance, this version will suit any theatre company, youth theatre or drama group wanting to exercise their theatrical imagination.Trade Review'A gift for any company as family entertainment... Expertly blends melodrama, comedy, adventure and a little spookiness, interwoven with songs and dances... Wonderful stuff' * The Stage *'Satisfying, funny and exciting... this ingenious show makes a children's favourite live on' * ReviewsGate.com *

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Book SynopsisA dreamy collection of poems to read before you turn off the light, or to guide you gently back to sleep when you wake in the small hours.This soothing anthology contains 100 nighttime poems specially selected to calm the mind, introduce positive thoughts, lull us to sleep, and bring on sweet dreams. It contains not only poetry about the night itself, but also an array of restful, tranquil, meditative verse, along with classic lullabies from many cultures. There are also poems that reflect on the good things in life, encouraging gratitude for the day just gone and optimism for the day ahead.Within these pages readers can observe the night sky with Emily Brontë, visit the Lake Isle of Innisfree with W. B. Yeats, and experience Shakespeare?s most calming verses. Poems include the serene ?In the Evening? by Nikki Giovanni, the upbeat ?Everything Is Going to Be Alright? by Derek Mahon, the nursery classic ?My Bed is a Boat? by Robert Louis Stevenson, and many more that are just perfect for the quiet hours of the night.

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Book SynopsisPaul Valery (1871-1945) was a poet and essayist, and along with Verlaine and Mallarme is regarded as one of the most important Symbolist writers, and an influence on poets from Eliot to Ashbery. He had a quiet life by many standards, but in one respect it was exemplary, even legendary; he made an early reputation in little magazines, decided to stop writing verse when still only 20, kept his silence for 20 years, then began again; and his first book of verse, published when he was 45, was his masterpiece La Jeune Parque.'A poem should not mean, but be,' said Archibald MacLeish. La Jeune Parque ('the goddess of Fate as a young woman') certainly exists: she's beautiful and makes great gestures. And as for what she means, there's a substantial amount of argument about that, so La Jeune Parque is a poem by either definition. It's a classic, by general agreement, written to the full 17th-century recipe for alexandrine couplets, and it's modern, with every word pulling its weight in more than one direction. Alistair Elliot's translation with notes is aimed at making this rewarding but difficult long poem accessible enough for bafflement to turn into admiration. He attempts to clarify its small puzzles and also trace the overall narrative line of Paul Valery's poem: it does have a story (what should a young woman do?) and does struggle towards a resolution. He also provides an introduction which deals with the interesting circumstances of the poem's four-year composition (1913-17), which resulted in Valery's instantly becoming a famous poet at the age of 45, after having written no poetry for 20 years.Trade ReviewOne of the finest attempts at absolute poetry this translation, with an introduction and extensive notes, provides a fine introduction to this most difficult of French poets. -- Justin Quinn * The Honest Ulsterman *

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Book SynopsisStaying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human have introduced many thousands of new readers to contemporary poetry, and have helped poetry lovers to discover the little known riches of world poetry. Each anthology in the Staying Alive series has 500 poems to touch the heart, stir the mind and fire the spirit. These books have been enormously popular with readers, especially as gift books and bedside companions. The poems – by writers from many parts of the world – have emotional power, intellectual edge and playful wit. This pocketbook selection of 100 essential poems from the first three anthologies is a Staying Alive travel companion (also available as an e-book). As well as selecting favourite poems from what was originally a trilogy – readers’ and writers’ choices as well as his own favourites – editor Neil Astley provides background notes on the poets and poems. A fourth volume in the series, Staying Human: new poems for Staying Alive, was published in 2020. This format makes it even more suitable as a gift book for all those people you’re sure would love modern poetry if only they were familiar with these kinds of poems. These essential poems are all about being human, being alive and staying alive: about love and loss; fear and longing; hurt and wonder; war and death; grief and suffering; birth, growing up and family; time, ageing and mortality; memory, self and identity; faith, hope and belief; acceptance of inadequacy and making do…all of human life in a hundred highly individual, universal poems.Trade Review'These poems distil the human heart as nothing else' - Jane Campion. 'Truly startling and powerful poems' - Mia Farrow. 'Staying Alive is a book which leaves those who have read or heard a poem from it feeling less alone and more alive' - John Berger. 'A magnificent anthology' - Philip Pullman. 'I love Staying Alive and keep going back to it. Being Alive is just as vivid - this new book feels even more alive - I think it has a heartbeat' - Meryl Streep.Table of ContentsNeil Astley 8 Introduction Mary Oliver 11 Wild Geese Doris Kareva 12 from Shape of Time Rumi 13 The Guest House Fernando Pessoa 14 ‘To be great, be whole…’ Denise Levertov 14 Living Edip Cansever 15 Table Ruth Stone 16 Second-Hand Coat Wisława Szymborska 17 Could Have Rita Dove 18 Dawn Revisited Miroslav Holub 19 The door Jane Kenyon 20 Otherwise Langston Hughes 21 Harlem [2] Rainer Maria Rilke 22 Archaic Torso of Apollo Mary Oliver 22 The Journey James Wright 24 Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota Nina Cassian 25 Temptation Brendan Kennelly 26 Begin Julius Chingono 27 As I Go C.P. Cavafy 28 Ithaka Stanley Kunitz 29 The Layers Robert Frost 31 The Road Not Taken William Stafford 32 The Way It Is Toon Tellegen 32 I drew a line Robert Frost 33 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Mark Doty 34 Migratory Tomas Tranströmer 36 Alone Czesław Miłosz 38 Encounter Elizabeth Bishop 38 At the Fishhouses Louis MacNeice 41 Snow Derek Mahon 42 A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford John Burnside 44 Unwittingly Lars Gustafsson 45 The Girl Ken Smith 46 Being the third song of Urias Philip Levine 47 Starlight Seamus Heaney 48 from Clearances Anne Stevenson 49 Poem for a Daughter Kate Clanchy 50 Love Anne Stevenson 51 The Victory Anna T. Szabó 52 She Leaves Me Thomas Lux 53 A Little Tooth Galway Kinnell 54 After Making Love We Hear Footsteps Alden Nowlan 55 Great Things Have Happened Sharon Olds 56 This Hour Gjertrud Schnackenberg 57 Snow Melting Helen Dunmore 58 Wild strawberries Edwin Morgan 59 Strawberries Kim Addonizio 60 For Desire Kim Addonizio 61 You Don’t Know What Love Is U.A. Fanthorpe 62 Atlas Alan Dugan 63 Love Song: I and Thou Alice Oswald 64 Wedding Philip Larkin 64 An Arundel Tomb Derek Walcott 66 Love After Love Dennis O’Driscoll 67 Missing God Kerry Hardie 70 Sheep Fair Day John Burnside 72 from Of Gravity and light R.S. Thomas 73 The Bright Field Agha Shahid Ali 73 Stationery T.S. Eliot 74 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Czesław Miłosz 78 A Confession Denise Levertov 79 O Taste and See Li-Young Lee 80 From Blossoms Philip Levine 81 The Simple Truth Pablo Neruda 82 Sweetness, Always Jane Kenyon 84 Happiness Edwin Morgan 85 Trio Michael Donaghy 86 The Present Jaan Kaplinski 87 ‘The washing never gets done…’ Yehuda Amichai 88 A Man in His Life Louis MacNeice 89 Entirely Les Murray 90 An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow Naomi Shihab Nye 91 Kindness Elizabeth Bishop 93 One Art Dana Gioia 94 Nothing Is Lost Jane Hirshfield 95 The Weighing Jane Hirshfield 96 Burlap Sack Mourid Barghouti 96 Silence Jack Gilbert 97 A Brief for the Defense W.H. Auden 98 Musée des Beaux Arts Miroslav Holub 98 The fly Yehuda Amichai 100 The Place Where We Are Right Yehuda Amichai 101 The Diameter of the Bomb Geoffrey Hill 102 September Song Michael Longley 103 All of These People Norman MacCaig 104 The Red and the Black Adam Zagajewski 105 Try to Praise the Mutilated World Stephen Dunn 106 Sweetness Michael Coady 107 Though There Are Torturers Nâzim Hikmet 108 It’s This Way Mohja Kahf 109 Hijab Scene #7 Imtiaz Dharker 109 They’ll say, ‘She must be from another country’ Philip Larkin 112 Aubade David Constantine 114 Common and Particular W.H. Auden 115 Funeral Blues Norman MacCaig 116 Memorial Jackie Kay 117 Darling Charles Causley 118 Eden Rock Raymond Carver 119 Gravy Arundhathi Subramaniam 120 Prayer T.S. Eliot 121 from Four Quartets Seamus Heaney 124 Postscript Raymond Carver 124 Late Fragment 126 Notes on poems and poets 156 Acknowledgements 158 Index of writers 159 Index of titles

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Book SynopsisThis Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive Introduction and Notes by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s finest romantic comedies, variously lyrical, melancholy, satiric, comic and absurd. Its boldly implausible plot generates a profusion of love-lorn men, a resourceful heroine in disguise, sexual ambiguity, sceptical philosophising, and finally a multiplicity of marriages. The ironic medley of pastoral artifice, romantic ardour and quizzical reflection has helped to make As You Like It perennially popular in the theatre. A recent production was deemed ‘fresh, funny, sexy and, when it matters, deeply touching’. As You Like It is part of the Wordsworth Classics’ Shakespeare Series, used in the workshops of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Every volume in the series has been newly edited by Cedric Watts, described by Edward Said as ‘a man for whom the enjoyment and enrichment of friends and students is the main consideration in what he does’.

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Book SynopsisA superb adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous story of the unassuming Dr Jekyll and his dark alter-ego Mr Hyde. During one of his audacious experiments trying to separate good from evil in human nature, the kind and gifted Dr Jekyll inadvertently unleashes an alternative personality of pure evil … the mysterious Mr Hyde. As this sinister figure starts causing terror and havoc in foggy London, Jekyll must race to find a cure for his monstrous alter-ego before it takes over for good. This version by David Edgar, first performed at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1996, is a revised and partially re-written version of the adaptation premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican Theatre, London, in 1991.Trade Review'A single actor tackles both roles... His transformation from mild-mannered, myopic doctor to the fiendish Mr Hyde is merely the physical manifestation of the divisions within the Victorian psyche. This thoughtful show goes far beyond melodrama' * Guardian *'Urgent, superbly wrought and well-structured' * Observer *'Both a theatrical feast and an intellectual challenge' * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisThis collection contains more than 80% of the sonnets, including all the famous ones. In addition, there are substantial extracts from the longer narrative poems Shakespeare wrote in his youth, songs from the plays, and celebrated soliloquies from HAMLET, ROMEO AND JULIET, KING LEAR, HENRY V, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, etc. Together, these verses give a comprehensive view of shakespeare the poet by assembling all the well-known passages together with less familiar but equally powerful extracts.

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Book SynopsisProbably the most important single figure in nineteenth century American literature, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) exerted an enormous influence over later writers, especially French Symbolist poets, including Baudelaire and Mallarme, and through them he affected the entire field of modern literature from THE WASTE LAND to LOLITA. Probably best known for his macabre short stories, including THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, and THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, Poe's influence was spread primarily through his poems and essays which are here reprinted. The current volume includes all his extant poems and extensive selections from his essays on poetry.

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Book SynopsisThe appreciation of Zen philosophy and art has become universal, and Zen poetry, with its simple expression of direct, intuitive insight and sudden enlightenment, appeals to lovers of poetry, spirituality, and beauty everywhere. This collection of translations of the classical Zen poets of China, Japan and Korea includes the work of Zen practioners and monks as well as scholars, artists, travellers and recluses, and covers fifteen centuries of Oriental literature with poets ranging from Xie Lingyun (5th century) through Wang Wei and Hanshan (8th century) and Yang Wan-li (12th century) to Shinkei (15th) Basho (17th) and Ryokan (19th).

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Book SynopsisA knife is pulled. An Uber driver is racially abused on the day of the Brexit referendum. A father bathes his son in ice water. A schoolboy drives a drawing pin into a map of the world. The threat of violence is never far away in Anthony Anaxagorou's breakthrough collection After the Formalities. Technically achieved, emotionally transformative and razor-sharp, these are poems that confront and contradict; poems in which the scholarly synthesises with the streetwise, and global histories are told through the lens of one family. Anaxagorou 'speaks against the darkness', tracking the male body under pressure from political and historical forces, and celebrates the precarious joy of parenthood. The title poem is a meditation on racism and race science that draws on the poet's Cypriot heritage and is as uncomfortable as it is virtuosic. Elsewhere, in a sequence of prose poems that shimmer with lyric grace, he writes, 'I'm your father & the only person keeping you alive.' Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize A Poetry Society Recommendation A Guardian Poetry Book of the Year One of The Telegraphs Best Poetry Books of 2019Trade ReviewEndorsementsA burning rage with a delicate taste, Anthony’s words are a puzzle for the mind, a wrench for the heart and a massage for the soul. After the Formalities sees a poet at the peak of his powers, playing with form and style, tone and content, while maintaining a unique voice through a characteristic mix of historical scholarship, and caustic wit.- AkalaAfter the Formalities is a supreme collection. Anaxagorou’s lyrics, mapped over expansive interior and historical landscapes, feels to me as wise and weathered, and it feels to be bringing something totally new to my ear. Solid. The Self and The West catch the hardest blows, but Anaxagorou’ s throws hands critical, bloodied, and tender all so skilfully in this collection you can’t help but come out feeling rocked too. The ghosts that haunt this collection have bless it and we are blessed for it.- Danez Smith There’s a fresh type of originality in After The Formalities; a book funded by a quiet, yet fierce knowing, that weighs its startling imagery and intuitive language with a depth of risk and vulnerability. Anaxagorou's vocabulary is one which pushes back, moving between socio-symbolic spaces and evolving an empathy and generosity that wasn’t there before, and for this I love him.- Wayne Holloway-SmithAfter the Formalities doesn’t just radically redefine what it means to write about the self in poetry, it forges a space for a brand-new kind of poetics on the subject. Anaxagorou’s philosophic utilization of multiple poetic modes gifts the poems their mastery, and his view on the world and ideas – unsettled, nebulous, nuanced and ambivalent – means these masterful poems can then critique the very form within which they sit, both co-opting and critiquing structures in poetry and the world that subjugate. Formal, experimental, dextrous, aural, democratic, radical; what Anaxagorou does in this collection breaches paraphrase. Mining personal and public history, the importance of this book – for poetry and for how we talk about and know society – cannot be overstated. These poems work as poems should: enacting deep thought towards philosophies, and they make me hopeful.- Rachael AllenThere’s a fresh type of originality in After the Formalities; a book funded by a quiet, yet fierce knowing, that weighs its startling imagery and intuitive language with a depth of risk and vulnerability.Wayne Holloway-SmithAnthony Anaxagorou's After the Formalities is a novel response to anxieties surrounding the growth of the immigrant-descended population, informed by his British and Cypriot heritage. [...] The poet speaks out "against darkness" to a divided nation and seeks the solace of home, whether assigned or adopted.Jade Cuttle, The Guardian -- Jade Cuttle * The Guardian *A manifesto for a complete, multifaceted masculinity ... makes After the Formalities essential reading for our times.Katie Mennis, The London Magazine * The London Magazine *Anaxagorou's] crystalline language, brevity, use of space, gaps and silence all commit themselves to accounting for loss, or the "violence in forgetting".Sandeep Parmar, The Guardian * The Guardian *Anaxagorou probes the themes of masculinity, fatherhood and ethnicity, confronting them head-on ... There are also subtle and tender moments between the poet and his son, where curiosity and vulnerability are celebrated.Zakia Carpenter-Hall, Poetry London * Poetry London *At once personally redemptive and historically acute [...] Anaxagorou's poems are at their most powerful when they slip into this kind of rapid rattle, the verbs fronted and the clauses lopped of their subjects. The narrative, rather than losing pace with the lanugage, is turned, chewed, stung.Will Harris, The Poetry Review * The Poetry Review *

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Book SynopsisFlash Fiction : a dream noir, a fractured narrative of grey twilight where half-glimpsed figures flicker through a deserted city-scape. Connection is everything, but nobody connects.

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Book SynopsisSophia Blackwell's new collection, The Fire-Eater's Lover, is about performance of all kinds. Whether it's the rituals of seduction, the trials and triumphs of squeezing into a red vintage dress or the adrenalin of putting a microphone to your lips, these poems are filled with the joy of performing. The Fire-Eater's Lover conjures together scraps of everything from classic blues songs to job rejection letters, marriage proposals and medical questionnaires, and whips them into a circus of illicit sex, love lost and found, bittersweet goodbyes and moments of illumination.

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Book Synopsis"Invisible is a teasing title for a collection of poetry. [Wallace] Stevens, with whose work Jacek Gutorow has a deep and sustained engagement, suggested in ‘The Creations of Sound’, that poems should ‘make the visible a little hard / To see’ […] Both Gutorow and Stevens develop a poetic medium that maintains an oscillating dialectic between the seen and the unseen. The invisible operates not as an occlusion of reality, but as an aura saturating what is described; images are gently prised from the contexts of time and place and invested with a mysterious in-between life..."- Mark Ford, from the Introduction to Invisible.

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Book SynopsisThrough storytelling rhymes and vulnerable narratives in conversation with both contemporary Hip-Hop culture and systemic anti-Blackness, 808s & Otherworlds pieces together a speculative reality where Blackfolk are simultaneously superhuman and dehumanized.

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Book SynopsisThis collection lifts the veil between this world and the next, asking us to consider how your dead are never quite your dead.

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Book Synopsisni de aquí, ni de allá: It starts neither here nor there, a liminal space between two states of being. A life captured within his lines, At Least This I Know guides the reader through Andrés N. Ordorica’s own story, of ancestry, nationhood, activism and queerness, through childhood photographs, across international highways, to tales of love and loss, and beyond. These poems are a means of working through the belonging in both the physical sense and emotional, be it the belonging of immigrant bodies in new countries, or that of the queer self within found families and safe spaces. Navigating his family origin and personal journey to belonging, from Mexico, the USA, to Scotland, it’s a story to be welcomed into, one that flows from the page and envelops you.Trade Review"Vivid, humane, caustic brittle and witty. A compelling take on story, state, sorrow and soul." - Jenni Fagan, LuckenboothTable of ContentsNovember 16th, 2014 Where I begin Photograph Mother in the community pool blessings For Papá At least this I know How I have grown The sun is the only constant Word association: Gay Breakdown on I-35 I am listening Things I want Bottled Blue then and now Birdsong What I have lost Things I think but never do By the seashore Si Dios Quiere These pyramids are houses for the dead Untitled [May 14th, 2010] Rosemary What I have given Amor El vaquero Faggot Four men Losing myself Newark Liberty International Airport The party 8 synonyms for vermillion fresas He that I love Mountaintop The unspeakable type Hove Neroli Kiss We are young and still have time It had been so long Where I will burn Bennachie Mother tongue Ceremony Ramesh’s magic carpet ride Endless Belonging Stout The sea is rising The one who outcounts Epilogue Mis raíces

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Book SynopsisIn Axonas/Axis, Curtis gives voice to the experience of trauma and recovery through the poetic language of imagery rather than graphic detail, attempting to convey the fundamental twist in the narrative - perhaps even a breakage - that needs to be mended through a synthesis of mind, heart and body working towards the integration of the whole. The whole self. Using Ancient Greek words/concepts and mythology as a springboard to launch into her own personal etymology - the origin and intimate meaning of words dear to her - juxtaposed against what we commonly expect from that word. Ultimately, these poems attempt to tread on Holy ground, the territory where symbol is created from suffering and metaphor from the muscle of language, the territory of healing and wholeness.

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Book SynopsisCiara Maguire's poems explore the bright fields and dark corners of love. They are heartbreaking, sexy and addictive.

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Book SynopsisPeter Raynard’s Manland is a bold, brilliant and outspoken new collection of poems that scrutinise men and manhood, mental health, working class lives and disability. Aloud and alive with music, wit, anger and rebellion, this is an accomplished, politically-aware and vital book. Raynard is a skilled observer, and these razor-sharp poems document parenthood through the lens of a stay-at-home dad, attempt to tell the truth about men and depression, study our cultural, social and medical relationships with drugs and drug-taking, and lay bare the realities of life at the sharpest edges of society. By turns frank, painful and bleakly funny, this humane and brilliant book encompasses pride and prejudices, the bonds between lads and dads, the toxic pressures of masculinity and the way illness and poverty irrevocably shape lives.

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Book SynopsisRamona Herdman’s Glut is a lush, entertaining, and bittersweet collection of poems about how we live together and find meaning through rules and rituals around food, family, alcohol, work, nature, sex and love. These vividly-realised, nimble poems probe at the delicate balancing acts we – our bodies and our minds – perform in life: between power and trust, between convention and rebellion, and between what is enough and what is too much. All the time, Herdman’s spry poetry keeps a gimlet eye on our impulse to make sense of it all – of how we live and work together, and what strategies will help us to navigate our way through the tangled undergrowth of negotiation and misunderstanding. Glut is a lustrous, darkly funny, open-hearted book on the distance between people, on satisfying appetites, and on seeking both pleasure and consolation.

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Book SynopsisNew revised 2020 version Chequered Flags to Chequered Futures tells the true story of Chris Gilfoy, the Rookie’s World Champion Banger Racer in 2000. In 2006 Chris was being driven along a public road in a powerful BMW by a racing friend. She was thought to be driving at 90 mph in a 30 limit. None were wearing seatbelts and, unknown to Chris, the driver was uninsured. Disastrously, they crashed into a wall, narrowly avoiding killing another driver. The consequences for all three in the car were life changing in very different ways. The play tells the fast-paced story through the words of Chris and his family with great opportunities for imaginative ensemble work. In a parallel strand of powerful monologues, Jane (the mother of the driver) tells her story of the aftermath of the accident. Suitable for: Key Stage 3/4/5, BTEC, A-Level to adult Duration: 60 minutes approximately Cast: 5 female, 3 male, 3 female/male “Mark beautifully crafts and weaves the story of the three friends and cleverly integrates some stunning monologues.” Tim Ford: Artistic Director Garrick Theatre, Litchfield

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Book SynopsisThe algorithm of my own life, faded and spidery, is written, not keyed in. From bombsites used as childhood playgrounds to lockdown FaceTime calls, Kate Foley looks back on almost nine decades of life – a life characterised by curiosity, resistance and a strong connection with the natural world. Appreciation and concern for the planet runs through this frank and moving collection, which muses on the notions of faith and belief, ultimately rejecting both Whitehall politics and traditional religion as inadequate to deal with environmental crisis. Simultaneously nostalgic and highly concerned with the future, Kate Foley’s candid reminiscence and simple use of language draw us softly into consideration of life’s big questions: What’s it all for? How will we be remembered? Will it build again, our earth?

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Book SynopsisAtlantis is a majestic, epic poem and a lasting jewel of Catalan literary tradition. With a colossal architecture and a descriptive power that creates memorable passages of prodigious beauty - the vision of the garden of the Hesperides and the dream of Queen Isabel are just some examples - this poem was the winner of the Jocs Florals in 1877, the forging work of the modern Catalan literary language, and earned Verdaguer literary recognition in and outside of Catalonia.

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Book SynopsisOn the radio they said that Hans Christian Andersen wrote the Little Mermaid whilst he was avoiding the wedding of the person he loved. I thought 'that doesn't sound like a story that involves singing lobsters'. So I picked a book from my shelf, I sat down at the table, and I began to read. And as I read the stories, I remembered where I first heard them. You know how that is? You open one memory and a thousand more pour out.

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Book SynopsisPriestess of the Powder Puff Experiment has taken four years to create and compile; a distillation of deep self enquiry, bold uncensored rants, hilarious absurdism reflecting modern life’s insanity, and tender moments of beauty inspired by the natural world. Jackie also tackles subjects such as environmental destruction, mental health issues and social injustice. In turns passionate and confessional, sensitive and poignant, and peppered with her inimitable bold humour, this collection is something to be savoured again and again.

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Book SynopsisFrom the celebrated author of The Topeka School, a collection of poetry that is dazzlingly intelligent, moving and speaks directly to our complex times. The Lights is a constellation of verse and prose, voice memos and vignettes, songs and silences, that brings the personal and the collective into startling relation. These are poems at once alive to the forces that shape human society and to the rhythms of the natural world, to the power of new technologies and the wonder of our timeless planet. Sometimes the scale is intimate and quiet and sometimes the poems are sweeping, Orphic experiments in the "collectivization of feeling": "I want everybody out there to sing along, even the stones." Written over a span of fifteen years, The Lights records the pleasures, risks, and absurdities of making art and family and meaning against a backdrop of interlocking, accelerating crises. And, even while alert to the darkness, it is the light in the book that remains, in dusk, in images from space, in old poems, in power cuts, in the flickering connections between people. From one of the most celebrated writers of his generation, the poems in this collection come to us as beacons, illuminating new possibilities of thought and feeling.Trade ReviewBen Lerner's poems are remarkable for their graceful, trenchant exploration of aesthetics, politics, voice, address, music, and structure -- Maggie NelsonAt long last we have the deep pleasure of reading a new book of poems by Ben Lerner. The Lights continues his boundless innovative vocal range: the lyrical, the fictive, the confessional, and the apostrophe, are seamlessly braided in this exhilarating collection. The Lights is Lerner's most personal and important book to date -- Peter GizziI look forward to Ben Lerner's poetry the way I used to anticipate a new record by my favourite band. He can be painfully funny and urgently serious in the same poem, self-excoriating and intellectually generous -- Luke KennardBen Lerner's poems are brilliant. Again and again they decode and recode the daily mysteries. The questing intelligence and ironist's wink are underpinned by a real moral force -- Nick LairdSteeped in a tradition stretching back to the origins of the poetic tradition in English, Lerner's speakers wander a perpetually twilit cityscape, contemplating the poets' complicity in the prosodies of political entropy, American empire, death-drive capitalism - these poems are haunting, gloaming, blue. -- Stephanie Sy-QuiaI was deeply moved by The Lights. Reading the poems felt like an encounter with an archive of a beloved, where fragments can affect a startling power, and within the more seemingly ordinary texts - 'glimmers of empathy', 'exuberance and flatness', a new 'experience of language' - I found exactly what I needed. -- Amy Key

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Book SynopsisAn extraordinary and playful debut collection by one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, exploring the joy and fluidity of queer love.

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Book Synopsis'Talisman for the Soul' is an immersive and illuminating collection that expresses a powerful intensity of emotion, exploring overarching themes of human interaction, as well as the human need to transform and adapt as individuals. Written by a poet of rare descriptive power, the poems speak to a world of increasing disconnection, one that is careering towards climate breakdown and ecological destruction. The poems seek to reconnect with the mystery and sacredness of human life by exploring the foundations of human identity through themes that touch us all: love and loss, humour, beauty, joy, relationships, and the natural world.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements vii Introduction ix Quotation by Ben Okri xiv THE INNER POET 1 Aspirations of a Young Poet 2 How to Read a Poem 4 Finding the Way to Go 6 Keeping Afloat 9 Taking Flight 11 Surrender to the Muse 13 Thanks 15 Unlocking Poems 17 Writing 19 ENCOUNTERS WITH MOTHER NATURE 21 Doing Nothing 22 Pigeon 24 Loss 26 Source of Joy 28 Snapshots of Summer 30 Crenelated Tower 32 House Martins 34 Rooks 36 Viper 37 Swans 39 Bedtime Stories 40 Dawn in the Paddock 42 FAMILY AND OTHER RELATIONSHIPS 43 Touch 44 The Letter 46 Someone I may have known 50 Beyond Appearance 52 Waking up on Earth 54 Time to Go 57 The people I don’t know 58 Released 60 School Photo Shot 61 Lost Causes 62 Our Ukraine A message from Kyiv 64 Why are we here? 66 Words Within Worlds 68 Old Flame 70 God Speaks 71 Taking Stock 73 THE FURTHER REACHES 75 Touching the Void 76 What we do to God 77 Passing on 78 Being Human 79 Brahman 80 Going Back Home 82 Having Been Born 83 Holding Fast 85 Letting Go 87 Morning 90 Rapping Home (after Kate Tempest) 91 Return to the lost Planet 94 Say What You Mean 1 96 Say What You Mean 2 97 Soul Searching 99 Dialling Down 101 The Word 102 Transformation 104 View from the Window 105 What I Am 107 What I Have Come to Know 108 Freewheeling 111 HAVING FUN 113 Terminal 9 114 Mr. Verity 116 Election Fever 118 Imagine 120 Ode to the Door Key 122 Smart 123 HAIKU 125

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