Poetry Books

Book SynopsisThe key sequence of The Inside of a Stone concentrates on desert landscapes and womanhood and the emotional resonance between the two while reconceptualising their metaphorical relationship. Sexual violence between animals, an alternative Ilsebill from the Grimm fairytale, and Hildegard of Bingen's magical healing are subjects of other poems.

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Book SynopsisBy turns wryly humorous, tender and heartbroken, Fantastic Voyage takes us on journeys into our hidden and ghostly selves, our insides and our other', exploring how the human body gives voice to unspeakable truths. The books's central long poem a meditation on water charts a deeply personal voyage through grief and loss.

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Book SynopsisHelen Ivory's collection Constructing a Witch fixes on the monstering and the scapegoating of women and on the fear of ageing femininity. These bewitching poems explore the witch archetype and the witch as human woman. With ten collage illustrations by Helen Ivory.

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Book SynopsisMythic and familial beasts roam the swamps and moors of Pascale Petit's Beast. These spirits of the wild haunt the Camargue of Provence, the limestone Causses and gorges of the Languedoc, Indian tiger forests, the Amazon rainforest, and her home by Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. Some of these remote places are vestiges of earth's pristine habitats.

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Book SynopsisThis new translation of three collections from one ofDenmark?s leading poets completes the remarkable Senses Quintet in English.Pia Tafdrup has published over 20 books in Danish since her first collection appeared in 1981, including widely admired sequences of themed collections. The latest of these is a series of five books focussing on the human senses, herSenses Quintet(2014-2022), which the critic Carsten Palmer Schale has called ?a cathedral of the soul? and ?the best collection of poems written in Scandinavia in the past 20 years?.Bloodaxe published David McDuff?s translation of the first two collections in the quintet,The Taste of SteelandThe Smell of Snow, in one volume in 2021. This edition brings together his translations of the third, fourth and fifth parts,The Sight of Light,The Sound of CloudsandThe Touch of Skin.All parts of life are mediated through the five senses in the five books, including the way of the world and the losses that people sustain during the course of their lives ? the disappearance of friends and family members, but also the erosion of control of one?s own existence. The themes of ecology, war and conflict are never far away, and there is a constant recognition of the circular nature of life, the interplay of the generations.

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Book SynopsisThis volume by the inimitable poet, comedian and performer John Hegley brings together poetry, prose and drawings on the themes closest to his heart. Contemplating subjects from painting, France and family to Daleks and of course potatoes, these pieces are by turns funny, moving, thought-provoking - and always brilliantly original. Peace, Love and Potatoes opens a new window onto John Hegley's unique and vivid way of seeing the world, and is certain to delight fans old and new.Trade ReviewJohn Hegley is to potatoes what Wordsworth has been to daffodils * Observer *Comedy's poet laureate * Independent *The Peter Kay of poetry . . . The more personal he is, the more poetic he becomes . . . lovely. -- Mark Sanderson * Sunday Telegraph *Confirms John Hegley's reputation as one of the wittiest of contemporary British poets ... a master of the poetically unexpected. -- Steve Barfield * The Lady *

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Book SynopsisFull of humour and bawdy wit, this new comedy transports us into the wanton world of the English Restoration. A new comedy by Steve Trafford with songs by Henry Purcell. King Charles 2nd lies ill, Nell Gwyn, his royal whore, once the brightest star of the Restoration theatre, rages against her fate. What will become of her if Charles is summoned to his Maker? What perils will befall the English nation? Mistress Gwyn and Margery, her maid, lead us a merry dance, filled with their laughter, their tears, and Nell’s enchanting songs of the Baroque: A rollicking romp which ends with a sting in its tail. Eleanor ‘Nell’ Gwyn (2 February 1650 – 14 November 1687) was a long-time mistress of King Charles II of England and Scotland. Called ‘pretty, witty Nell’ by Samuel Pepys, she has been regarded as a living embodiment of the spirit of Restoration England and has come to be considered a folk heroine, with a story echoing the rags-to-royalty tale of Cinderella. She was the most famous Restoration actress and possessed a prodigious comic talent. Gwyn had two sons by King Charles: Charles Beauclerk (1670–1726); and James Beauclerk (1671–1680). The surname of her sons is pronounced 'Bo-Clare'. Charles was created Earl of Burford and later Duke of St. Albans.Trade ReviewA sensitive reconsideration of a misconstrued figure * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisIt’s 1887 and Nancy Astley sits in the audience at her local music hall: she doesn’t know it yet, but the next act on the bill will change her life. Tonight is the night she’ll fall in love… with the thrill of the stage and with Kitty Butler, a girl who wears trousers. Giddy with desire and hungry for experience, Nancy follows Kitty to London where unimaginable adventures await. Sarah Waters' debut novel, Tipping the Velvet was highly acclaimed and was chosen by The New York Times and The Library Journal as one of the best books of 1998. Reviewers have offered the most praise for Tipping the Velvet's use of humour, adventure, and sexual explicitness. The novel was adapted into a somewhat controversial three-part series of the same name produced and broadcast by the BBC in 2002.

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Book SynopsisSing Me Down From the Dark explores the highs and lows of a ten-year sojourn in Japan, two international marriages, a homecoming, and the struggles of cross-cultural relationships. It is full of light and dark, as if the writer herself has been caught off guard' in the making of these poems.Trade Reviewt would be a mistake to read these poems as simply some form of confessional autobiography, this is so much more – there is a depth and honesty in the descriptions of behaviours and emotions which speaks far beyond the personal, immersing the reader in the complex and intimate confusions that are at the core of relationships. This is a collection which uses a well-crafted variety of forms, from Ghazal to prose poem, exposing the raw edges of social and cultural expectations of women within marriage and wider social settings. -- Roger Bloor * The Alchemy Spoon *East and the West clash and merge in Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s debut collection. Japanese and European cultures criss-cross and interweave in family relationships, love, sex and food. Identity is in flux in a reality that is often blurred and uncertain. Rituals rule but are often ambiguous and confusing. The protagonist retraces ten years of her life in Japan, her marriage and the birth of her son. The memories are experienced at the threshold of two languages, moving from English to Japanese with the aid of translations. It is a cultural and physical movement from one place to the other that conveys a sense of displacement. -- Carla Scarano D’Antonio * The High Window *Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s debut collection Sing Me Down from the Dark recounts her personal story over a period of time that included two international marriages. The poetic style throughout the book’s six untitled sections is strongly confessional, a style that is blended successfully with strong narrative threads and plenty of formal diversity, including innovative prose poetry, a ghazal (‘Ghazal for my husband, on International Women’s Day’), and a pantoum (‘ダーリンは外国人 “My Darling is a Foreigner”’). -- Tim Murphy * The Friday Poem *Family life in Japan, the unravelling of two marriages, being an outsider: Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana draws on her own life and (spoiler alert!) a new relationship as inspiration for this collection. Energetic, richly detailed and varied in form, they make an absorbing debut. Holding the poems together is the theme of ‘home’: what and where it might be. -- D. A. Prince * Orbis *One key point is Corrin-Tachibana’s acute awareness of the poem as artistic artefact rather than as an object that exists purely at the service of the poet’s own self-expression and sense of self-worth. This quality lifts Sing Me Down From the Dark out from the melee of contemporary poetry. It’s written with a reader in mind – something which might be assumed, but which is often relegated by numerous contemporary poets to an afterthought. -- Matthew Stewart * Wild Court *

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Book Synopsis*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE.* 'One of the greatest writers of our time' Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieThe Perfect Nine is a glorious epic about the founding of Kenya's Gikuyu people and the ideals of beauty, courage and unity.Gikuyu and Mumbi settled on the peaceful and bounteous foot of Mount Kenya after fleeing war and hunger. When ninety-nine suitors arrive on their land, seeking to marry their famously beautiful daughters, called The Perfect Nine, the parents ask their daughters to choose for themselves, but to choose wisely.First the young women must embark on a treacherous quest with the suitors, to find a magical cure for their youngest sister, Warigia, who cannot walk. As they journey up the mountain, the number of suitors diminishes and the sisters put their sharp minds and bold hearts to the test, conquering fear, doubt, hunger and many menacing ogres, as they attempt to return home. But it is perhaps Warigia's unexpected adventure that will be most challenging of all.Blending folklore, mythology and allegory, Ngugi wa Thiong'o chronicles the adventures of Gikuyu and Mumbi, and how their brave daughters became the matriarchs of the Gikuyu clans, in stunning verse, with all the epic elements of danger, humour and suspense.'A tremendous writer... it's hard to doubt the power of the written word when you hear the story of Ngugi wa Thiong'o' GuardianTrade ReviewOne of the greatest writers of our time -- Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieA vivid, exhilarating tale with a surprisingly modern philosophy that emphasises the importance of tolerance, feminism and respect for the environment -- Anthony Gardner * Mail on Sunday *As pacy and addictive as it is measured. Thick with allegory and adventure...this is a beautifully told epic about the fundamentals of humanity * New Statesman *A beautiful work that not only refuses distinctions between "high art" and traditional storytelling, but supplies that all-too rare human necessity: the sense that life has meaning -- Fiona Sampson * Guardian *The Perfect Nine uses a deceptively simple language that lays bare deep truths. * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisHere is a collection of sexy, brief, fleeting poems about love, lust and longing. They originate from a time in Japanese history where aristocratic women of the Heian court were free to marry and conduct love affairs according to their desires. Education and refinement were so highly valued that the courtly manner of expressing oneself, whether to give condolences for a death, to send back a forgotten fan, or to heighten the anticipation of a lover's visit, was with a poem of just five lines. A convention of secrecy surrounding love affairs fills these verses with palpable emotion.These vivid and erotic poems express love in all its forms, and do so with amazing economy of words, unforgettable imagery and breath-taking modernity.INTRODUCED BY NIKITA GILL'They are full of dreams, of autumns, of lovers known or not yet met, of desire, wonderment, loneliness' Irish Times Translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani, this is an edition that brings the story of the poems to life with a detailed introduction and notes on the translation.Trade ReviewThese poems take us to the back corridors of Heian Period life and reveal the sexual intrigues that so often occurred under the cover of darkness... the seductive, free-spirited erotic environment unfolds through these sensuous poems * Japan Times *A thousand years later we can read poems that remain absolutely accurate and moving descriptions of our most common and central experiences: love and loss, their reflection in the loveliness and evanescence of the natural world, and the effort to understand better the nature of being -- Jane Hirschfield

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Book SynopsisPoetry is increasingly used in therapy, and it already occupies a central place in expressive arts therapies. This book is the first to explicitly combine theory and practice from the field of expressive arts with poetry and poetics.The book offers both a guide and poetic encouragement for using poetry in expressive arts work. Within this arts context, poetry is offered as a way to create hope and confidence, providing clients with a platform for healing, reconciliation, problem solving, and personal and professional development. Each chapter uses examples of poetry to illustrate the ideas of the chapter.With an outstanding contribution to the field of expressive arts theory and practice, this book is essential for people wanting to use an integrative arts-based approach to help their clients build resilience and foster sustainable, positive change in their lives.

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Book SynopsisAnna is starting to think she made a mistake in moving to Hull. Steph sees her city changing and misses her dad. Both are looking for somewhere to call home and something to believe in. And Sheila? She’s determined to bring people together again, the only way she knows how – karaoke! ‘Cause what we need right now is to get up on our feet, grab a mic together and belt out a ballad after a pint or five. From Pride in Poland and Windass at Wembley, to City of Culture and Brexit Britain, Us Against Whatever is an electrifying cabaret about the places we keep in our hearts, with support from Hull’s finest voices – you!

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Book SynopsisRobert Crawford is a poet, biographer, critic and literary historian who has published eight full collections of poetry and many prose books, including two major biographies of T.S. Eliot: Young Eliot and Eliot After The Waste Land. Emeritus Wardlaw Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews, he is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

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Book SynopsisAt the end of ecstasy / only the memory of ecstasy. / The tongue. The chorus. / The streets of flesh. In Ecstasy, Alex Dimitrov embraces a life on the edge in New York and the finely wrought poetry that can come out of it. He explores sex, drugs, parties, pleasure, and God in the 2020s, and looks back to a coming-of-age in the 1990s that still informs who his generation is and will be. His unabashed and drivingly musical poems are a call against repression, a rebuke of cultural norms and shame, and a celebration of human authenticity even if to live under such philosophies is dangerous. In Today I Love Being Alive', we find the poet naked in his kitchen, eating a banana and obsessed with a new lover, declaring I don't care about being remembered. / I care about . . . Strong men. Beautiful sentences. Italian leather'; in Poppers', he stands lightheaded in the bathroom at a bar, thinking of what to do / with the rest of my life', and issuing a warning to himself and us: Poetry / is not a self-help book.'Dimitrov is an iconographer of contemporary life, able to pin profound and timeless meaning to a fleeting encounter in the street. Ecstasy also engages with the poet's Christian upbringing, interrogating faith as both an enemy and valve of catharsis, and a bedfellow of what this book celebrates and courts: profound human ecstasy.

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Book SynopsisEdward Ragg won the 2012 Cinnamon Press Poetry Award and his debut collection was A Force That Takes (2013). His second volume, Holding Unfailing (2017), charted the rise of modern China, whilst Exploring Rights (2020) confronted ‘post-truth’ culture and the prospects of humankind’s survival. And Then the Rain Came turns to love, physical and mental geographies, well-being and the vitality of the present. Set against the backdrops of the global pandemic and climate crisis, each poem embraces present perception in the awakening motif of rain.Trade ReviewThe manifestations and properties of water are excitingly explored in Edward Ragg’s new collection. Here are living poems where narrative and lyric work together to contemplate the energies implicit in water. The intriguing emphases laid upon the meanings of the word ‘present’ give a unique edge to the poems. Glass, tears, ice, rivers, wine, salinity, tides: all these elements are woven into the texture of this collection, where the illuminations and fluidities of language are beautifully captured. — Penelope Shuttle; In his latest volume Edward Ragg weaves together two deft poetic sequences as a tribute to the power of water and the yearning water can evoke. From the shadows of Durham Cathedral to the Chinese water-town of Tongli, water in this collection is the long-promised rain, the speckled pattern on a window and dew evaporating to a new day. Framed within the challenges of navigating the world in the Covid era, this is a book to read, keep and cherish. — David Tait

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Book SynopsisMemory, time, love and loss weave through all of G W Colkitto’s poems with a resonance that moves us fluidly from yearning to insight. The master of seeing connections, Shake the Kaleidoscope finds Colkitto taking a view across the whole of life: non-linear, sometimes fragmentary, imbued with whimsy and humour, but above all permeable to the scars and triumphs of loss and love. As the poems range back and forth across the years, one memory provoking another, it is not only the whole of the poet’s life laid out in the pieces of glass to be endlessly rearranged, but the whole of the human condition. Whether examining interior moments or negotiations with the world of work; whether writing astute commentary on political and social inequalities, or simply savouring those small moments of deep joy provoked by the simplest of things, Colkitto holds up a mirror to life—his own, and ours. Shake the Kaleidoscope is a major work from an accomplished poet: lucid, accessible, profound.

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Book SynopsisGill McEvoy is a poet who moves through the world with all her senses open. The quality of attention here is profound and pays off in an elegance of phrase and originality of image that makes these poems sing off the page. There is often a playfulness at work in the linguistic dexterity of these pieces, as the poet engages in a car chase with the moon or the flora, fauna and meteorology of October are presented as a weather forecast. There is a connection to land here that is lived and authentic, it is never sentimental, but it brims with hope and generosity even in those moments when we know the longed-for vision' might never appear.

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Book SynopsisThe Adept examines the disconnections the divide contemporary society and the individuals within it. Experimenting with character and form, the collection uncovers some of the paradoxes at the heart of modern life and the often tragic confusion wrought by those who preach certainty. A distinctive and compelling debut.

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Book SynopsisThe art of people-watching is one we all engage in, and in Streetwise these observations, suffused with the many ways we imagine the lives of others, take on depth and focus as poet and passers-by interact without a word needing to be said. In nuanced and lyrical pieces, the poet draws on years of experience as an employment lawyer, aware of those turned out onto the street; reflects on personal experience of the paths that lead to medical diagnoses, aware of those whose news was less fortunate, and above all, simply watches with a humane and intelligent perspective. From city streets to the streets of history, from country paths to places of memory, David Burridge follows in the footsteps of the philosopher Rousseau, revealing how much can be discovered by simply walking through a forest or up a hill. A finely layered and compelling reflection on the many routes we take through life, Streetwise is a collection to which readers will return.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2023. Then the War and Selected Poems, 2007-2020 is two books in one: a representative selection from seven of Carl Phillips's innovative earlier collections and a complete new book of poems, providing a powerful introduction to European readers. A seemingly gentle but resolute attention to the things of this world evokes the joyful and painful elements in the contemporary human condition, characterised by loneliness and an unquenchable thirst for love. He is a poet who knows the rules and bends or breaks them, a master of syntax and prosody, avoiding convention and pursuing the lines of desire. In a starred review of this book, Publishers Weekly said, 'These lyrically rich, insightful poems are full of palpable aching [...] and a human urge to understand. This remarkable compendium is a testament to the spirit of Phillips's work.'Trade Review'The writing dazzles with transcendent metaphors, complex connections and linguistic flourishes' - Washington Post; 'These lyrically rich, insightful poems are full of palpable aching [...] and a human urge to understand. This remarkable compendium is a testament to the spirit of Phillips's work.' - Publishers Weekly

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Book Synopsis'Sea-Fever' remains one of the most popular poems of the last century, and John Masefield one of the most popular poets, a superb spinner of yarns and ballads of tall ships, exotic seas, of the deep-rooted life of rural England, and of the great narratives of Troy and Arthurian legend. This book includes his most popular poems and a few previously uncollected rarities. All share Masefield's love of particular lives: he draws the reader into his stories with an incomparable music of language. This is a representative selection of the poems, in chronological sequence spanning his long career. The editor also provides a full introduction to his work.

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Book SynopsisThese poems are apocalyptic and sensory, coming from a place of hurt and love, of the human spirit struggling to transcend 'base matter' and make sense of the world.

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Book SynopsisThe May-June 2024 issue of PN Review, one of the most outstanding poetry journals of our time.

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Book SynopsisThe July-August 2024 issue of PN Review, one of the most outstanding poetry journals of our time.

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Book SynopsisConjurors presents this poet's best work, much of it for the first time.

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Book SynopsisIn this moving sequence of poems Nicola Davies''s text combines with the superbly evocative illustrations of Petr Horácek to provide insight into the real-life experiences of refugees forced to leave their homes and previous lives behind to face an unknown future.

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Book SynopsisUlrike Almut Sandig’s second volume of poems to be translated into English is a journey through a world that is imaginary yet entirely recognizable. Precise observation of the concrete is mixed with playful humor, inspired musicality, and an anxious reckoning with undercurrents of violence in these poems from Ulrike Almut Sandig. Borrowing from the Brothers Grimm, the collection explores the darker side of their fairy tales as a backdrop for very contemporary concerns: Migration, war, the rise of the new right, ecological threat, information overload, and political apathy. At the same time, Sandig plays with the German meaning of the word “Grimm”: rage. That emotion permeates the collection as a reaction to the darkness in the collective German consciousness. Yet the book is also animated by passionate, expansive empathy—and reminds us what it is to be human. Always inventive, Sandig teases us here with multiple versions of the self, and multiple voices all in search of the origins of poetry in hidden places: in the silence before language, in the wings, in the field of rapeseed deep in the snow. Trade Review"Reading this book is a powerful experience. For me it meant full immersion into a unique world, filled with vivid, or even lurid colours, and strong tastes and smells. . . . [A] truly masterful job of the translator, Karen Leeder." * European Lit Network *"Rage underscores much of the collection as a whole, as an invigorating energy that refuses to be silenced. There is beauty and ugliness here, balanced against anger and hope: a collection as strange and strangely intriguing as its wonderfully eccentric title." * Rough Ghosts *

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Book SynopsisPoeticus Pictoralis II Nautical & Natural by Crispin is the 2nd book in the series and is all about combining words in a pleasing poetry-based style to form beautiful vistas and hopefully interesting scenarios in the mind's eye, whilst the original paintings supplement those words and bring pleasure to your actual eye. The subjects are various and range from, robins, blackbirds, hedgehogs and roses to dangerous seas, predatory seagulls and epic adventure. The poetry is succinct, subtle and can be read at a number of depths, depending upon how deep one wishes to go (not unlike the sea). There are 60 separate poems in each of the books and the beauty of that is you can either dip in for a minute or two for a single poem, or you can spend an afternoon of uplifting enjoyment.

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Book SynopsisTo begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent' Commissioned for the BBC for radio, Dylan Thomas's masterpiece, Under Milk Wood, is set in the fictional Welsh seaside village of Llareggub one spring day. An extraordinary cast of beautifully penned portraits come together, mingling dreams with reality, to give a now immortal depiction of the intertwined lives of a small Welsh community. The work of Dylan Thomas is widely regarded as being amongst the greatest of the Modern period, and his play for voices', Under Milk Wood, is one of the best-loved works in the literary canon.

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Book SynopsisA profound collection that explores Nature and the magic of the in-between, Interlude considers how humans connect with their surrounding landscapes and the creatures with whom we share the planet.

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Book SynopsisTheRemembranceanthology brings together some fifty South Asian poets, and is a celebration of talent, a communion of imaginations from all over the world and an inspiration for would-be writers with their writing career ahead of them.

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Book SynopsisDidn’t Cleopatra look like Elizabeth Taylor? Didn’t Shakespeare look like Shakespeare? Doesn’t Mazzini deserve to have a biscuit named after him? Did Napoleon pass his French exam? Did Nelson really see no ships? Van Gogh…or Van Gogh? And can you spot Hitch’s cameo appearance this time? Potted Portraits is an enjoyable saunter through a portrait gallery of varied personalities from History; revered or reviled, loved or loathed, each led a remarkable life that continues to be of interest today. In a series of light verse biographies which delight in testing the limits of tolerance with their rhymes, puns and general linguistic convolutions, discover a few new things about some familiar characters; or reacquaint yourself with some familiar stories in a new way. Included are some perhaps rather less well-known figures, though no less deserving of attention and rewarding to read about. If you want a little light didacticism, with the reasonable chance of a smile – even a laugh – this is the book for you!

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Book SynopsisLimbic is Peter Scalpello's glittering ode to sex, intimacy, and queer discovery. Taking us on slippery nights out fuelled by chemsex, on drunken lads' holidays, and into the quiet violence of small domestic moments, this is a world where tracksuits hide queer desire, where shame masks vulnerability, where wallets hide wraps of crystal meth. From the eager trepidation of teenage sex, to the ecstasy of parties, to the stigma around HIV, Limbic is at once a therapy and a celebration, showing how queer learning can be both soft-edged and brutal at once. An exploration of masculinity, addiction and trauma, this is a revelatory collection of poems; wise, tender, and vital.Trade Review“Limbic is a stunning first collection from a breathtaking poet. Visceral, elegant and uncompromising; an important addition to the queer canon. Buy it a drink and let it talk to you late into the night.” – Joelle Taylor;“A moving collection which, through different forms, different narratives , and different encounters, speaks eloquently and dynamically to the multiplicities our own bodies contain.” – Andrew McMillan; “At once playful and devastating, raw and complex. These poems tear open the relationship between masculinity and sex, queerness, compulsions, addictions... It would be difficult not to be moved by this collection!” – Keith Jarrett; “All the superlatives for Peter Scalpello’s tender poems. I can’t stop thinking about them.” – Niven Govinden; "Peter Scalpello’s Limbic is an extraordinary book. At times riotous and celebratory as he explores queer desire in a complex and nuanced way; at other times introspective and even erased as Scalpello examines the impact of substance use on the self and on sexuality; and at other times bristling with poetic rage and protest! ‘Wounds need air’ he writes, finding a language, both noisy and translucent, to transform these wounds into poems – poems which ultimately transform and transcend themselves, as the poet even becomes his ‘own daddy’!" - Richard Scott

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