Poetry Books

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis"These experimental translations will grab you — some will give you goose bumps, some will rub off their lyric pensiveness and cheeky melancholia; some will make your fierce-pipped heart feel fiercer again, in solidarity." - Sophie SeitaDebut collection of mistranslations of Petrarchan love poems by Kat Addis. For Fans of: Shakespeare, Anne Carson, Katherine Angel, Jacqueline Rose, Alice Notley.

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Book Synopsis''We met too soon, some said, and now you are gone,and I am looking at thedawn of a thousandtomorrows, still holding onto yesterday's sun.'Bright Dustis author Jane Lightbourne's first poetry collection from publisher Nevada Street Press (WINNER - BEST EMERGING INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER 2024 - UK ENTERPRISE AWARDS 2024). Reminiscent of the work of early 20th century imagist poets, the poemscelebrate all forms of love, from desire to treachery and betrayal, from love as destroyer to love's destruction and loss, the consolations of domestic love, and finally to the ultimate solace found in the force and beauty of the natural world, and the peace that comes from an acceptance of our place within it.Readers are invited to contemplate the intricacies of human experience through carefully written, poignant verses that are brief, evocative, and thought-provoking.Praise for Bright Dust

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Book Synopsis'You do not know me yet but I am the heroine of this drama. I am told that here I must give a taste of what is to unfold. I am to convey that this tale is set in Jamaica during the last turbulent days of slavery and the early years of freedom. 'I am to say that it is a true and thrilling journey through that unsettled time. 'Cha, I say, what fuss-fuss. Come, let them just see it for themselves.' The Long Song is adapted from Andrea Levy's award-winning novel by Suhayla El-Bushra. It premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre in October 2021, directed by Charlotte Gwinner.Trade Review'[An] unblinking portrait of dignity amid moral horror... Suhayla El-Bushra's adaptation is a model of economy and fidelity... vivid and disturbing' * Guardian *'Scenes of rare power' * The Times *'Bold, brilliant... phenomenal... Wherever it goes next, it's imperative it has a further life' * Telegraph *'An excellent adaptation... a brilliant interpretation of the story that had the audience gripped and engrossed from beginning to end. The applause, cheers and standing ovation said it all' * British Theatre Guide *

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Book Synopsis'The sky turns the colour of a jay's eye. The sea turns a deep royal purple. The mist lifts in quick, lithe ribbons, like a conjuring trick. Before us lies the island…' It's 1935, and an eccentric English family – four children, their widowed mother, and Roger the dog – arrives on the sun-soaked shores of Corfu to start a new life. For eleven-year-old Gerry Durrell, the extraordinary landscape provides the perfect playground. Its exotic fauna inspires a life-long fascination with the animal kingdom – and his much-loved memoir My Family and Other Animals. Janys Chambers' acclaimed stage adaptation was first seen at York Theatre Royal, and invites other theatre companies to make ingenious and inventive decisions, bringing to life all the inhabitants of Durrell's cherished island – whether they walk and talk, fly and squawk, crawl or swim or slither.Trade Review'Simply a delight... The play's triumph is in the way it captures the exuberance of youth and the strangeness of the new culture that Gerald and his family find themselves in... it's there in Janys Chambers' adaptation, which keeps chunks of Durrell's evocative prose while adding some wonderfully funny embellishments' * The Stage *'Durrell gets the revival he deserves... it fairly fizzes with life' * Daily Mail *'Weaves the poetic, wide-eyed prose of Gerald Durrell's childhood memoir into a really charming and fun play' * Whatsonstage *

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Book Synopsis'She made some very poor decisions. You tried to warn her. You love her yet, and that's a credit to you, but you need to think about what's best for Scotland...' It's 1567. James Melville is an intelligent, charismatic and skilled diplomat – and also one of the most loyal servants of Mary Stuart, the troubled Queen of Scots. It's a time of political turmoil, and the shocking crimes he has witnessed have shaken him. Now he needs to decide who's guilty, who's innocent, and who is too dangerous to accuse. Change is coming, but at what price? Mary is an explosive political thriller, and part of Rona Munro's breathtaking theatrical exploration of Scottish history. It is the sixth instalment of The James Plays Cycle which began with James I, II and III, performed by National Theatre of Scotland, including a run at the National Theatre in London, and which won the Evening Standard and Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards in 2014, and James IV, co-produced by Raw Material and Capital Theatres in association with National Theatre of Scotland, in 2022. Mary received its world premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London, also in 2022, directed by Roxana Silbert.Trade Review'A psychological and political thriller which pulses with excitement... Munro brilliantly interrogates historical fact, and her account of sexual violence is stunningly intense. At the end, she comes up with an equally impressive coup de théâtre... an excellently taut and satisfying account of intrigue and betrayal' * Arts Desk *'An engaging debate drama with some thrilling exchanges' * Guardian *'A chamber piece about political power and the deals men do in back rooms... a brilliant depiction of political persuasion... fascinating and truly unsettling' * Time Out *'A tight, incisive political drama... keenly focused and fiercely relevant' * The Stage *'A complex dissection of power dynamics coupled with tense and dramatic storytelling' * Reviews Hub *

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Book Synopsis'I been lookin at people on the street. This happen a other people? What the hell do they do?' Wyoming, 1963. A wild, unforgiving land where people live simple, unforgiving lives. When ranch hands Ennis and Jack take seasonal jobs on the isolated Brokeback Mountain, they find companionship in each other. And then they find something more. Brokeback Mountain tells the heartbreaking tale of an irresistible and hidden love spanning twenty years, and its tragic consequences. Based on a short story by Annie Proulx, this stage adaptation by Ashley Robinson, with songs by Dan Gillespie Sells, opened at @sohoplace in London's West End in 2023. It was directed by Jonathan Butterell, and featured Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges as Jack and Ennis, with Eddi Reader performing the songs. As Annie Proulx said of the adaptation, 'Brokeback Mountain has been recreated in several different forms, each with its own distinctive moods and impact. Ashley's script is fresh and deeply moving, opening sight lines not visible in the original nor successive treatments.' Trade Review'A potent, subtle piece of dramatic alchemy... a gem of a show' * Evening Standard *'Beautiful... the play packs a punch... with a herd of achingly lovely country ballads' * Telegraph *'A finely drawn musical miniature of quiet compulsion... has its own delicate, stirring power' * The Stage *'Tender and beautiful... like Bob Dylan/Conor McPherson's Girl from the North Country, this is a "play with music", and lightning strikes twice here... a notably superior musical offering' * iNews *'Stunning... a story fraught with emotion, tenderness, and heart... truly beautiful' * Broadway World *'An impossibly moving tale for our times... the music has a melancholy beauty that conjures the spirit of freedom and natural glory that is part of Brokeback's story... Robinson's adaptation sticks pretty close to Proulx's language, and honours the taciturn quality of the story' * WhatsOnStage *'A faithful and loving recreation of Proulx's original story, bringing with it a tenderness that could only be found in live performance... very special indeed' * Theatre Weekly *'Perfectly pitched and desolately poignant... Ashley Robinson's stage adaptation returns Annie Proulx's short story to a distilled purity... heartbreaking' * Guardian *'A memorable evening, beautifully judged. Don't miss it' * British Theatre Guide *'Heartbreaking and incredibly poignant... the most satisfying of theatrical experiences' * The Upcoming *

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Book SynopsisA racy and riveting drama of intrigue at the Tudor court, based on Philippa Gregory's internationally bestselling novel.

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Book SynopsisA powerful and passionate play about the devastating impact of generational HIV stigma, racism, homophobia and repressive gender norms. Premiered at HOME, Manchester, in 2023, before touring the UK in 2025.

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Book Synopsis"""None of this should ever have happened. Somebody should have given us a different life."" Two ten year olds are brought in for questioning. A third boy has gone missing. The investigator is gentle. The boys begin to talk. 1993. A play about the killing of James Bulger. Stripped to the bone, faithful to the facts. Unflinching. "Trade ReviewOutrageous and beautiful' The Gothenburg Post

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Book SynopsisHerbert experimented brilliantly with a remarkable variety of forms, from hymns and sonnets to "pattern poems," the shape of which reveal their subjects. Such technical agility never seems ostentatious, however, for precision of language and expression of genuine feeling were the primary concerns of this poet who admonished his readers to "dare to be true." An Anglican priest who took his calling with deep seriousness, he brought to his work a religious reverence richly allied with a playful wit and with literary and musical gifts of the highest order. His best-loved poems, from "The Collar" and "Jordan" to "The Altar" and "Easter Wings," achieve a perfection of form and feeling, a rare luminosity, and a timeless metaphysical grandeur.

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Book SynopsisMany kinds of equine characters grace these pages, from magnificent war horses to cowboys' trusty steeds, from broken-down nags to playful colts, from wild horses to dream horses. We encounter the famous Trojan horse in Virgil's Aeneid, only to see it from a quite different perspective in Matthea Harvey's whimsical 'Inside the Good Idea'. Longfellow shows us Paul Revere defying an empire from the back of a horse, while Shakespeare's Richard III vainly offers his kingdom for one. Robert Burns's 'Auld Farmer' dotes affectionately on his ageing mare, while Paul Muldoon's 'Glaucus' is devoured by his fierce young fillies. Robert Frost's little horse stopping by the woods is gently puzzled by human behaviour, while Ted Hughes is dazzled by a stunning vision of horses at dawn, 'grey silent fragments/Of a grey silent world'.Mythical and metaphorical horses cavort alongside vividly real ones in these poems, whether they be humble servants, noble companions, beloved friends or emblems of the wild beauty of the world beyond our grasp.

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Book SynopsisPainting and sculpture have inspired great poetry, but so also have photography, calligraphy, tapestry and folk art. Included here are poems celebrating Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa', Monet's 'Waterlilies' and Grant Wood's 'American Gothic'; well-known poems such as Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and Auden's 'Musée de Beaux-Arts', Homer's immortal account of the forging of the Shield of Achilles and Garcia Lorca's breathtaking ode to the surreal paintings of Salvador Dali. Allen Ginsberg writes about Cézanne, E. E. Cummings about Picasso, Billy Collins about Hieronymous Bosch, and Joyce Carol Oates about Edward Hopper. Here too are poems that take on the artists themselves, from Michelangelo and Rembrandt to Georgia O'Keeffe and Andy Warhol. Altogether, this brilliantly curated anthology proves that a picture can be worth a thousand words - or a few very well-chosen ones.

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Book SynopsisJames Merrill once called his poetic works 'chronicles of love and loss', and in twenty books written over four decades he used the details of his life - comic and haunting, exotic and domestic - to shape a compelling, sometimes intensely moving, personal portrait. Sophisticated, witty and ironic, his poetry also engages passionately with topical issues - war, terrorism, political corruption, AIDS, climate change and the destruction of nature. An admirer of Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop and W. H. Auden, Merrill, like them, has left a legacy that will speak to readers for years to come.

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Book SynopsisGiven that insects vastly outnumber us (there are approximately 200 million insects for every human) it is no surprise that there is a rich body of verse on the creeping, scuttling, flitting, stinging things with which we share our planet. Many cultures have centuries-old traditions of insect poetry. In China,where noblewomen of the Tang dynasty kept crickets in gold cages-countless songs were written in praise of these 'insect musicians'. The haiku masters of Japan were similarly inspired, though spread their net wider to include less prepossessing bugs such as houseflies, fleas and mosquitoes. In the West, poems about insects date back to the ancient Greeks, and insects feature frequently in European literature from the 16th century onwards. The poets collected here range from Donne, Marvell, Keats and Wordsworth; Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Christina Rossetti, to Elizabeth Bishop, Mary Oliver, Ted Hughes, Paul Muldoon and Alice Oswald. In translation there is verse by - amongst others - Meleager and Tu Fu, Ivan Turgenev, Victor Hugo, Paul Valéry, Pablo Neruda, Antonio Machado and Xi Chuan. Bees, butterflies and beetles, cockroaches and caterpillars, fireflies and dragonflies, ladybirds and glowworms--the miniature creatures that adorn these pages are as varied as the poetic talents that celebrate them.

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Book SynopsisLemn Sissay's poems are laid into the streets of downtown Manchester, feature on the side of a public house in the same city and have been emblazoned on a central London bus route. He has been published in press as diverse as the the Times Literary Supplement and the Independent to The Face and Dazed & Confused.He has been commissioned to write poetry, documentaries and plays for Radio 1 and Radio 4. He has been involved in television in the roles of writing, performing and presenting. He is published in over sixty books and featured on the Leftfield album Leftism, which has sold over five million copies worldwide.Rebel Without Applause is the collection that started everything for Lemn Sissay.Trade ReviewHis poems are the songs of the street, declamatory, imaginative,hard-hitting: about mothers, supermarkets, dreams of Africa, gettingpicked up by police for being black. . . mocking the limitations of themocker -- Ruth Padel * * Independent on Sunday * *He's a lyrical genius that's causing a storm across the country. * * The Voice * *Striking style. . . One high point of his collection is 'Love Poem' - possibly the most poignant eleven words ever written. * * Buzz * *Fierce, funny, serious, satirical, streetwise and tender * * The Big Issue * *

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Book SynopsisShivanee Ramlochan’s poems take the reader through a series of imaginative narratives that are at once emotionally familiar and compelling, even as the characters evoked and the happenings they describe are heavily symbolic. Her poems reference the language and structural patterns of the genres of fantasy or speculative fiction, though with her own distinctive features, including the presence of such folkloric Trinidadian figures as the Duenne, those wandering lost spirits whose feet point backwards. In these poems, a woman is invariably the protagonist and Ramlochan is eloquent in her exploration of the ways in which gender has to be negotiated. They constantly challenge the stereotypes of the female. The female force that Ramlochan explores in her poems is creative and destructive, vulnerable and untameable. In poem after poem, the female assumes the elemental roles of both saviour and devil.

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Book SynopsisFiligree typically refers to the finer elements of craftwork, the parts that are subtle; our 'Filigree' anthology contains work that plays with the possibilities that the word suggests, work that is delicate, that responds to the idea of edging, to a comment on the marginalisation of the darker voice. Filigree includes work from established Black British poets residing inside and outside the UK; new and younger emerging voices of Black Britain and Black poets who have made it their home as well as a selection of the Inscribe poets who we have nurtured and continue to support. They have all responded in compelling ways to the concept of 'Filigree'. Tolu Agbelusi – Sui Anukka – Raymond Antrobus – Lynne E Blackwood – Siddhartha Bose (Sid) – Victoria Bulley – Michael Campbell – Nana-Essi Casely-Hayford – Maya Chowdhry – Rishi Dastidar – Tishani Doshi – Zena Edwards – Samatar Elmi – Christina Fonthes – Patricia Foster – Kat François – Nandita Ghose – Nikheel Gorolay – Keith Jarrett – Maggie Harris – Joshua Idehen – Sumia Jamaa – Pete Kalu – Fawzia Kane – Rachel Long – Adam Lowe – Nick Makoha – Roy Mcfarlane – Ronnie McGrath – Momtaza Mehri – Sai Murray – Selina Nwulu – Louisa Adjoa Parker – Aisha Phoenix – Barsa Ray – Akila Richards – Maureen Roberts – Roger Robinson – Selina Rodrigues – Seni Seneviratne – Ioney Smallhorne – Degna Stone – Hugh Stultz – Ruth Sutoyé – Keisha Thompson – Gemma Weekes

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Book SynopsisIn her fourth collection, Seni Seneviratne will extend her reputation as a fine poet whose incisive social and political concerns are matched by her meticulous care with the shape of each poem and the architecture of her collections, where individual poems are enriched by their place in the whole and their dialogue with each other. In this collection, the connecting thread is the bird, both in its observed physical otherness and as an image that carries cultural and historical resonances. In the first section of the collection, the imagery of the caged bird runs through a sequence of poems that meditate on the silenced voices of enslaved Black children, trapped as picturesque, consumerist trophies in those 18th century paintings to be found in English stately homes, which celebrate their occupants’ gaining of new wealth through the slave trade and slave-grown sugar. The second section of the collection yokes Seneviratne’s skills as a poet with her deep knowledge of the ways of birds in their natural environment – the freedom they possess in their otherness from human concerns. The final section revisits the myth of Philomena from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and puts this tongueless woman/nightingale in dialogue with the gender fluidity of Tiresias to explore different forms of silencing in history and the present. As a poet who balances careful observation with imaginative flight, Seni Seneviratne addresses both heart and mind.Trade ReviewThe lucid lyricism of her language takes flight with her birds... these poems are pointedly a call to action, to transform ourselves and the world around us, as well as soar above and understand it. * Morning Star *

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Book SynopsisThis collection moves from opening poems about Wales and the possilibities of independence, to an ending of three poems based in Corfu.

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Book SynopsisHope Against Hope recounted the last four years in the life of the great Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam, and gave a hair-raising account of Stalin's terror. Hope Abandoned complements that earlier masterpiece, and in it Nadezhda Mandelstam describes their life together from 1919, and her own after Mandelstam's death in a labour camp in 1938. She also sets out his system of values and beliefs, and provides striking portraits of many of their contemporaries including Boris Pasternak and their champion till his own downfall, Nikolai Bukharin, as well as an astonishingly candid picture of Anna Akhmatova.Trade ReviewTwo of the most fortifying books of our times, Nadezhda Mandelstam’s Hope against Hope and Hope Abandoned ... were finally written in the late Sixties. In these books, we have a devastating indictment of most of what happened in post-revolutionary Russia -- Seamus Heaney * London Review of Books *A bursting compendium of glances at people, framed in essays of scorn for the inquisitors and compassion for the victims... If she is vinegarish, she is also powerful and enhancing -- V.S. PritchettDescribes the whole range of her life with Mandelstam, their travels, vicissitudes and friendships, above all the friendship with Akhmatova... a vivid triple portrait * New Society *Max Hayward's translation reads easily and seems to me to convey exactly the style and tone in which this great book is written * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisJenni Fagan was born in Scotland. A published poet and novelist, she has won awards from Creative Scotland, Dewar Arts, Scottish Screen and Scottish Book Trust among others, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Jenni was selected as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists after the publication of her debut novel, The Panopticon, which was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the James Tait Black Prize. Her adaptation of The Panopticon was staged by the National Theatre of Scotland to great acclaim. The Sunlight Pilgrims, her second novel, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award and the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award and saw her win Scottish Author of the Year at the Herald Culture Awards. She lives in Edinburgh with her son.

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Book SynopsisIn the third and final part of The Divine Comedy, Dante recounts his journey through heaven, after the travails and torments of Hell and the arduous ascent of Mount Purgatory, creating a cosmology of the highest realm of creation which is astonishing in its complexity. In Dante's imagining, Paradise is formed out of concentric spheres surrounding the Earth, beginning with the Moon and ending with the Empyrean. Dante must traverse these ethereal regions guided by his beloved Beatrice, as a means of attaining wisdom, revelation and beatitude. Containing some of Dante's finest poetry, Dante's Paradise is an enduring vision of grace and a powerful allegory for the struggle for redemption. This dual-text edition completes J.G. Nichols's masterful verse translation of The Divine Comedy.Trade ReviewThis new translation by J.G. Nichols, clearly grounded in a secure knowledge of and familiarity with Dante and in English verse which is rarely less than competently handled, is one that deserves to be taken seriously and will reward any reader who makes his first encounter with Dante through it. It is an intelligent and sophisticated piece of work. * Acumen Literary Journal * Dante is my spiritual food. -- James Joyce Bravo for this new version of Dante... Bravo, Professor Nichols! * The Church Times * All life is written in Dante's burning pages, and Nichols has done him proud. -- Ian Thomson * The Observer * For sheer liveliness, combined with accuracy and closeness to the text, it will be hard to rival. -- A.N. Wilson

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Book SynopsisThe Vita Nuova, with its unusual blend of prose and poetry, is universally recognized as Dante’s early masterpiece and provides an indispensable prequel to The Divine Comedy. Set in thirteenth-century Florence, part autobiography and part religious allegory, it traces Dante’s quest to find a poetic idiom worthy of Beatrice, whom he had loved since boyhood. Her premature death plunges him into an emotional turmoil that finds release only through his faith in her continuing spiritual influence and through his determination “to write of her what has never been written of any woman”. The Vita Nuova remains a central document in European culture’s examination of love and the self. It is a hundred and fifty years since Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s groundbreaking version of the Vita Nuova. Now Anthony Mortimer, already acclaimed as translator of Cavalcanti, Petrarch and Michelangelo, produces a verse translation that avoids Rossetti’s disturbing archaisms but preserves a lyric immediacy worthy of the original. This is a Vita Nuova for the twenty-first century.

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Book SynopsisThe pioneer of modern Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin has exerted - through his novel in verse Eugene Onegin, his plays, his short stories and his narrative poetry - a lasting influence well beyond the borders of his motherland. A slightly lesser-known, but by no means less important aspect of his writing is his vast production of shorter verse, a genre at which he excelled and arguably still remains unsurpassed. This volume, part of Alma's series of the complete poetic works of Alexander Pushkin, collects the poems Pushkin wrote in his mid-to-late twenties, during his exile in Mikhaylovskoye and his subsequent return to metropolitan life. It includes some of his lyrical masterpieces, such as 'To Anna Kern' and 'I Loved You...' - arguably the two most famous love poems in the Russian language - 'To the Sea', 'Andre Chenier', 'The Prophet', 'Stanzas Addressed to Nicholas I', 'Deep in Siberian Mines', 'Arion', 'An Angel', 'The Talisman', 'Remembrance', 'A Flower' and 'Anchar, Tree of Poison', each presented in a verse translation opposite the original Russian text. Enriched with notes, pictures and an appendix on Pushkin's life and works, this will be essential reading for anyone wishing to explore the Russian bard's genius.Trade ReviewPushkin is an extraordinary phenomenon, perhaps the only phenomenon of the Russian spirit. -- Nikolai Gogol

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Book SynopsisSet in a modern, urban Paris, the prose pieces in this volume constitute a further exploration of the terrain Baudelaire had covered in his verse masterpiece, The Flowers of Evil: the city with all its squalor and inequalities, the pressures of time and mortality, and the liberation provided by the sensual delights of intoxication, art and women. Published posthumously in 1869, Paris Spleen was a landmark publication in the development of the genre of prose poetry - a form which Baudelaire saw as particularly suited for expressing the feelings of uncertainty, flux and freedom of his age - and one of the founding texts of literary Modernism.

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Book Synopsis'I'm a dying man who can't die.' Thomas Newton came to Earth seeking water for his drought-ridden planet. Years later he's still stranded here, soaked in cheap gin and haunted by a past love. But the arrival of another lost soul brings one last chance of freedom... Inspired by the book The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis and its cult film adaptation starring David Bowie, Lazarus brings the story of Thomas Newton to its devastating conclusion. Written by Bowie with the playwright Enda Walsh, and incorporating some of Bowie's most iconic songs, Lazarus was first performed at New York Theatre Workshop in 2015, starring Michael C. Hall and directed by Ivo Van Hove. The production transferred to London in 2016.Trade Review'David Bowie's parting gift to the world - and what a rare and mesmeric testament this is… it's all unforgettable. I sat rapt throughout' * Independent *'Enda Walsh's book is full of longing – for love, for peace, for release from earthly ties – while songs from Bowie's iconic catalogue, an astonishing legacy spanning four decades, are reimagined in a new context whilst somehow retaining the potency they once exerted during the course of a life richly lived. No jukebox musical, this… [the] entire creation is infused with the spirit, the quirkiness, the capriciousness of Bowie, and Walsh could not be more in tune with all of it' * The Arts Desk *'Like David Bowie himself, this is a show that defies definition. It's both all and none of a musical, a play, a gig, performance art, philosophical meditation, a fever dream, a collective trip into the unknown... strangely fascinating and fascinatingly strange' * Broadway World *'Beautiful... a last transmission from a dying star' * Time Out *'Outstanding... full of wild energy, magical effects and overwhelming music' * WhatsOnStage *'Fascinating to watch... [a] spectacular study of a pained outsider's search for peace' * Guardian *'Blazingly original... complex, layered and riveting... sensational' * The Stage *'Captivating, tense, and emotional… shows like this don't come along very often' * Radio Times *'Gripping… [a] strangely poetic piece of music theatre… there’s nothing at all conventional about this. It is festive. Riotous. Dionysian. Wonderful' * BritishTheatre.com *'Ice-bolts of ecstasy shoot like novas through the fabulous muddle and murk of Lazarus, the great-sounding, great-looking and mind-numbing new musical built around songs by David Bowie' * New York Times *'Wild, fantastical, eye-popping. A surrealistic tour de force' * Rolling Stone *

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Book Synopsis‘Come, you drunken spirits. Come, you battalions. You fields of ghosts who walk these green plains still. Come, you giants!’ When Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2009, it served notice of an astonishing development in the career of a writer whose debut, Mojo, had premiered on the same stage nearly fifteen years before. Unearthing the mythic roots of contemporary English life, and featuring Mark Rylance in an indelible central performance as Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, the play transferred to the West End and then to Broadway, before returning to the West End in 2011. 'Storming… restores one's faith in the power of theatre' Independent. 'Unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century' Guardian. Jerusalem was followed by the bewitching chamber play The River (Royal Court, 2012), a 'magnetically eerie, luminously beautiful psychodrama' Time Out. 'A delicately unfolding puzzle… all of it is wrapped in marvellous language… extraordinary' The Times. This volume concludes with the multi-award-winning The Ferryman (Royal Court and West End, 2017; Broadway, 2018), an excavation of lives shattered by violence, set in a farmhouse in Northern Ireland in 1981. 'A richly absorbing and emotionally abundant play… an instant classic' Independent. 'A magnificent play that uses, brilliantly, the vitality of live theatre to express the deadly legacy of violence' Financial Times. Also included here is the screenplay for the short film The Clear Road Ahead (2011), published here for the first time, and an edited transcript of a conversation between Butterworth and the playwright Simon Stephens.

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Book SynopsisThings are going to be different. Very different... 1838, London. Jacob Marley is dead. And so is Ebenezer Scrooge... In this reinvention of the timeless classic, Ebenezer has died and his sister Fan has inherited his money-lending business. She rapidly becomes notorious as the most monstrous miser ever known, a legendary misanthrope, lonely, and despised by all who cross her path. This year, on Christmas Eve, Fan Scrooge will be haunted by three spirits. They want her to change. But will she? Charles Dickens's traditional story was adapted for the stage by renowned author Piers Torday, and came to life in the Dickensian environment of the world's oldest-surviving music hall, Wilton's Music Hall, London, in 2019. It will prove a festive gift for amateur theatre companies seeking an original, female-led version with lashings of goodwill to all men - and women. Piers Torday's bestselling series for children, The Last Wild trilogy, has been sold all over the world, was nominated for the Waterstone's Children Book Award, and won the Guardian's Children's Fiction Prize. He also adapted The Box of Delights for Wilton's.Trade Review'Delightfully surprising and subversive… offers both the story, and its 19th-century writer, a welcome 21st-century transformation' * Guardian *'Dickens's classic is given a smart feminist spin in this bold new version' * Time Out *'An intelligent, compelling riff on [Dickens' tale]... tremendously good fun. Torday's text has a whip crack wit... at once familiar yet breathtakingly new-minted... a Christmas Carol that both embraces its historical context but speaks urgently to our time. It's also a cracking piece of theatre' * WhatsOnStage *'A magical and heartwarming adaption' * The Upcoming *'A bold, satisfying and empowering re-imagining which dares to suggest that the humanism of Dickens's moral is nothing without the feminism that the writer, and his works, ignored' * The Reviews Hub *'Never loses its grip on its storytelling nature and is as eerie as it is enchanting in its theatricals... modern in its heartwarming wish, and refreshes Scrooge's redemption by giving an updated slant to the allegory' * Broadway World *

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Book SynopsisAn eighteen-year-old girl, Mary Shelley, dreams up a monster whose tragic story will capture the imaginations of generations to come. A young scientist by the name of Frankenstein breathes life into a gruesome body. Banished into an indifferent world, Frankenstein's creature desperately seeks out his true identity, but the agony of rejection and a broken promise push him into darkness. Dangerous and vengeful, the creature threatens to obliterate Frankenstein and everyone he loves, in a ferocious and bloodthirsty hunt for his maker. Rona Munro's 'inventive feminist adaptation' (The Stage) of Mary Shelley's Gothic masterpiece places the writer herself amongst the action as she wrestles with her creation and with the stark realities facing revolutionary young women, then and now. It premiered on a tour of the UK in 2019. Trade Review'An inventive feminist adaptation... an exploration and celebration of female creativity' * The Stage *'By putting Mary onstage at the centre of things rather than a mere framing device, Munro has written something that gets to the heart of the creative process itself' * Herald *

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Book SynopsisA diverse collection of poetry which celebrates both England and all that it means to be English – from the rolling hills, to those lost in battle over the centuries, to London’s bustling streets and a nation obsessed with the weather. Ode to England encompasses a breadth of poetry from our most renowned writers – such as William Wordsworth, D. H. Lawrence and William Blake – alongside verses from less prestigious names which equally capture many inspiring visions of our ‘sceptered isle’. The poems are presented alongside stunning illustrations which pay further tribute to the beauty of this green and pleasant land. The perfect gift for any Englishman or Anglophile, this wonderful collection captures all the beauty and eccentricities of England and Englishness.

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Book Synopsis‘Galvanises us to notice and care about our glorious natural world, through the words of an army of poets, ancient and modern’ – Bel Mooney An anthology of poems to enter the bloodstream and rewild the spirit. As with all life on Earth, the climate emergency, species extinction, ecological disaster, global pandemics, economic collapse, war, genocide and social injustice are all interconnected — how do we face our fears? How do we find the courage to rebel against forces ranged against the Earth? This galvanising collection of poems spans 4,000 years of human history. Ranging from Nikolai Duffy's 'Against Metaphor' and Lord Byron's 'Darkness' to Allen Ginsberg's evocative 'Sunflower Sutra' and Jean 'Binta' Breeze's 'Tweet Tweet'. This book is not just a sanctuary in which to find solace from environmental grief but a manual for psychic resistance in the war against Nature. As Pablo Neruda said, 'Poetry is rebellion.'Trade Review'This anthology is part manifesto for change, part elegy for a burning house, part summoning of an 'inner wild'. But it's also a book of timeless, irrepressible, rebel song. Jean Binta Breeze sings to William Blake, Selima Hill sings to Theodore Roethke and Nan Shepherd. Each song echoes, each chimes. As Paul Evans says in his introduction 'poetry is a quality of language as wild is a quality of nature'. Poetry Rebellion is essential.' * Helen Mort *‘Galvanises us to notice and care about our glorious natural world, through the words of an army of poets, ancient and modern’ -- Bel Mooney, Daily Mail

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Book SynopsisOne of France’s most important modern poets, Eugène Guillevic (1907-97) was born in Carnac in Brittany, and although he never learned the Breton language, his personality is deeply marked by his feeling of oneness with his homeland. His poetry has a remarkable unity, driven by his desire to use words to bridge a tragic gulf between man and a harsh and often apparently hostile natural environment. For Guillevic, the purpose of poetry is to arouse the sense of Being. In this poetry of description – where entire landscapes are built up from short, intense texts – language is reduced to its essentials, as words are placed on the page ‘like a dam against time’. When reading these poems, it is as if time is being stopped for man to ?nd himself again. Carnac (1961) marks the beginning of Guillevic’s mature life as a poet. A single poem in several parts, it evokes the rocky, sea-bound, un?nished landscape of Brittany with its sacred objects and its great silent sense of waiting. The texts are brief but have a grave, meditative serenity, as the poet seeks to effect balance and to help us ‘to make friends with nature’ and to live in a universe which is chaotic and often frightening. Introduction by Stephen Romer. French-English bilingual edition. Bloodaxe Contemporary French Poets: 9

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Book SynopsisToo Black Too Strong is Benjamin Zephaniah's third collection from Bloodaxe. It addresses the struggles of black Britain more forcefully than all his previous books. With poems like 'Chant of a Homesick Nigga' and 'Kill Them Before Ramadan', he shows that he's a poet who won't stay silent, who doesn't pull any punches, writing out of a sense of urgency and a commitment to social justice. He opens this hard-hitting and blackly funny book of poems with an outspoken comment on where he's coming from, setting his poetry against the political landscape of Britain. The book includes poems written while working with Michael Mansfield QC and other Tooks barristers on the Stephen Lawrence case.Table of Contents9 What Am I Going On About? 15 Bought And Sold 17 What If 18 Breakfast in East Timor 20 What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us 22 To Ricky Reel 24 To Michael Menser 25 Having a Word 26 Reminders 27 Appeal Dismissed 28 Chant of a Homesick Nigga 30 This Be The Worst 31 Time 32 The Woman Has to Die 33 Kill Them Before Ramadan 34 The Empire Comes Back 35 The Men From Jamaica Are Settling Down 41 I Neva Shot De Sheriff 45 Carnival Days 47 Naked 51 Adultery 52 Going Cheap 53 Christmas Has Been Shot 55 Two Dozen Babylon 56 Three Black Males 57 We People Too 61 Anti-Slavery Movements 62 Knowing Me 65 The Race Industry 66 Biko the Greatness 68 Derry Sunday 69 The One Minutes of Silence 72 The Drunk on Green Street 73 The Ride 74 To Do Wid Me 78 Nu Blue Suede Shoes 80 The Approved School of Reggae 82 Do Something Illegal 83 Translate 84 The London Breed 85 Heroes 86 The Big Bang

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Book SynopsisThis new, comprehensive selection of one of America’s foremost modern poets draws on two dozen collections published over six decades. Edited by Paul A. Lacey, it replaces her earlier Bloodaxe Selected Poems (1986), and includes selections from both her earlier work and from the six later collections published by Bloodaxe in Britain, from Oblique Prayers to the posthumously published Sands of the Well and This Great Unknowing. Preface by Robert Creeley.Trade ReviewThis generous selection brings news of Levertov’s final achievement. Here we can observe, from poems which span the decades, how this most private artist became a great and abiding public poet. As we read, her superb language and wayward music burn themselves into our minds and memories. In every time there are just a few poets whose work – for its sheer lyric conscience – carries poetry safely into the future. Denise Levertov, as this book shows, is one of them. -- Eavan BolandA touchstone, a maintainer for our generation. She was a constantly defining presence in the world we shared, a remarkable and transforming poet for all of us. -- Robert CreeleyWhat characterises Denise Levertov’s poetry is an untiring creativity, a freshness and sense of urgency. She wrote lyrical, celebratory poems, and poems that found hard-hitting and appropriate imagery for the horrors of our time. Her work has a wide range, defying the notion that poets can be categorised as “nature poet” and “war poet”. There is a consistent clarity in her voice and a spareness in her language. She was a mystical poet who wrote assertively of the spiritual, and a political poet who continued to find images to make us think. -- Cynthia Fuller * The Independent *Levertov’s mastery – more than mastery, because she is one of the originators – of contemporary poetic form, informed with a fierce, generous intelligence can be frightening. -- Ursula le Guin * Washington Post *

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Book SynopsisThe work of America's Jane Kenyon (1947-95) is one of poetry's rarest and most heart-breaking gifts. After fighting depression for most of her life, Jane Kenyon died from leukemia at the age of 47. Her quietly musical poems are intensely moving, compassionate meditations intently probing the life of the heart and spirit. Observing and absorbing small miracles in everyday life, these apparently simple poems grapple with fundamental questions of human existence. They are psalms of love and death, God and nature, joy and despair. Introduced by Donald Hall and Joyce Peseroff, Let Evening Come also includes an interview with Jane Kenyon, her thoughts on poetry, and her translations of 20 poems by Anna Akhmatova.Trade ReviewJane Kenyon has made something of an aesthetic of quiet, and her poems have a brooding introversion. Rare among American poets she is also able to infuse her poetry with a lightly worn sense of Christian humility, and an active – if worried – sense of mercy. These are among the qualities which give her verse both the tones and the turns of serious prayer. Within the subtle yet dramatic use of rhyme and sound in Let Evening Come, she evokes not only the drama of her need to speak, but also the deep communion and solace within any reader’s need to listen. -- Liam Rector * Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry *Her words, with their quiet, rapt force, their pensiveness and wit, come to us from natural speech, from the Bible and hymns, from which she derived the singular psalmlike music that is hers alone. * New York Times Book Review *If Sylvia Plath was Our Lady of the Rages, Jane was Our Lady of the Sorrows, Our Lady of Vulnerability. -- Gregory Orr

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Book SynopsisKenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) is now widely viewed as Japan's greatest poet of the 20th century. Little known in his lifetime, he died at 37 from tuberculosis, but has since become a much loved children's author whose magical tales have been translated into many languages, adapted for the stage and turned into films and animations. Recognition for his poetry came much later. "Strong in the Rain" - the title-poem of this selection - is now arguably the most memorised and quoted modern poem in Japan. Both intensely lyrical and permeated with a sophisticated scientific understanding of the universe, Kenji Miyazawa's poems testify to his deep love of humanity and nature. From a young age, he was fascinated by plants, insects, and especially minerals, which he collected. At school, his interest in nature deepened, and he began poring through books on philosophy and Buddhism, which were to strongly influence his later writing. Miyazawa drew on nature in a way that no modern Japanese author had before him. Where other writers tended to use it as a springboard for their own meditations, he saw himself not just as nature's faithful chronicler and recorder but as its medium: light, wind and rain are processed through him before being recreated on the page. His mode of active engagement with nature set him apart from virtually all other Japanese poets, and led to his work being largely ignored by the Bundan (the literary establishment) and misunderstood for half a century. But in the 1990s, he received unprecedented attention in the Japanese media. The compassion, empathy and closeness to nature expressed in Kenji Miyazawa's poems and tales appealed strongly to a new generation of readers.

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Book SynopsisBeing Human is the third book in the Staying Alive series of anthologies. Staying Alive and its sequel Being Alive have introduced many thousands of new readers to contemporary poetry. Being Human is a companion volume to those two books – a world poetry anthology offering poetry lovers an even broader, international selection of 'real poems for unreal times'. It was followed by a fourth volume, Staying Human: new poems for Staying Alive (2020). The range of poetry here complements that of the first two anthologies: hundreds of thoughtful and passionate poems about living in the modern world; poems that touch the heart, stir the mind and fire the spirit; poems about being human, about love and loss, fear and longing, hurt and wonder. There are more great poems from the 20th century as well as many recent poems of rare imaginative power from the first decade of the 21st century. But this book is also rare in reflecting the concerns of readers from all walks of life. Such has been the appeal of Staying Alive and Being Alive that many people have written not only to express their appreciation of these books, but also to share poems which have been important in their own lives. Being Human draws on this highly unusual publisher's mailbag, including many talismanic personal survival poems suggested by our readers.Trade ReviewA book that makes the heart sing, which shows that the best of today's poetry…is a joy to behold, "charged", as Ezra Pound said, "with meaning to the utmost degree". Being Human, which runs to more than 500 pages, offers a glut of poetry from across the globe and, in so doing, renders redundant the "difficult" tag which so dogs the art. Above all it is a celebration of our capacity to embrace whatever's thrown at us… But subjects do not make poems, poets do. Astley's taste is catholic and inclusive and drawn to those who write with lyrical clarity and a keen eye… Being Human is not easy to summarise. It is a poetic Babel, a library in one volume. -- Alan Taylor * The Herald (Scotland) *Astley is wonderful at selecting poems with the kind of talismanic lines that really speak to people... Not only are the poems clustered by broad theme, with a lively introduction to each section by Astley, but within those groupings they speak to each other, in substance or across time…This collection certainly continues the excellent work of its predecessors, bringing new work and poets to audiences, and drawing new readers to poetry, and at a mere £12 for 500 poems, no one will be deterred from taking a risk. Being Human is stimulating, inspiring, intelligent, witty and life-affirming, the perfect companion on a journey, literal and otherwise. -- Peggy Hughes * Scotland on Sunday *Where Staying Alive and Being Alive were filled with poems that felt exigent, essential (even, in the case of Mary Oliver's subsequently much-quoted "Wild Geese", talismanic), the atmosphere of Being Human, as its title suggests, is more contemplative. Time – its passage and our relationship to it – is the overarching subject, and the section that tackles it specifically, "About time", sits at the heart of the book. Trains and rivers wind their way through the poems, memory is interrogated, and the moments of suspension in which, as Louis MacNeice has it, "Time was away and somewhere else", are rejoiced in… That act of noticing is what poetry ought to do, and what many of the superb poems in this anthology achieve. Let's hear it for modern verse. -- Sarah Crown * Guardian *Neil Astley's indispensable, endlessly surprising trilogy… The newest and last of these contains all the manifold virtues of the earlier two: another startlingly varied, unexpected and entirely accessible collection of contemporary poems - 500 per volume, no small undertaking - exploring the stuff of life, what Louis MacNeice called "this mad weir of tigerish waters/A prism of delight and pain". -- Catherine Lockerbie * The Scotsman *Table of ContentsNeil Astley 17 Introduction 1 Being Human Doris Kareva 22 from Shape of Time Anna Kamienska 23 Funny Kerry Hardie 23 Humankind Rumi 24 The Guest House Micheal O’Siadhail 25 Human Adrian Mitchell 25 Human Beings Julie O’Callaghan 27 The Sounds of Earth Raymond Queneau 28 The Human Species Vernon Scannell 29 Here and Human Ruth Stone 30 Being Human Stephen Edgar 30 Another Country Anna Swir 31 Happiness John Montague 32 To Cease Elizabeth Alexander 33 Ars Poetica #100: I Believe T.S. Eliot 34 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Dennis O’Driscoll 38 The Vigil 2 The stuff of life Michael Blumenthal 40 What I Believe Selima Hill 41 What Do I Really Believe? Sujata Bhatt 42 What Is Worth Knowing John Burnside 43 Anniversary Bei Dao 44 The Answer Julius Chingono 45 As I Go Thomas A. Clark 46 In Praise of Walking Ruth Stone 49 Train Ride Galway Kinnell 50 The Road Between Here and There Rosemary Tonks 51 The Sofas, Fogs and Cinemas Adam Zagajewski 52 To Go to Lvov Jack Gilbert 54 A Brief for the Defense Jane Hirshfield 55 Burlap Sack Edip Cansever 56 Table Oktay Rifat 56 Table Laid Pablo Neruda 57 The great tablecloth David Scott 58 A Long Way from Bread Brendan Kennelly 60 Bread E.A. Markham 61 Don’t Talk to Me about Bread Nikki Giovanni 62 Quilts Ruth Stone 63 Second-Hand Coat Kerry Hardie 64 Helplessness Olav H. Hauge 64 Don’t Give Me the Whole Truth Izumi Shikibu 64 ‘Although the wind’ Didem Madak 65 Sir, I Want to Write Poems with Flowers Charles Brasch 66 Winter Anemones Tracy K. Smith 67 Duende Derek Mahon 69 Thunder Shower Derek Mahon 70 Kinsale Jen Hadfield 71 Daed-traa Raymond Carver 72 Where Water Comes Together with Other Water Vona Groarke 73 The Local Accent Greta Stoddart 74 Counting Bei Dao 74 Midnight Singer Frances Leviston 74 Moon Nâzim Hikmet 76 Things I Didn’t Know I Loved Linda Pastan 79 Things I Didn’t Know I Loved Louis MacNeice 81 Sunlight on the Garden Peter Didsbury 81 Pastoral (after Ralf Andtbacka) John F. Deane 82 The Colours Lavinia Greenlaw 83 Blue Field Anne Stevenson 84 On Harlech Beach Rainer Maria Rilke 85 Archaic Torso of Apollo Mark Doty 85 A Green Crab’s Shell Coral Bracho 87 Wasp on Water Tua Forsström 87 Amber Jane Hirshfield 88 The Weighing Stanley Kunitz 89 The Layers William Stafford 90 The Way It Is Fernando Pessoa 90 ‘To be great, be whole…’ Toon Tellegen 91 I drew a line Robert Frost 91 The Armful Gregory Corso 92 The Whole Mess… Almost James Fenton 93 The Skip 3 Life history Agha Shahid Ali 96 A Lost Memory of Delhi Sharon Olds 97 I Go Back to May 1937 Anna Swir 98 Woman Unborn Thomas Lux 99 Upon Seeing an Ultrasound Photo of an Unborn Child Kate Clanchy 100 Infant Kevin Young 100 Crowning Maura Dooley 104 The Weighing of the Heart Helen Dunmore 105 All the Things You Are Not Yet Louise Glück 106 Lullaby María Negroni 107 The Baby Thomas Lux 107 A Little Tooth Kevin Griffith 108 Spinning Naomi Shihab Nye 108 Shoulders Dan Chiasson 109 Man and Derailment Evan Jones 109 Generations Langston Hughes 110 Mother to Son Terrance Hayes 111 Mother to Son Lorna Goodison 112 I Am Becoming My Mother A.K. Ramanujan 112 Self-portrait Samuel Menashe 113 Autobiography Rebecca Edwards 113 The Mothers Catherine Smith 114 The Fathers Rita Ann Higgins 115 Grandchildren Penelope Shuttle 116 Delicious Babies Anna T. Szabó 117 She Leaves Me Linda Pastan 118 To a Daughter Leaving Home Norman MacCaig 119 Small boy Paul Farley 119 Monopoly Natasha Trethewey 120 Mythmaker Eavan Boland 121 The Pomegranate Imtiaz Dharker 123 How to Cut a Pomegranate Susan Wicks 123 Persephone Robert Wrigley 124 Moonlight: Chickens on the Road Simon Armitage 126 ‘My father thought it bloody queer’ Anthony Lawrence 127 The Drive Robyn Rowland 128 Ausculta Molly Peacock 129 Say You Love Me Pascale Petit 131 Self Portrait with Fire Ants Carol Ann Duffy 132 We Remember Your Childhood Well A.D. Hope 132 Crossing the Frontier Nii Ayikwei Parkes 134 The Makings of You Kathleen Jamie 135 Crossing the Loch Lynda Hull 136 At Thirty Adrian Blevins 136 Life History Lucille Clifton 138 ‘the thirty-eighth year…’ Mary Stanley 140 The Wife Speaks Donald Justice 141 Men at Forty David Campbell 141 Mothers and Daughters Patricia Beer 142 Middle Age Bernard O’Donoghue 143 Nel Mezzo del Cammin Arvind Krishna Mehrotra 143 Approaching Fifty Marie Howe 144 The World Randall Jarrell 144 The Woman at the Washington Zoo Franz Wright 145 Untitled Francesc Parcerisas 146 Shave Kwame Dawes 147 Fat Man Sharon Olds 148 Self-portrait, Rear View Elaine Feinstein 149 Getting Older Arun Kolatkar 149 An Old Woman Dom Moraes 151 from After the Operation Paul Durcan 153 Golden Mothers Driving West Elizabeth Jennings 154 Rembrandt’s Late Portraits Mark Strand 155 Old Man Leaves Party W.S. Merwin 156 Still Morning Samuel Menashe 156 Salt and Pepper Jorge Luis Borges 157 In Praise of Darkness Derek Mahon 158 Ignorance (after Philippe Jaccottet) Yehuda Amichai 159 A Quiet Joy Samuel Menashe 159 Voyage Samuel Menashe 160 The Niche Salvatore Quasimodo 160 And Suddenly It’s Evening Lars Gustafsson 160 The Girl 4 About time Samuel Menashe 162 The Shrine Who Shape I Am Fleur Adcock 162 Water C.D. Wright 163 Our Dust Luljeta Lleshanaku 165 Vertical Realities Elizabeth Bishop 166 In the Waiting Room Moya Cannon 168 The Train Dan Pagis 169 Ein Leben Patricia Hampl 170 This Is How Memory Works Seamus Heaney 171 A Sofa in the Forties Julia Copus 173 Raymond, at 60 Luljeta Lleshanaku 174 from Monday in Seven Days Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin 174 The Bend in the Road Luljeta Lleshanaku 175 Memory Ruth Stone 176 Memory Keith Althaus 177 Ladder of Hours Stuart Henson 177 The Price Michael Hartnett 178 The Killing of Dreams Langston Hughes 179 Harlem [2] Rodney Jones 179 Salvation Blues Jorge Luis Borges 180 Matthew XXV: 30 Francis Harvey 181 News of the World George Seferis 181 from Mythistorema Jaan Kaplinski 182 ‘The washing never gets done…’ Yehuda Amichai 183 A Man in His Life Stewart Conn 184 Carpe Diem Emma Lew 185 Riot Eve Carole Satyamurti 185 Sathyaji Rita Dove 187 Dawn Revisited Adam Zagajewski 187 Lava Wisława Szymborska 188 Could Have Yusef Komunyakaa 189 Thanks Philip Gross 190 Caught Iain Crichton Smith 191 Listen Louis MacNeice 192 Meeting Point Rosemary Dobson 193 The Three Fates Philip Hodgins 194 Leaving Alan Gillis 195 Progress Alice Oswald 196 The mud-spattered recollections of a woman who lived her life backwards Sheenagh Pugh 198 Pause: Rewind Vasko Popa 199 The Little Box Yehuda Amichai 199 Inside the Apple Jean Follain 200 Life Dana Gioia 201 Nothing Is Lost Toeti Heraty 201 A Woman’s Portrait 1938 Thom Gunn 202 In Santa Maria del Populo Matthew Sweeney 203 Black Moon Roberto Juarroz 204 ‘Life draws a tree’ John Glenday 205 Etching a Line of Trees Sarah Holland-Batt 206 The Art of Disappearing Rainer Maria Rilke 207 Childhood Peter Handke 208 Song of Childhood Peter Handke 210 Angels talking in Wings of Desire George Szirtes 213 Cerulean Blue: Footnote on Wim Wenders Robert Hass 214 Privilege of Being Harry Clifton 216 God in France Czesław Miłosz 217 A Confession Adam Zagajewski 218 Fruit Wisława Szymborska 218 A Note Christine Evans 219 Callers Nissim Ezekiel 220 Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher Henri Thomas 221 Audides Pablo Neruda 221 Keeping quiet Rumi 223 Quietness Lynne Wycherley 223 Apple Tree in Blossom Robert Frost 224 The Oven Bird Frances Horovitz 224 Flowers Denise Levertov 225 The Life Around Us Leslie Norris 226 Burning the Bracken Eeva-Liisa Manner 227 ‘The trees are bare…’ Elizabeth Jennings 227 Song at the Beginning of Autumn Stanley Kunitz 228 The Snakes of September John Burnside 229 September Evening: Deer at Big Basin W.B. Yeats 230 The Wild Swans at Coole Samuel Menashe 231 Autumn Tess Gallagher 231 Blue Grapes Robert Frost 231 Nothing Gold Can Stay Eamon Grennan 232 A Few Facts Edwin Morgan 232 Trio John F. Deane 233 Canticle Margaret Avison 234 New Year’s Poem Norman MacCaig 235 February – not everywhere Tomas Tranströmer 235 April and Silence Paula Meehan 236 Seed Esther Morgan 236 This Morning Louise Glück 237 Matins Eamon Grennan 237 What It Is Kerry Hardie 238 May Katha Pollitt 239 The Old Neighbors Derek Walcott 240 Midsummer, Tobago Norman MacCaig 240 So many summers Mark Wunderlich 241 Amaryllis (after Rilke) Louise Glück 242 Screened Porch Faustin Charles 243 Landscape Jaan Kaplinski 244 ‘Every dying man…’ 5 Fight to the death Jane Kenyon 246 Having It Out with Melancholy Jane Kenyon 249 Back Susana Thénon 250 Nuptial Song Ravi Shankar 251 Plumbing the Deepening Grove Lucia Perillo 252 Shrike Tree Miller Williams 253 Thinking About Bill, Dead of AIDS Mark Doty 254 Faith Joan Margarit 257 Dark Night in Balmes Street Joan Margarit 258 The eyes in the rear-view mirror Joan Margarit 259 Young partridge Bill Manhire 259 Kevin Raymond Carver 260 What the Doctor Said Philip Hodgins 260 Death Who Anna Swir 262 Tomorrow They Will Carve Me Jo Shapcott 263 Procedure Nissim Ezekiel 263 Process Janet Frame 264 The Suicides Sylvia Plath 265 Fever 103° Ted Hughes 266 Fever Sylvia Plath 268 The Rabbit Catcher Ted Hughes 269 Life after Death Stanley Kunitz 271 The Portrait Ruth Stone 272 Turn Your Eyes Away Grace Paley 273 This Life Kenneth Patchen 274 I Feel Drunk All the Time Robert Wrigley 274 Heart Attack Roger McGough 275 Defying Gravity Sharon Olds 276 The Race Lawrence Sail 278 At the Bedside John Burnside 279 Marginal jottings on the prospect of dying Rebecca Elson 280 Antidote to the Fear of Death Richard Blessing 281 Directions for Dying Andrew Motion 281 The Cinder Path Marin Sorescu 282 Pure Pain Marin Sorescu 282 ‘What hurts the most’ Marin Sorescu 283 Balance Sheet Marin Sorescu 283 A Ladder to the Sky Marin Sorescu 284 ‘So this is it’ Patricia Pogson 284 Breath Lauris Edmond 285 The pace of change Larry Levis 285 The Morning After My Death William Matthews 286 My Father’s Body Tony Harrison 288 Timer Tony Harrison 288 Marked with D. U.A. Fanthorpe 289 Only a Small Death David Constantine 290 Common and Particular Julia Kasdorf 291 What I Learned from My Mother Amjad Nasser 292 The House After Her Death Douglas Dunn 293 Dining Christopher Reid 294 from The Unfinished Norman MacCaig 297 Memorial R.S. Thomas 298 Comparisons Herman de Coninck 299 Ann Mary Jo Bang 300 Landscape with the Fall of Icarus Mary Jo Bang 301 You Were You Are Elegy Mary Jo Bang 302 Ode to History R.S. Thomas 302 No Time Ken Smith 303 Years go by Adrian Mitchell 304 Death Is Smaller Than I Thought Jackie Kay 305 Darling Susan Mitchell 305 The Dead Billy Collins 306 No Time Susan Wicks 306 Branches 6 War and survival Heather McHugh 308 What He Thought Czesław Miłosz 310 Campo Dei Fiori W.H. Auden 312 The Fall of Rome Anthony Hecht 313 ‘More Light! More Light! Irena Klepfisz 314 Dedications to Bashert Paul Celan 316 Deathfugue C.K. Williams 317 Jew on Bridge Carolyn Forché 321 The Visitor Robert Hass 321 I Am Your Waiter Tonight and My Name Is Dimitri Laurie Lee 324 The Long War Miklós Radnóti 324 Letter to My Wife Paul Celan 326 Aspen Tree Ho Thien 326 The Green Beret Doug Anderson 328 Night Ambush Keith Douglas 328 How to Kill Brian Turner 329 Here, Bullet Dunya Mikhail 330 The War Works Hard Yehuda Amichai 331 The Place Where We Are Right Tatjana Lukic 332 nothing else Sarah Maguire 333 The Pomegranates of Kandahar Mourid Barghouti 334 A Night Unlike Others Brian Turner 336 16 Iraqi Policeman Mourid Barghouti 336 Silence Aharon Shabtai 337 War Ronny Someck 337 A Poem of Bliss Taha Muhammad Ali 338 Abd el-Hadi Fights a Superpower Paul Muldoon 339 Truce Alan Gould 339 A U-Boat Morning, 1914 Gillian Clarke 341 The Field-Mouse Robert Adamson 342 The Goldfinches of Baghdad Lam Thi My Da 343 Garden Fragrance Michael Coady 343 Though There Are Torturers Michael Longley 344 The Ice-Cream Man Andrew Motion 344 To Whom It May Concern Michael Longley 345 Wreaths X.J. Kennedy 346 September Twelfth, 2001 Deborah Garrison 347 I Saw You Walking Alan Smith 348 Kidding Myself in Kuta, Bali: A Pantoum Gyula Illyés 349 While the Record Plays Charles Simic 350 Fear Heberto Padilla 351 In trying times Nâzim Hikmet 352 On Living Tony Curtis 354 Soup Irina Ratushinskaya 355 I will live and survive Jack Mapanje 356 Skipping Without Ropes Priscila Uppal 357 Sorry I Forgot To Clean Up After Myself Nâzim Hikmet 358 It’s This Way Else Lasker-Schüler 358 My Blue Piano David Constantine 359 Soldiering On Ernesto Cardenal 360 ‘For Those Dead, Our Dead…’ Martín Espada 361 Sleeping on the Bus Sargon Boulus 362 News About No One Chenjerai Hove 363 You Will Forget 7 Living in hope John Hewitt 366 from Freehold Patrick Kavanagh 368 Epic Patrick Kavanagh 369 Shancoduff Liam Ó Muirthile 369 The Parlour Ikkyu 370 My real dwelling Adélia Prado 371 Denouement James Merrill 372 The Broken Home Ko Un 375 Back Home Ko Un 375 Hometown Richard Hugo 376 Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg Paul Batchelor 377 Conurbation Olav H. Hauge 378 Leaf-Huts and Snow-Houses George Oppen 379 Street Louis Simpson 379 An American Classic Jimmy Santiago Baca 380 from Poem VI Dennis O’Driscoll 382 Them and You John Ormond 383 Cathedral Builders Geoff Page 384 Grit Ali Cobby Eckermann 385 Intervention Pay Day Harry Martinson 389 Cable-ship Martín Espada 389 Imagine the Angels of Bread Nick Makoha 391 Beatitude Dunya Mikhail 392 I Was in a Hurry Nadia Anjuman 393 The Silenced Nora Nadjarian 393 Mother Tongue Partaw Naderi 394 My Voice Partaw Naderi 394 The Mirror Anne Stevenson 395 It looks so simple from a distance… Henrik Norbrandt 395 Local Stanisłav Baranczak 396 A Second Nature Carol Ann Duffy 397 Foreign Farzaneh Khojandi 397 Must Escape Mohja Kahf 398 Hijab Scene #7 Karen Press 399 Application for Naturalisation Imtiaz Dharker 400 Front door James Berry 401 Englan Voice Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze 402 from The arrival of Brighteye Grace Nichols 404 Wherever I Hang Daljit Nagra 405 Look We Have Coming to Dover! John Agard 406 Half-caste Moniza Alvi 407 Half-and-Half Gustavo Pérez Firmat 408 Bilingual Blues Linda Hogan 409 The Truth Is Katia Kapovich 410 Painting a Room Philip Levine 411 The Mercy Seamus Heaney 412 Miracle Hans Magnus Enzensberger 413 Optimistic Little Poem Ivan V. Lalic 413 The Spaces of Hope Lisel Mueller 414 Hope Edith Södergran 415 Hope Imtiaz Dharker 415 Living Space Ruth Bidgood 416 Little of Distinction Pablo Neruda 417 Emerging Brendan Kennelly 418 Yes Adrian Mitchell 419 Yes James Wright 419 Yes, But Langston Hughes 420 Dreams 8 Body and soul Henri Cole 422 Ape House, Berlin Zoo Stephen Dunn 423 With No Experience in Such Matters Lars Gustafsson 424 Elegy for a Dead Labrador Oktay Rifat 426 Looking at the Invisible Stephen Dunn 426 From Underneath Roderick Ford 428 Giuseppe Vicki Feaver 429 The Gun Chase Twichell 430 City Animals Robert Lowell 432 Skunk Hour Elizabeth Bishop 433 The Armadillo Brigit Pegeen Kelly 434 Song Philip Larkin 436 The Mower Judith Beveridge 437 The Caterpillars Ruth Stone 438 Another Feeling Larry Levis 438 The Oldest Living Thing in LA Thomas Lux 439 Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy Eugenio Montale 440 The Eel Les Murray 441 The Cows on Killing Day Gottfried Benn 443 Little Aster David Huerta 443 Poem by Gottfried Benn C.P. Cavafy 444 Body, Remember… Osip Mandelstam 444 ‘A body is given to me…’ Eleanor Ross Taylor 445 Disappearing Act Padraic Fallon 446 Body A.K. Ramanujan 446 A Hindu to His Body Sarah Holland-Batt 447 Pocket Mirror John Updike 448 Mirror Sonnet L’Abbé 448 Theory My Natural Brown Ass Sarah Holland-Batt 449 The Idea of Mountain Brendan Kennelly 450 Proof Wisława Szymborska 451 View with a Grain of Sand R.S. Thomas 452 The Bright Field Mark Strand 453 Keeping Things Whole Alex Skovron 453 Almost Alastair Reid 454 Oddments, inklings, omens, moments Pedro Serrano 455 Feet A.D. Hope 455 The Gateway William Stafford 456 The Gift Kerry Hardie 457 Flesh Julia Hartwig 457 Toward the End C.P. Cavafy 458 The God Abandons Antony Jane Hirshfield 459 Tree Harry Clifton 459 The Garden Olga Broumas 460 Sweeping the Garden John Burnside 461 from Of Gravity and light Michael Laskey 462 Nobody Kenji Miyazawa 462 Strong in the Rain Arundhathi Subramaniam 463 Prayer Dana Gioia 464 Prayer 9 More to love Kim Addonizio 466 You Don’t Know What Love Is Kim Addonizio 466 Like That Jericho Brown 467 Track 1: Lush Life Edwin Morgan 468 Strawberries Arda Collins 469 Low Dorianne Laux 470 The Shipfitter’s Wife W.R. Rodgers 470 The Net Thom Gunn 471 Tamer and Hawk Eliza Griswold 472 Tigers Tony Hoagland 473 Romantic Moment Faiz Ahmed Faiz 474 Before You Came Norman MacCaig 474 True Ways of Knowing E.E. Cummings 475 i carry your heart with me Dana Gioia 476 The Song (after Rilke) W.B. Yeats 476 He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven Langston Hughes 477 The Dream Keeper Michael Donaghy 477 The Present Sharon Olds 478 This Hour Garrison Keillor 479 Supper Sinéad Morrissey 479 & Forgive Us Our Trespasses Maram al-Massri 480 from A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor Norman MacCaig 482 Sounds of the day Pablo Neruda 483 ‘If I die…’ Annabelle Despard 483 Should You Die First Grace Paley 484 Anti-Love Poem Eavan Boland 485 Love Herman de Coninck 485 For Each Other Lorraine Mariner 486 Say I forgot Alan Dugan 486 Love Song: I and Thou Michael Blumenthal 487 A Marriage Anna Swir 488 Thank You, My Fate 489 Acknowledgements 496 Index of writers 503 Index of titles and first lines

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