Poetry Books

Book SynopsisAfter the appearance of Fleur Adcock's Poems 1960-2000 she wrote no more poems for several years. This cessation coincided with - but was not entirely caused by - her giving up smoking. When poetry returned to her in 2003 it tended towards a sparer, more concentrated style. This new collection continues to reflect her preoccupations with family matters and with her ambivalent feelings about her native New Zealand. Her initial inspiration was the letters her father wrote home from England to his parents during World War II, which evoked her own memories of that era. The central sequence moves from her first coming to consciousness in New Zealand up to and through the war years in Britain and on to sketches from her teens in puritanical postwar Wellington after her reluctant return - not without her usual sardonic eye for incongruities and absurdities. There are also affectionate poems for her grandchildren and her late mother.Trade Review'It's a shock to realise that this is Adcock's first new collection for a decade; the pin-sharp voice of poems such as "Against Coupling", "Advice to a Discarded Lover" and "For a Five Year Old" is so essential and recognisable that it's difficult to know how we've done without it for 10 years. Inspired by the letters her father wrote from England, where he was stationed, to his parents in New Zealand during the second world war, this collection returns Adcock to familiar territory: the family, and her own complex feelings towards her native country' - Sarah Crown, Guardian

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Book SynopsisBrendan Kennelly was one of Ireland’s most popular and prolific poets. Over five decades he wrote thousands of poems published in over 30 books of poetry, including three previous editions of Selected Poems. Published on his 75th birthday, this new selection presents just over a hundred of Kennelly’s most essential poems, with a QR code giving readers access to an online album of readings by Brendan Kennelly of many poems from the book. The e-book with audio edition incorporates the same recordings. The Essential Brendan Kennelly has been edited by two lifelong admirers of his work. Like Kennelly, Terence Brown studied at Trinity College, Dublin, where he taught until 2009; he is now Fellow Emeritus of the college. Michael Longley, who also studied at Trinity College, went on to become one of Ireland’s leading poets and was Ireland Professor of Poetry in 2007-10. Terence Brown & Michael Longley write (from their foreword): 'Brendan Kennelly is a poet of rare gifts, who at all stages of his career has written distinctive, memorable and powerful poems. We hope that this selection will allow readers to appreciate anew, or for the first time, a body of work that ranges from tender lyricism to the bleakest despair at the human condition, from bawdily comic narrative to the pleasingly epigrammatic squib, from mythic consciousness to social satire… Yet each literary mode – the lyrical and its obverse, a reductively satiric assault on "the poetic" – shares what has seemed the basis of all of Kennelly’s poetry: a quest for authenticity of emotion undertaken with high moral intent. In each, as Beckett said of the painter Jack Yeats, the poet "stakes his being".’ The audio selection draws on four classic recordings made by Brendan Kennelly in Dublin in 1982, 1998, 1999 and 2002 of 32 individual poems as well as four extracts from his book-length poem The Man Made of Rain. ‘Ten years ago Terence Brown and I edited for Bloodaxe Books a selection of his poems, The Essential Brendan Kennelly: a labour of love. We delighted in bringing into sharper focus the lyric grace of his genius, its rage and its rapture. To our relief Brendan gave our choices the thumbs-up. It remains for me one of the best things I’ve ever done. I loved and revered the man and his words.’ – Michael Longley, The Irish Times, paying tribute to Brendan Kennelly

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Book SynopsisHannah Lowe's first book of poems takes you on a journey round her father, a Chinese-black Jamaican migrant who disappeared at night to play cards or dice in London's old East End to support his family, an unstable and dangerous existence that took its toll on his physical and mental health. 'Chick' was his gambling nickname. A shadowy figure in her childhood, Chick was only half known to her until she entered the night world of the old man as a young woman. The name is the key to poems concerned with Chick's death, the secret history of his life in London, and her perceptions of him as a father. With London as their backdrop, Hannah Lowe's deeply personal narrative poems are often filmic in effect and brimming with sensory detail in their evocations of childhood and coming-of-age, love and loss of love, grief and regret. Winner of the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry 2014Trade Review'Chick opens with a powerful sequence of poems centred around the poet's memories of her Chinese/black Jamaican father - a complex, larger than life character who came to London in the late 40s and eked out a living as, among other things, a gambler. But the book is very much more than a personal reminiscence and family history. This is a collection cross-hatched with myth and history, a hymn to London as much as to its characters. Though all the poems have a strong, vividly cinematographic line, they are also beautifully lyrical - sung stories, offering us the glimpsed lives of strangers and lovers. But however poignant and moving it may be, the collection remains doggedly celebratory of life itself, of people and place, loved and remembered. Each poem takes us a little further into the mystery of lives in a world that is as incomprehensible as it is unforgettable. This is an outstanding, unputdownable first collection' - John Glenday. 'Here is a poet with a commanding style; her voice is entirely her own, both rich and laconic. These are poems springing from the page with vitality, rue and insight. Her elegies are restrained and devastating. An extraordinary debut' - Penelope Shuttle.

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Book SynopsisAn unsettling play about infidelity seen from the perspective of the three women involved: the wife, the lover and the daughter. George and Honor have been happily married for thirty-two years. She is a successful writer, he is a revered columnist. They have a perfect understanding of each other. Until a pushy young female journalist - on an assignment to 'profile' George - quite deliberately seeks to undermine that understanding. The fallout is dreadful - but beautifully and convincingly portrayed in all its painful consequences. Joanna Murray-Smith's play Honour was first performed at the Playbox Theatre, Melbourne, Australia, in November 1995. It received its UK premiere, in this revised version, at the National Theatre, London, in February 2003, and was revived in the West End in 2006.Trade Review'A stinging bulletin from the frontline of the gender wars... clinically dissects the notion, the nature, of love' * Evening Standard *'Murray-Smith's considerable skill lies in charting the minute emotional shifts and the subtle power play between the four people... Superb' * Mail on Sunday *'Murray-Smith's writing is searching and droll, naturalistic and poetically honed' * Independent on Sunday *'An old story, but thanks to the quality of the writing and acting we share the characters' sense of sailing into uncharted waters... And there are some excellent comic touches... the piece deserves full credit for its honesty and dramatic grip' * Sunday Telegraph *'It's an intelligent, powerful, gripping piece' * The Times *'A really powerful new play. Joanna Murray-Smith is the most exciting Australian dramatist of her generation' * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisA powerful and straightforward dramatisation of Orwell's enduring parable on the perils of totalitarianism. Ian Wooldridge's dramatisation of Animal Farm remains faithful to Orwell's original, retaining both its affection for the animals and the inciciveness of its message. It was first performed by TAG Theatre Company at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in 1982. This edition contains production notes for schools and other groups wishing to stage the play.Trade Review'Dare I say it... as good as the book' * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisA poignant drama about attitudes to teenage pregnancy in 1960s Britain. Mary Adams, aged 19, is unmarried and seven months pregnant. Forcibly sent to a Mother-and-Baby Home in the north of England by a mother intent on keeping up appearances, Mary – along with the other girls in the home – has to cope with both the shame and the dawning realisation that she will have to give the baby up for adoption whether she likes it or not. Despite this – and an overbearing matron – the girls' youthful effervescence keeps breaking through as they sing along to the girl-group songs of the period. Amanda Whittington's hugely touching play Be My Baby was first performed by Soho Theatre Company at the Pleasance Theatre, London, in 1998. This edition of Be My Baby includes new scenes added for several successful revivals of the play.Trade Review'Poignant, powerful and still pertinent... Whittington's play about yesterday sings out to today' * Observer *'You don't have to be young, female or unmarried to find it immensely touching' * The Times *'Whittington cleverly coats the bitter pill of her characters' experience with the sugared naivety of popular girl-group routines' * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThe everyman Signet Shakespeare series continues with the first volume of Comedies containing The Comedy of Errors, The taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It also includes Loves Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet (sic) and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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Book SynopsisCompleting the 8 volume Everyman Signet Shakespeare contains Shakespeare series, this final volume contains Shakespeare's four Last Plays - THE TEMPEST, PERICLES, THE WINTER'S TALE AND CYMBELINE. The beautifully produced, single-column text of the plays, with the Signet footnotes, is supplemented with bibliographies, a detailed chronology of Shakespear's life and times, and a substantial introduction in which Professor Tony Tanner discusses each play individually while setting each in context.

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Book SynopsisDistringuished as both a great novelist and a great poet. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) had a writing career which spanned more than sixty years, concentrating first on prose and then, after publishing his last novel in 1895, on verse. A master of the short lyric and the vivid narrative, Hardy is pre-eminently the poet of remembrance and tender regret for lost happiness; but he is also an ironist whose exquisite descriptions of rural life are the setting for bitingly sharp observations of human frailty.

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Book SynopsisIn her second book of poems Sinead Morrissey's worlds grow more diverse, encompassing the Orient, the Antipodes, America and an Ireland which recent history has changed and yet not deeply, a country observed through eyes that travel and time have made dispassionate and disabused.

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Book SynopsisCat Jeoffry is a self-contained passage from Christopher Smart's eccentric 18th century masterpiece Jubilate Agno (Rejoice in the Lamb) and the most famous piece of poetry ever written about a cat. Poignantly, Jeoffry was Smart's companion during his lengthy confinement for mental illness. His close and affectionate observations of the cat's antics both entertained him and inspired his moving religious celebration. Often anthologised, this passage brims over with the prankish playfulness and sudden ferocity of one of the literary world's most famous cats. Quirky, realistic, affectionate, it is at the same time a remarkable spiritual meditation. This new edition contains a commentary and notes by Tom Woodman. Peter Hay's characteristic black and white illustrations rampage through the book.

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Book SynopsisKing Henry VIII has one of the fullest theatrical histories of any play in the Shakespeare canon, yet has been consistently misrepresented, both in performance and in criticism. This edition offers a new perspective on this ironic, multi-layered, collaborative play, revealing it as a complex meditation on the progress of Reformation which sees English life since Henry VIII's day as a series of bewildering changes in national and personal allegiance and represents 'history' as the product of varied and contradictory testimony. McMullan makes a powerful claim for the rehabilitation of Henry VIII, providing the fullest performance history of any edition to date and reading the work not as a marginal 'late' Shakespeare play but as a play which is paradigmatic of the achievement of Renaissance drama as a whole.'This is a staggeringly brilliant, captivating edition that will undoubtedly occasion a huge surge of critical interest in this neglected play. For those of use who have never taken Henry VIII very seriously ' perhaps dismissing it as a late collaborative play of no consequence or as conservative propaganda ' McMullan's introduction is genuinely revelatory.' Eric Rasmussen, University of Nevada at Reno, Shakespeare Survey

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Book SynopsisKing Edward III is increasingly thought to have been written in significant part by Shakespeare. This landmark new edition by textual expert and General Editor of the Arden Shakespeare, Richard Proudfoot, offers a full account of the play's text and the evidence of Shakespeare's hand at work in it. Fully annotated with on-page notes and a lengthy critical introduction which also explores the play's production history and the impact of its historical context.Trade ReviewNo scholar could be better equipped to edit Edward III than Richard Proudfoot … His coeditor Nicola Bennett has helped him bring a long-term project to fruition. The result is an indispensable guide to the understanding and appreciation of an uneven but intriguing drama … The section of the introduction devoted to ‘the literary and dramatic reasons’ for regarding Shakespeare as part-author of Edward III is especially impressive, as it sketches the pattern of thematic and structural resemblances with Richard II, Henry V, Richard III, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and other Shakespeare plays. The place of Edward III in the Shakespeare canon seems now secure. * Bibliographical Society of America *Table of ContentsList of illustrations General editors' preface Preface Acknowledgements Introduction King Edward III Abbreviations and references Index

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Book SynopsisMidnight and Other Poems is the first full-length poetry collection to be published in the UK by this remarkable Palestinian writer, previously known to English-language readers for his highly-acclaimed autobiography I Saw Ramallah (Bloomsbury, 2004). "Midnight and Other Poems is the most powerful and interesting collection I have read for a very long time."R.V. Bailey"Never mind that I speak not a word of Arabic. Mourid Barghouti's poetry shines through the translation. There are arresting images on almost every page."Raymond HumphreysMourid Barghouti has spent many years in exile, and his long poem 'Midnight' is a rich montage of images of the land of his birth and the strong emotional responses to which these images give rise. Here, anger, frustration and despair are juxtaposed with yearning and tenderness in Barghouti's powerful and evocative account of occupation, violence and oppression. The shorter poems which comprise the second half of the book are, by turns, dramatic and hard-hitting, contemplative and reflective, and together present an equally powerful and graphic picture of the poet's homeland.In Radwa Ashour's excellent translation, and with a helpful introduction by Guy Mannes-Abbott who recorded a number of conversations with the poet over a period of several weeks, this selection of Mourid Barghouti's poems marks an important addition to the body of Arabic literature available to English-language readers world-wide. Mourid Barghouti was born in July 1944 in Deir Ghassana near Ramallah, Palestine. He has published twelve books of poetry, the last of which is Muntasaf al-Layl / Midnight, Beirut, 2005. His Collected Works came out in Beirut in 1997. A Small Sun, his first poetry book in English translation, was published by The Aldeburgh Poetry Trust in 2003. In 2000, he was awarded the Palestine Award for Poetry. He lives in Cairo.About the translator:Radwa Ashour is an Egyptian writer and scholar, currently Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Ain Shams University, Cairo. Well-known as a novelist and writer of short stories, she has also co-edited a major work on Arab Women's literature. As a translator, she has translated into English much of the poetry of Mourid Barghouti, to whom she has been married for many years. In 2007, Radwa Ashour was awarded the Constantine Cavafy International Prize for Literature. About the introducer:Guy Mannes-Abbott has written about writers and thinkers from across the world for The Independent, Guardian, New Statesman and other publications. He has written catalogue essays on contemporary Indian art, speculative essays about London and taught at the AA School of Architecture in London. He is the author of a series of widely published texts – poems, stories and aphorisms called e.things. Table of ContentsPreface by Ruth Padel. Introduction by Guy Mannes-Abbott.Part One: Midnight. Part Two, Other Poems: Interpretations, It's Also Fine, Old Age, Sleeping Woman, In the Neighbouring Room, The Three Cypress Trees, Sand Kingdom, Normal Journey, A Night Unlike Others, How Are You?, I have No Problem, Eagerness, Third World, The Stab, Prison, he Drowned Ship, Counsel, The Merciful, The Giraffe's Head, Give Me Your Boots, Narcissus' Hat, The Pillow, Silence.Biographical Notes

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Book SynopsisAbove all, a haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi pastorella.' Jack Kerouac. Renowned for his groundbreaking Beat Generation novel "On the Road", Jack Kerouac was also a master of the haiku, the three-line, seventeen-syllable Japanese poetic form. Following in the tradition of Basho, Buson, Shiki, Issa, and other poets, Kerouac experimented with this centuries-old genre, taking it beyond strict syllable counts into what he believed was the form's essence. He incorporated his 'American' haiku in novels and in his correspondence, notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, and recordings.In this edition, Kerouac scholar Regina Weinreich has supplemented a core haiku manuscript from Kerouac's archives with a generous selection of the rest of his haiku, from both published and unpublished sources. The result is a compact collection of more than five hundred poems that reveal a lesser known but important side of Jack Kerouac's literary legacy.

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Book SynopsisA delightful anthology of poems sent by many contemporary writers as Christmas cards. From Advent to the New Year, these poems encompass the nativity, the natural world, weather and time's passing, religious and secular celebrations at home and abroad. Wendy Cope welcomes the Christmas life into the house, Seamus Heaney remembers holly-gathering. Gillian Clarke cradles a newborn lamb, and Edwin Morgan tabulates a computer's Christmas card.... Here are eighty poems with a variety of Christmas messages - hopeful, cautionary, joyous, full of wonder.Trade Review'one of the most delightful anthologies to be published in years. It's beautifully illustrated and the poems...echo...with charm and sheer joy'Sir Trevor McDonald

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Book SynopsisWhat happens in an old farmhouse when the farmers have left? Perhaps only a poet-historian-storyteller can say. These traditional work centres were established centuries ago, sometimes in the village street, often far away in their own fields. But the pattern of the toil was the same. This quietly vanished a few years ago. Ronald Blythe describes the going of it in his celebrated Akenfield. Some years before this his friend John Nash had rescued an already abandoned farmhouse in the Stour Valley from total dereliction. It was called Bottengoms. Nobody knows why. John Nash called himself an Artist-Plantsman. Behind both artist and writer there existed many generations of farmers and shepherds. Old houses will always have their say. For Ronald Blythe at Bottengoms Farm it was in the form of a meditation on past and present. He found that the ancient place asked more questions than it gave answers, and was challenging, and was energetic rather than spent. It must have been part of a prehistoric settlement in a stony valley and also a farm seen by the young John Constable, whose uncles ground its corn. For they were Bottengoms neighbours, and were known to the artist as the Wormingford folk. Ronald Blythe himself knows what the old farm is talking about. Its great days and routine days, its seasonal labour and play, its faith and despair. Its land was both poor and rich in snatches, flint fields and mossy pastures, vast trees and weeds and high skies. Once Queen Elizabeth arrived to hunt below where the Stone Age people lay in their circular graves. Inside Bottengoms there are telling handprints and footprints everywhere, and this is their tale. It is a tale told by a true countryman who has looked and listened all his life. And mostly in his native place.Trade Review'The whole book is a poem: Sheer delight' - The Spectator 'This is a production of old age, gentle but not soft, both tough-minded and charitable.' The TLS 'A hand-polished gem of a book' The Tablet

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Book SynopsisCompared to Gaelic poetry, the history of Gaelic theatre has not been a particularly long one, with the first examples appearing in the eighteenth century. However, drama in Gaelic began to thrive in the twentieth century, and modern Gaelic drama has the power to break down barriers and to touch people across linguistic and cultural divides.This collection is a celebration of this often-overlooked genre, bringing together eight Gaelic plays from the start of the twentieth century to the present day. Accessible to non-Gaelic speakers, this book contains English translations as well as an introduction to the history of Gaelic theatre, and to the playwrights whose skill and commitment to their art deserves much wider recognition.ContentsRèiteach Mòraig (Morag's Betrothal) Iain M. MacLeòidAm Fear a Chaill a Ghàidhlig (The Man Who Lost His Gaelic) Iain MacCormaigCeann Cropic Fionnlagh MacLeòidTog Orm Mo Speal (Give Me My Scythe) Iain Mac a' GhobhainnÒrdugh na Saorsa (Order of Release) Tormod Calum DòmhnallachSequamur Dòmhnall S. Moireach (Gaelic by Catrìona Dunn)Scotties Muireann Kelly with Francis PoetBana-Ghaisgich (Heroines) Màiri Nic'IlleMhoire

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Book SynopsisU. A. Fanthorpe was that rarest of literary beings, a poet who was hugely popular with the general public and at the same time very seriously regarded by fellow poets and literary critics for her originality, wit and humanity. Since her death, much of her work has been out of print. Selected Poems, chosen from over thirty years of Fanthorpe's distinctive and accessible writing by her partner R V Bailey, will delight all her existing fans as well as those who come to her poems for the first time.Trade ReviewSTEPHEN FRY: The peerless U. A. Fanthorpe roots herself in the very earth of English poetry, connecting herself to Hughes and Browning, but also and more pertinently to the real experience of English living... so clear-eyed and so, well, completely poetic. CAROL ANN DUFFY: U. A. Fanthorpe was that rarest of beings, a poet who was hugely popular with the general public at the same time as being very seriously regarded by fellow poets and literary critics for her originality, wit and humanity ... I am only one of many poets who owe her a great debt and who is glad, always, to have her wonderful, warm, wise poems close.

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Book SynopsisTom Chivers was born in South London in 1983. His publications include How To Build A City (Salt Publishing, 2009), The Terrors (Nine Arches Press, 2009; shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlets) and, as editor, the anthologies Generation Txt, City State: New London Poetry and Stress Fractures: Essays on Poetry (Penned in the Margins, 2006, 2009 & 2010). A regular reviewer for Poetry London, he presented a documentary about the poet Barry MacSweeney for BBC Radio 4 in 2009. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2011.Trade ReviewFull of things to divert, entertain and provoke. - The Independent 50 Best Summer Reads Adventures in Form teems with life. It is the start of a new, healthier and more joyous way of looking at the poetic endeavour we live among. It's essential reading right now. - Poetry Review The constraints we chafe against in the creation of 'txt msg poMs' may be unravelling, but the anthology's long-term legacy will be its sense of gusto. Look at this as a pattern book of the possible; it enthuses, and that enthusiasm becomes contagious. - Poetry London Adventures in Form raises fundamental questions, about the value of novelty to poetry, for example, about chance and choice, sense and nonsense, and about the concept of 'voice', in poetry, how it might be revitalised, channelled and challenged. - Poetry Book Society One of the most eye-opening books of the decade. - EyewearTable of ContentsPatience Agbabi Simon Barraclough Christian Bok Colette Bryce Theodoros Chiotis Tom Chivers Emily Critchley Rishi Dastidar Joe Dunthorne Michael Egan Inua Ellams SJ Fowler Giles Goodland Kirsten Irving Nathan Jones Valerie Laws Ira Lightman Toby Litt Roddy Lumsden Sophie Mayer Chris McCabe Ian McMillan Richard Moorhead Paul Muldoon Ruth Padel Nathan Penlington Andrew Philip Richard Price Sam Riviere Hannah Silva Iain Sinclair Steve Spence Paul Stephenson Jon Stone Ross Sutherland George Szirte Chris Thorpe Claire Trevien George Ttoouli Tim Turnbull Jack Underwood Hannah Jane Walker Tim Wells James Wilkes Chrissy Williams Tamar Yoseloff

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Book SynopsisMargins, edges and coastlines abound in John McCullough’s tender, humorous explorations of contemporary life and love. Encompassing everything from lichen to lava lamps, and from the etymology of words to Brighton’s gay scene,& Spacecraft is a humane and spellbinding collection from the winner of the 2012 Polari First Book Prize. Spacecraft & navigates the white space of the page and the distance between people.Table of ContentsPART ONE: FLYING MACHINES! Flittermouse Some Days I'm Visited by a Church of Rain Sugar Hammer 1001 Nights The Desert Photographer Nullibiety Lichen In The Angelfish Cafe Flother PART TWO: NAVIGATING A SPACEMastodon and Mouse Voyage Lava Lamp The Fire MarketStirious Haul I've Carried a Door On My Back for Ten Years P Glitter O PART THREE: THE SPACE AGEQueens Road Books The Hole-Digging Contest Rooms The Booth Museum of Natural History Vault The Anger Room The Mathematics of Plovers Formations Ghost Atlas The Wilful Eye PART FOUR: LIVING SPACEThe Restaurant at One Thousand Feet The Marina VillageCity of WindsThe Empty Market The Fog [-] R O C K Brighton Puffin Clues Cat Flap NOTES

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Book SynopsisA remarkable new book in praise of marine fauna. Of Sea takes the form of a poetic bestiary of creatures living beneath, beside and above the water: in wetlands, salt marshes and the intertidal zone. In a sequence of 46 poems, Burnett captures the world of cockles and clams, rare moths and the humble earwig (to name a few) with a precise and dynamic lyric that seems always on the verge of music. 'Burnett is one of the UK's most original poets of the nonhuman world, and of our environmental moment. Innovative, dazzling, affecting poems that shimmer with intellectual acuity and emotional resonance.' - Rebecca TamasTrade Review'Burnett is one of the UK's most original poets of the nonhuman world, and of our environmental moment. Innovative, dazzling, affecting poems that shimmer with intellectual acuity and emotional resonance.'- Rebecca Tamas; '[Burnett's] stunning new collection explores the sea - its creatures, sounds, language. Many pieces are meant to be sung, or clicked (like a beetle) and it cumulates into an epic maritime lyric.' -Sinéad Gleeson

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Book SynopsisThis anthology of versions by 16 contemporary poets from around the world of the 33 Cantos of Dante's Purgatorio is published to mark the 700th centenary of Dante's death in 1321. With an absorbing Introduction by Nick Havely tracing Dante's influence on countless poets over the centuries, and detailed explanatory notes, canto by canto, this volume is both an outstanding work of scholarship and, for the poetry lover, a superb way into the world of this extraordinary medieval masterpiece.

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Book Synopsis“Nobody is going to buy the book if I say nice things about you, Werner.”— Klaus Kinski to Werner Herzog What are the things you can’t live with or without? What can we expect from relationships that refuse to resolve themselves one way or the other? You Again collects together accounts of ruinous tension and blighted passion, mixing extracts and cut-ups from famous works with fresh slivers of contemporary writing. There’s romance, of course – but other kinds of entanglement as well, all awash with delight and frustration, rage and joy, hope and perplexity.

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Book Synopsis“If his cypher was discovered too soon, his life would be the forfeit. If never, his labour would be in vain."In this volume, we invite you to reflect on all the ways messages can be hidden – and uncovered – in other messages. More than that, we invite you to think about the relationship between the within and the without, and what it tells us about ourselves. Look Again is a compilation of curious poems, short texts and extracts from longer works that all have something to hide or reveal, taking their cues from riddles, cyphers and imaginary languages.Be aware: you may be left with a mind to see secret writing everywhere you look.

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Book SynopsisThe preoccupations of Brilliant Corners include the tangible damage inflicted by empires, plunder of the global money markets, disfigured lives, and the bitter salves of Western privilege. Engaging with writers and artists in the European canon, the poems take necessary risks in their scrupulous approach to different experiences.

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Book SynopsisIn Joie de vivre, Bailey continues to celebrate the living and the dead with 'measured sorrow and delight'. The poems both mourn and laugh, giving age and illness more than a good runfor their money.

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Book SynopsisInitially described as a comedy, Shakespeare's explorations of prejudice, duty and the nature of justice make The Merchant of Venice a far darker, more alluring play.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated throughout by Sir John Gilbert, and includes an introduction by Ned Halley.The Merchant of Venice is most associated not with its titular hero, Antonio, but with the complex, unforgettable figure of the money-lender, Shylock. It is Shylock who finances Antonio's friend Bassanio in his pursuit of the beautiful Portia, and who demands a gruesome bond from the wealthy merchant.Trade ReviewEvery generation continues to be in his debt. Shakespeare’s plots, which are brilliantly polyvalent, continue to inspire ceaseless adaptations and spin-offs. His unforgettable phrase-making recurs on the lips of millions who do not realise they are quoting Shakespeare * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisShakespeare’s skillful manipulation of events and people makes Richard III a chilling incarnation of the lure of evil and the temptation of power.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated throughout by Sir John Gilbert, and includes an introduction by Ned Halley.Richard, Duke of Gloucester – the bitter, deformed brother of the King – is secretly plotting to seize the throne of England. Charming and duplicitous, powerfully eloquent and viciously cruel, he is prepared to go to any lengths to achieve his goal.Trade ReviewEvery generation continues to be in his debt. Shakespeare’s plots, which are brilliantly polyvalent, continue to inspire ceaseless adaptations and spin-offs. His unforgettable phrase-making recurs on the lips of millions who do not realise they are quoting Shakespeare * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisIn Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets, more than 50 poets from all over the world explore the many meanings and connotations of the word ‘home’. Hailing from places as diverse as India and Italy, Poland and Pakistan, Canada and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – as well as the US, the UK and Ireland itself – together they present an updated picture of a changing country while, at the same time, expanding the very definition of ‘writing from Ireland’.The poems gathered here are as various and lively as we might hope for. Some contributors might be said to ‘write home’ in the traditional sense, describing and explaining what they find in the place they now live; for others ‘writing home’ is a determined, creative act of self-definition.For all of them there is the real sense that writing is itself a kind of home-building, not least at a time when so many borders, physical and psychological, are under threat of closure across the world.

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Book SynopsisThe poems in Earth's Almanac emerged over a fifteen-year period following the untimely death of the poet's sister. Lucy Newlyn adapts the tradition of the 'Shepherd's Calendar' to the phases of grief, condensing a long process of reflection and remembering into the passage of a single year. The poems shift through forms and move between places - Oxford, Borrowdale, and finally Cornwall, where the poet finds a second home near the sea. In these intense expressions of love and loss, anger and guilt, there is no smooth path towards consolation.Trade Review'Don't doubt that this is very good poetry indeed ... If you require a nostalgic hit of childhood and place, the ingredients which make this collection universal, it is here for you.' - The Leeds Guide on GINNEL; 'It's a long time since a book of poetry moved me as much as Lucy Newlyn's Earth's Almanac (Enitharmon). She has grafted a sequence of elegies for and rememberings of a dead sister over a fifteen year period onto a Shepheard's Calendar of the natural year. This could lead to mawkishness and sentimentality, but Earth's Almanac is tough and complex. Often it is impossible to tell if the details of the changing seasons in Cornwall and Oxford, where the poet lives, are the occasions or the metaphors for memory. I loved it.'- Gabriel Josipovici, TLS

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Book SynopsisFull colour, illustrated and hardback poetry book containing poetry on all the seasons for young readers. It includes poems about nature, the landscape, the weather and children’s experiences of the seasons from ice-creams to Christmas trees. An accompanying ebook will be free to download, introducing children to the poetic forms used in the book and chock-full of ideas to encourage readers to try their hand at writing their own poems. It will be especially helpful also to teachers who would like to include writing poetry as a classroom activity with their pupils. The full-colour illustrations are by Lauren O’Neill, winner of the Children’s Books Ireland Award for Illustration in 2016.Trade ReviewA charming, accessible collection from one of Ireland’s best poets for children, Lucinda Jacob. ... The classy, expressive illustrations by Lauren O’Neill make this a pocket treasure. * Irish Independent *This superb collection of illustrated poems is groundbreaking. * Inis Magazine *

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2017 T. S. Eliot PrizePBS Autumn RecommendationThe poems in James Sheard’s remarkable third book are about love and leaving, of how the rift of departure brings on a kind of haunting – of the people involved and the places where they lived – an emotional trace of departed lives and loves. This is what these poems are: the scars of separation, the spoors of desire. Sheard writes powerfully about loss, about how the vestiges of significance, of sensual heat, are retained by structures – in ghost towns, war-zones, deserted villages or resorts – but also by the human body and memory: ‘for love exists, and then is ruined, and then persists.’These are poems about permanence and fragility, of being uncertain whether the house you live in is a shell, or if you have become a shell by living there – whether emptiness means loss and abandonment or a clean start and a new beginning. But these are also poems full of the ache of desire, the tart, lingering smell of sex: poems shaped by longing.James Sheard is one of Britain’s most assured and precise lyric poets, and his third collection brings all his considerable strengths to poems as accurate and strange as thermal images.Trade ReviewFor at his best, James Sheard can be effortlessly moving, and clever – but not for the sake of it. -- Rory Waterman * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis"I was the first rock'n'roll chick, lead singer, serious bass player, kicking ass with the guys in the band, and beating them at their own game" But when the lights go down and the leather catsuit comes off, there's another side of Suzi Quatro that only her closest friends know - a sensitive, soul-searching and philosophical woman who's been pouring her heart out in poetry since she was seven years old. Only no one's had the chance to read it...until now Through My Eyes is Suzi Quatro's first collection of poetry. It is a collection that is candid, thought-provoking, revealing and sometimes shocking. If you thought being an international rock star was all glamour and good times, Through My Eyes will take you on a rock'n'rollercoaster of a jouney through a life bedeviled by men who were often unsuitable, unspeakable or unattainable...not that Suzi was going to take any of that lying down! The poems reveal some of Suzi's deepest and most intimate feelings. They are predominantly about love, from the optimism and exuberance of a young singer about to launch her solo career, to the acrimony and disillusionment relating to various relationships - real, imaginary or longed for - that punctuated her subsequent life. Suzi has also included notes that reveal where she was and what she was doing at the time she was writing. Taking things on a stage from her autobiography, Unzipped, this is rhyme...with a reason!

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Book SynopsisSuzannah Evans’ debut collection Near Future is doom-pop-poetry with an apocalyptic edge, a darkly humorous journey through sci-fi lullabies and northern mysteries. This is a future simulation stripped of the space-age gloss of progression - one where the robots have gone rogue and the hopes of a new millennium are malfunctioning; this is a skewed yet oddly familiar world gone uncannily wrong. These playful, sharp, poems are also about more than dystopias and five types of possible apocalypse - in looking at the worst-case scenarios, Evans comes closer to the bigger narrative; universal truths of change, whether man-made or natural, preventable of inevitable, and the uncertain business of human existence where 'there are disasters that you cannot prepare yourself for'. Evans brings a distinctive, skilful and wonderfully peculiar roving eye to our restless and unpredictable times.

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Book SynopsisOn the Edge of a Sword is a selection of Kristiina Ehin’s latest work – deeply personal, unflinchingly honest, autobiographical poems which, at the same time, are also a heartfelt defense of the right of the Estonian language to exist and flourish in our increasingly anglicised world.

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Book SynopsisAneta Kaminska is a Polish poet, author of eight volumes of poetry. She has a wonderful ear for language and her specialty is poetry brimming with linguistic games. She is also a prolific translator of contemporary Ukrainian poets. This chapbook presents a selection of Kaminska's own poetry from across the years. Through the fracturing of language, with word and sound-play or othertimes a deceptive simplicity, Kaminska's poems pull us up short with their visceral honesty. Whether she is writing about the female body, a Jewish cemetery, the pandemic or the invasion of Ukraine, her poems are at once fierce and intimate. She is a unique voice which cannot be ignored, its freshness and immediacy discovered and relayed to us in ingenious ways by her translators. - Maria Jastrzebska

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Book SynopsisMY BODY CAN HOUSE TWO HEARTS skips across the fragile boundaries of history, culture, relationships, and language. It explores the transitory balance of belonging by tying threads between different places and ideas not often compared. Traverse the poet's perception of her Welsh and Iraqi heritage, her positioning as a woman of colour, and the nuances of feminist action. My Body Can House Two Hearts is a celebration of women's redemptive interdependency and the rejection of patriarchal power.

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Book SynopsisA collection of new poems by various poets - all poems inspired by the Welsh Coastal Path. The volume is greatly enhanced by colour images from all around Wales. -- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru

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Book SynopsisPoems exploring the adventures and griefs of bipolar disorder and living on the edge.

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Book Synopsis

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