Poetry Books

Book SynopsisThe Arden Shakespeare is the established scholarly edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Now in its third series, Arden offers the best in contemporary scholarship. Each volume guides you to a deeper understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare’s plays. This edition of King John provides: - A clear and authoritative text, edited to the highest standards of scholarship. - Detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text. - A full, illustrated introduction to the play’s historical, cultural and performance contexts. - A full index to the introduction and notes. - A select bibliography of references and further reading. With a wealth of helpful and incisive commentary, The Arden Shakespeare is the finest edition of Shakespeare you can find. King John tells the story of John's struggle to retain the crown in the face of alternative claims to the throne from France and is one of the earlier history plays. The new Arden Third Series edition offers students a comprehensive introduction exploring the play's relationship to its source and to later plays in the history cycle, as well as giving a full account of its critical and performance history, including key productions in 2015 which marked the anniversary of Magna Carta. As such this is the most detailed, informative and up-to-date student edition available.Trade ReviewThis orphan, offbeat history play seldom makes it onto an undergraduate syllabus, but Lander and Tobin’s introduction makes the case for a work of addled nostalgia, incompetent governance, and broad disillusionment whose time has come. Generous base-of-the-page textual notes keep readers from losing their way amid the twists and turns of the play’s messy plot. * Studies in English Literature 1500 - 1900 *Table of ContentsIntroduction King John Appendices Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisRodenbach is known first and foremost for his famous novel Bruges la Morte. Bruges was his muse and poetic source, the landscape in which he attempted to reveal the significance of what appeared lifeless or unconnected to art. Using the symbolist devices of suggestion and mood, Rodenbach sifts the elements that make up the decaying Bruges which he sees as a medieval corpse laid out for him to 'rescue' through his interpretation of its atmosphere of melancholy, its seductive romantic decline and its lonely atmosphere. With rare beauty and delicacy, Rodenbach's poetry spins its web of tonal impressionism and seems always to exist on the border of silence.

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Book SynopsisU. A. Fanthorpe and R. V. Bailey write: 'Wordsworth speaks of the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. This seems an apt description of these love poems. They are not important resonant pieces of writing: they simply happened when one of us felt like writing to the other other, quite often when one of us was away from home. Some of them coincided with Valentine's Days or birthdays, but that was more a matter of good luck than foresight. Quakers, rightly, maintain that Christmas Day is only one important day of all the 365 important days of the year. It's the same with love poems: they are appropriate at any time, and can be written, incidentally, to dogs, cats, etc., as well as humans. No room for Cupid.""(...) The pleasant thing about writing such poems, apart from having someone to write them for, is that there is no particular restriction as to subject matter. In "Christmas Poems", UA felt the draughty awareness of the diminishing cast of subjects, from donkey to Christmas tree. With love, on the other hand, the sky's the limit.'

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Book Synopsis'Here on the shore, twenty years later, my message in a bottle has reached dry land. Words about our life, his death but mostly love and our journey to the end.' – Olivia Harrison Olivia Harrison presents Came the Lightening, a book of twenty poems dedicated to George, marking the twentieth year since his passing. As a contributor to the book Concert for George, the revised edition of I Me Mine, and George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Olivia is no stranger to writing beautiful words that have an ethereal connection to love. These poems are accompanied by a selection of photographs and mementos curated by Olivia, including pictures of herself and George. Came the Lightening sees Olivia reflect upon her life with George, examining the intimacy of the emotional bond in their relationship through a memorable series of poems. She delves into the phenomenon of losing a partner and the passage of time.In essence, this is a story of love.'Olivia evokes the most fleeting gestures and instants, plucked from the flow of time and memory and felt through her choice of words and the overall rhythm… She might have done an oral history or a memoir. Instead, she composed a work of poetic autobiography.' – Martin Scorsese

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Book SynopsisThere are few landscapes in the western world more bewitching than the mountain glens of the Scottish Highlands and the scattered islands of the Hebrides. From its bleak mountains to its flower-filled meadows, from savage sea-cliffs to pure white beaches, it has inspired an equally varied oral heritage. There are the works of gentle scholar saints, epic tales of murderous clan rivalry, Norse legends of monsters and unsubdued spirits and the romantic tale of how an exiled prince came back to rescue his land and crown, though his defeat brought ruin to this ancient culture. More recently, it is the landscape and its animal inhabitants that have inspired some of the greatest of the poems captured here by Mary Miers, whose feel for the spirit of the Highlands and islands is unerring. She combines the sensibility of a native from the island of South Uist with the eye of a travelling scholar of architecture. Small books that open our vast landscapes of the mind.

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Book SynopsisMany English-speaking people who want to be educated try to read Dante, the 'best known, least read' of all the classical poets, and find him impossible. In my thirties I did just that: 'Where do I begin?' The library yielded a translation of 'The Divine Comedy' - a great fat epic in three volumes. Wading into the Inferno, I struggled through a couple of sections and decided this wasn't for me. Too gloomy, too stilted, too difficult to grasp - and above all - too many words. I gave up almost at once. I cannot be the only one who as a result of that kind of experience thinks the work of this great Master is exclusively about Hell. 'Dante? - oh, you mean Dante's Inferno!' they say. NO! That's not it. There's far, far more. Dante wrote in Italian in order to reach ordinary people who, like me, needed the story itself. He wrote in the vernacular about the famous of the time - well-known entertainers and politicians, poets and artists, churchmen and musicians, the great and the awful. He wanted to be understood by everyone, including those not too well-versed in Latin. 'What a story this is,' I thought, when finally I was properly introduced to it. 'Why don't we all know this story? Dante is so warm-hearted, so exciting, so full of hope and humour, justice and joy - but, like me, my friends hardly ever get into Hell, let alone out of it and on.' My aim is to tell Dante's story in the way I remember it - not primarily for its history, or its theology, or even its most gracious poetry, but for the unfolding journey he made through those amazing landscapes. It was all in his imagination, yet so vividly brought to life in his poem that irresistibly it invites us to accompany him on a life-changing, life-saving adventure of our own. The tale begins when, depressed and lost in a Dark Wood, Dante meets Virgil, his hero among much earlier poets. At the request of Beatrice - his great love, now in Heaven - Virgil has come from Limbo to guide him on a huge journey. Sure enough, they start by going down through Hell; but they emerge, ascend the Mountain of Purgatory through many adventures, and rise to the threshold of Paradise. There, human knowledge fails and Virgil leaves him. Meeting people all the way, he flies on into Heaven with Beatrice, and up through the stars to God. I hope that by travelling with him, we too may come to find in the poetry something of the depth of the vision. I hope we may come to love Dante as a person, with all his directness, his immense compassion for those he meets on the way, and his chuckling ability to laugh at himself. I hope we shall rejoice that his passion for Beatrice, who leads him through Heaven, is at last so blissfully fulfilled in the divine. May our own landscape of the mind be enhanced - even transformed - by the journey.Trade ReviewWith love, wisdom and devotion Hazel Marshall has created a uniquely accessible adaptation of Dante's epic journey that will bring it within reach of many who might otherwise not set forth at all. Brava! - as the Italians say, Brava! ; Anne Maria Clarke ; Author, writer and performing artist. ; 'Dante went for a walk.' Hazel's opening sentence draws us into a vivid story as we accompany Dante through, and then beyond, the depths and heights of human experience. Prompted at intervals to ask ourselves how we would feel in each situation that arises, we are gently invited to engage ever more fully with the transpersonal dimension of our lives. This is an enriching endeavour and one which will stand the test of time. ; Monica Anthony, UKCP Reg., RCST. ; Transpersonal psychotherapist, craniosacral therapist. ; Hazel has an inspirational ability to entice us to travel life's journey, and to understand it differently. This book is a beautifully new approach to that journey, showing us hope, and the transcending, healing power of love. ; Pamela Allsop, Transpersonal psychotherapist and artist. ; www.pamelallsop.comTable of ContentsDedication & Frontispiece Preface Contents Introduction PART 1: THROUGH THE INFERNO 1 THE DARK FOREST 2 VIRGIL 3 GOING DOWN 4 PAOLO AND FRANCESCA 5 MEDUSA AND THE ANGEL 6 THE BURNING CITY OF DIS 7 CENTAURS AND HARPIES 8 GERYON AND THE ABYSS 9 FROM ULYSSES TO THE GIANTS 10 THE PIT OF HELL PART 2: UP THE MOUNTAIN OF PURGATORY 11 THE SHIP OF SOULS 12 THE CLIMB BEGINS 13 ST. PETER'S GATE 14 STICKS AND CARROTS 15 THE ANGRY SOULS 16 THE BONE IDLE AND THE COVETOUS 17 THE GREEDY ARE PURGED 18 THE ANGEL OF CHASTITY 19 THE RIVER LETHE 20 THE RIVER OF GOOD REMEMBRANCE PART 3: INTO PARADISE 21 FLYING TO THE MOON 22 TO MERCURY: THE EMPEROR AND THE LAW 23 TO VENUS: ROUND PEGS FOR ROUND HOLES 24 IN THE REALM OF THE SUN 25 THE CROSS OF MARTIAL SOULS 26 JUPITER AND THE EAGLE 27 SATURN AND THE LADDER 28 UP TO THE STARS 29 THE PRIMUM MOBILE 30 THE EMPYREAN Epilogue Acknowledgments Credits Bibliography Illustrations Index

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Book SynopsisThis is a new and powerful collection of poetry written by native Dundonian Gary Robertson in his own distinctive tongue - the Dundonian dialect. Robertson's comical style of poetry tackles every aspect of living and growing up in a Scottish town, from working the night shift to logging on to myspace. With humour he is able to explore the darker side of Dundee with poems that highlight gang violence and the abuse of drink and drugs in a way that enlightens without alienating. This colourful and honest verse comes unashamedly from the streets to offer a unique view of Dundee and its people from one of its own.

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Book SynopsisIt's the 15th century and the Archbishop of Canterbury, worried over impending legislation that would effectively rob the Church in England of its power and wealth, convinces Henry V to forego this pursuit in favour of laying claim to France. The Dauphin's insulting response convinces Henry that the French will only respond to war.

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Book SynopsisNew Writing Scotland is the principal forum for poetry and short fiction in Scotland today. Every year we publish the very best from emerging and established writers, and list many of the leading literary lights of Scotland among our contributors.

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Book SynopsisPBS Recommended Translation for Spring 2013The Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf is brought to life by American poet Meghan Purvis in a vigorous contemporary translation. Written across a range of poetic forms and voices, this rendering captures the thrust and gore of battle, the sinister fens and moorlands of Dark Age Denmark, and the treasures and glories of the mead-hall. But can the hero defeat his blood-thirsty foes, save the Geats from being wiped off the map, and claim his just rewards?Combining faithful translation with innovative re-workings and poems from alternative viewpoints, Purvis has created an exciting new interpretation of Beowulf – full of verve and the bristle of language.Meghan Purvis received her MA and PhD in Creative Writing from UEA. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Rialto, The Frogmore Papers and Magma. She won the 2011 Times Stephen Spender Prize for an excerpt from her translation of Beowulf; another poem was commended. She lives in Cambridge.

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Book SynopsisA young woman spends a month taking the waters at a thermal water-based rehabilitation facility in Budapest. On her return to London, she attempts to continue her recovery using an 80 pound inflatable blue bathtub. The tub becomes a metaphor for the intrusion of disability; a trip hazard in the middle of an unsuitable room, slowly deflating and in constant danger of falling apart. Sanatorium moves through contrasting spaces - bathtub to thermal pool, land to water, day to night - interlacing memoir, poetry and meditations on the body to create a mesmerising, mercurial debut. 'There is a dreamlike quality to Abi Palmer's exquisite Sanatorium. In lucid, gorgeous prose, she tells the story of a body, of illness and of navigating the complicated wellness industry, but ultimately this is a book about what it means to be alive. A striking, experimental debut that will stay with me.' Sinéad Gleeson Shortlisted for The Barbellion Prize 2020Trade Review'There is a dreamlike quality to Abi Palmer's exquisite Sanatorium. In lucid, gorgeous prose, she tells the story of a body, of illness and of navigating the complicated wellness industry; but ultimately this is a book about what it means to be alive. A striking, experimental debut that will stay with me.' Sinead Gleeson; 'Sanatorium is such an intricately structured book, combining memoir and poetry to hypnotic effect. Palmer creates a space entirely new and oddly familiar - embodied, startlingly direct and, by turns, claustrophobic and expansive. A prayer, a spell, a confession, a vision; the book morphs like the chronic pain it meticulously portrays with the clarity and confusion of an hallucination vs the confusion and clarity of life precisely observed with wit and intelligence. An urgent debut, alight with ideas - I loved every page.'Luke Kennard; 'I'm blown away... a sharp, original evocation of chronic pain, the strangeness of being in a body, and the incomprehension and sometimes cruelty of the able bodied.' Rebecca Tamas;'The states of physical and metaphysical are so well drawn, they capture an essence of what it can be like to not be of this world while your body is firmly under the influence of gravity ... This is a beautifully constructed book full of important thoughts, lyrical poetry and prose, and stunning imagery that immerses the reader entirely.'Louise Kenward, Spooniehacker; 'Memoir and poetry in a mesmerising debut' David Nicholls

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Book SynopsisPlastiglomerate finds our world in the midst of environmental disaster: from plastic pollution and wrecked shipping to fires in the Amazon rainforest. Geographer-poet Tim Cresswell writes with the forensic eye of a professional, bending the hard vocabulary of science into a jagged but compelling lyric that telescopes from the vast to the cellular in the space of a line. Plastiglomerate completes a trilogy of poetry books that examines mankind's impact on the earth; its central poem recycles the British folk ballad 'The Twa Magicians' to make an ecological protest song fit for the Anthropocene age. But among powerful depictions of the natural world under threat - from beached whales to lost birds - it is the humanity of Cresswell's imagery that wins through: leaf-blowers in surgical masks, blue nail polish, the biro 'leaking in the heat of my pocket'. 'Engaging and unsettling poems that tell it like it is, looking unflinchingly at environmental beauty and disaster. There is redemption here too, in the warmth of human relationships - while this is indeed a world of 'ruin and plunder', it is also a place 'full of love and sap'. A powerful and memorable collection.' - Jean SpracklandTrade Review'Poetry is there when we are broken; it charts and maps the damage. And lifts us from the mud or dirty beaches because of its honesty, brilliance and insight. This is a beautiful collection of interior thoughts processing what we don’t want to know about the state of our damaged world. Cresswell is a traveller who takes us with him and points at what he has seen in a complexity of poetic voices that whisper in your ear, standing close by. With urgency and intimacy our climate crisis is there in our conscious and unconscious minds – and finds a powerful poetic witness in these works.'-Tania Kovats; 'Engaging and unsettling poems that tell it like it is, looking unflinchingly at environmental beauty and disaster. There are redemptions here too, in the warmth of human relationships – while this is indeed a world of ‘ruin and plunder’, it is also a place ‘full of love and sap’. A powerful and memorable collection.'-Jean Sprackland; 'Plastiglomerate is a cursory reminder of the state we are in, that all places are in, told with a knowing, precise but also a deeply compassionate voice. Cresswell’s integrity is carried by the truthfulness of what he names, the events that are mentioned, the debris that are listed, but also by the concern he has for the natural world and for those closest to him. It’s a collection that is both protest and celebration.' GE Stevens, Caught by the River

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Book SynopsisStranger in the Mask of a Deer conjures an elemental, dreamlike narrative ranging from the present to the Late-Upper Palaeolithic, when the British peninsula was gradually reoccupied by humans and animals returning from the greater continent after the Ice Age. Richard Skelton began this book-length poem many years ago with the intention of exploring the history of Britain's landscape, only for the text to transform into a kind of literary seance, involving both human and other-than-human voices. Its transforming power lies in the accumulative magic of the word as ritual. Skelton's is a mesmeric lyric, probing the edges of consciousness towards a place where 'there are always presences / always inherences / things beyond sight.' 'An incredibly moving, essential meditation on where we have come from, where we are, and where we are headed.' -Kerri ni DochartaighTrade Review'An incredibly moving, essential meditation on where we have come from, where we are, and where we are headed.' -Kerri ni Dochartaigh; 'I've been submerging myself into this book slowly, like a dip into an icy mountain pool. It's unique, intriguing, transporting.'- Becky Wragg Sykes; 'A mesmeric, conceptual book-length poem about deep history, time, life & land.' -SJ Fowler; 'Stranger in the Mask of a Deer is a sustained, book-length exploration of the boundless metaphoric landscapes and symbolically rich deep-time of the mythical unconscious.'- Peter Mark Adams, Paralibrum; 'Utterly immersive, book-length poem, voicing of human and non-human consciousnesses that reach back to the Late-Upper Paleolithic.' Kimberly Campanello

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Book Synopsis'My poor old heart, I've left its drawbridge down' Divorced, and perhaps a little bruised, Luke Wright journeys off the sunken roads of southern England and into himself, pursued by murderous swans, empty car seats, and his father's skeleton clocks. Both brazen and elegiac, these poems pull on the 'tidy hem' of responsible existence, unravelling the banal frustrations of online outrage and ageing friends, and grasping at something 'beyond our squeaky comprehension'. Wright files through the shackles of cynicism to ask how can we let go without giving up. 'Luke Wright is one of the greats. A poetic pugilist. Beguiling, hypnotic and master of the emotional sucker-punch. The Feel-Good Movie of the Year is his best yet.' - Carl BaratTrade Review'Luke Wright is one of the greats. A poetic pugilist. Beguiling, hypnotic and master of the emotional sucker-punch. The Feel-Good Movie of the Year is his best yet.'- Carl Barat; "In Luke Wright's long awaited third collection of deeply personal, elegiac but optimistic poems, he writes with such wit, wisdom and detailed observation about contemporary life online and on the road; in his head and in his Suffolk home. Wright's images are unforgettable, his wry insights are original and his expertly crafted lines sing, gallop and throb with feeling" - James McDermott; ‘This is a terrific new book: subtle, nuanced and movingly personal ... A hurt man, taking stock in fresh words.’- Ian Duhig

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Book Synopsis*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION* *A Poetry Book Society Special Commendation* Seaweed and sunburn. The death of a fridge. A 'pie-faced' St George upstaged by the horse. The English Summer confronts the illusions and paradoxes of history in poems that reimagine medieval anchorites and 18th-century follies, zombies and the Megabus. This is a landscape populated by overcrowded urban bedsits and burnt-out country piles, where ghosts of the past are sensed beneath dual carriageways and old gods emerge from rotting bindweed. Visceral and analytic at turns, Hopkins' startling collection probes at the undergrowth of English culture; a white-hot debut by a poet of singular vision.Trade Review'When I read a poem by Holly Hopkins, I feel as if I'm eavesdropping on the secrets of life itself - The English Summer shimmers with exquisite revelations. Whatever she writes about, whether it's global warming, a country church, or the death of a fridge, however down-to-earth the subject, there's a pin-sharp clarity, matched with a sleight of hand in the machinery of each poem, that gives us an original look at the world.' Pascale Petit; 'Unlike the holiday downpours wryly presaged by its title, nothing disappoints in this nimble, humane, and brilliantly inventive debut. The English Summer has the instincts of an archaeologist, the eye of a sell-out comic, and the soul of an itinerant philosopher. Whether leading us down history's forgotten byways, or skewering the quirks of contemporary life, Hopkins is an enchanting guide: a poet of rare talents, who will make you chuckle, stop in your tracks, then question everything you know.' Sarah Howe; 'From Lady Godiva to the Green Man, Holly Hopkins takes on the stories England tells about itself. I love Hopkins' tragicomic vision: vicious snobbery coexists with great tenderness, in an England tense with 'thunderclouds of gorse'. A lacerating and truly lovely debut.' Clare Pollard; 'Much alive poetry is written from the margins. Holly Hopkins does write feminist poems: about, for instance, domestic labour done by women. But as a whole, this scrupulously precision-built collection (the lines shine, but in a way that pulls you up short and makes you think) doesn't speak from the margin but the missing centre -- of Englishness itself. These poems are particular and humane. They show it is possible to be contemporaneous without being presentist; to be simultaneously, singingly, topical and historical; and they reconnect to a real, abiding world emotional highs and lows that have become politically untethered.' Vidyan Ravinthiran; 'A poem by Holly Hopkins always reminds me of some sort implement, which looks to be quite practical, but - well now, just look at that, you've cut yourself. Tsk. Whatever this implement is, she uses it to worry the joins between all manner of polite hypocrisies: between what we say and what we mean; between the spaces we inhabit and the way they're sold to us; between an ornamental wall and a property boundary. Yet somehow - I'm not sure how she's pulled this off - this is a collection about hope.' Abigail Parry

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Book SynopsisBritain's much-revered and studied butterflies are, besides being very beautiful, a fascinating group of insects each with an intricate life story. The aim of this enchanting collection of poetry penned by respected insect ecologist - and as revealed here - accomplished poet Dr Richard Harrington, is to tell that story in verse - some scientific, some humorous, always enlightening. 'The Butterfly Collection', which describes the life and times of our 58 resident as well as some migratory species in a series of brilliant poems, is surely a kaleidoscope of inspiration and as such, a treasure to behold, containing stunning colour photographs of the butterflies themselves, mostly taken by the author.Trade ReviewA joyous, lyrical and witty delight, wonderfully capturing the personality, magic and science of Britain's butterflies. - Patrick Barkham, Natural History writer for The Guardian and author of The Butterfly Isles; These captivating and original poems, varied in style and approach, explore the character of our butterflies through the wondrous portal of poetic science. Reading them will amuse and entertain, and strengthen your love and understanding of our butterflies. - Matthew Oates, author of In Pursuit of Butterflies and Beyond Spring; It will surprise no one who knows the author that most verses are infused with a happy wit, whilst some, including lines on 'The Gatekeeper', are surely serious poetry. I warmly recommend this collection: it is a book that can be dipped into, re-read and thoroughly enjoyed. - Prof. Jeremy Thomas OBE; Professional entomologist Richard Harrington provides a colourful insight into the world of UK butterflies in his book of original poems, The Butterfly Collection. Each species is treated to its own lyrical tribute, brought to life against a backdrop of striking images and accompanied by the author's own personal reflections and experiences. Light-hearted, educational and fun to read, this book would make a wonderful gift for budding lepidopterists and experts alike. - Katie Callaghan, Butterfly, Butterfly Conservation; The Butterfly Collection is an unusual fusion of the arts and sciences that have been blended with a large dose of the author's wit and obvious love of his subject, it is a celebration of the beauty and diversity of our butterflies that will be loved and cherished by all who read it. - Peter Smithers, Antenna, RES; This is a delightful poetry book, unusual and excellent. - John Tennent, Atropos; It's all tremendous fun and will entertain and delight butterfly lovers. - Peter Marren, British Wildlife; This is a very readable book and, surprisingly, packed with useful information. Not only is each sidebar informative, but the poem associated with each species is well-crafted and brings to life the essence of the butterfly - whether it is referring to its structure, behaviour, history or other aspect that is unique to the species. I have no doubt that many readers will come away enlightened as the nuances of each species are delicately interwoven within the overall structure of each poem. Just as importantly, each poem is an easy read and sprinkled with humour. This book may even encourage the reader to take more interest in our butterfly fauna. - Peter Eeles, UK Butterflies, Dispar

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Book SynopsisHalf-Light & Other Poems brings together the most important and enduring poems by this neglected writer, one of Russia's great 19th century poets. In a new translation by Peter France, the philosophical, social and literary struggles of Russia under Tsar Nicholas I are brought to vivid life in the verses of a man who felt profoundly and was highly skilled at expressing his emotions and beliefs in dazzling, often fantastical fashion.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Half-light; To Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky; The Last Poet; 'Prejudice? just a fragment'; Novinskoe; Signs; 'Always in purple and in gold'; 'Alas! poor average writer'; Stillborn; Alcibiades; A Grumble; To a Sage; 'Phyllis with each returning winter'; Goblet; 'I have known them, storms and bad weather'; 'Days! What's the use!'; Cliques; Achilles; 'Thought, when embodied first of all'; 'I am not yet ancient as a patriarch'; 'Fretful daytime pleases the multitude'; 'Greetings! sweet-tongued boy'; 'What sounds are these?'; 'Thought, yet more thought!'; Sculptor; Autumn; 'Blessed be he who speaks of what is sacred!'; Rhyme; Other Poems; An Admission; Tempest; Ultimate Death; 'My talent is pitiful'; 'What is the freedom of dreams to the prisoner'; 'Song heals the aching spirit'; 'Enchanted groves, I came to visit you'; Planting a Wood; Steamship

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Book SynopsisTen poems. Ten poets. Ten eerie apparitions recalled.

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Book SynopsisIn his first collection of poetry after a career as a novelist spanning five decades, Paul Bailey offers an intimate reckoning. The poems mine memories of childhood, illness and lost loves with unflinching honesty, a generous humour born of self-knowledge, and great depth of feeling.

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Book SynopsisIn the title poem to Sicilian Elephants, his most wide-ranging and ambitious collection to date, David Cooke imagines the short-lived paradise achieved by those miniature elephants whose bones have been found on the island. In poems gathered here he explores notions of home and the way humans aspire to define their space and achieve a life of ease. Starting out from familiar domestic settings, he explores the rituals of DIY and gardening. However, the inevitable tensions between us and our environment and the ways that human achievement is subject to time are further explored in new and startling situations as when in a poem about heaven, the quest for a spiritual homeland is set against territorial conflict. With Sicilian Elephants, in words from the Poetry Book Society Bulletin: 'Cooke's lyrical insight and precision make the personal universal.'

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Book SynopsisThe Seven Seas is a celebration of the sea, and of the seven oceans on earth, in poetry and painting. The land, the seven continents of our planet, usually takes centre stage with its diverse populations of flora and fauna, and humanity - ourselves. But this book gives first place to the water, the element that covers some seventy per cent of the earth's surface, and the life above and within it. The volume is organised to reveal the nature and character of the seven oceans ('the seven seas', as poets have traditionally called them) and the principal ports that link them as one vast waterway. It contains a series of seven voyages which together comprise one extensive and imaginary tour of the world, encircling the globe three times at different latitudes and visiting both the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans at the northern and southern extremes. After a lively Foreword and a learned Introduction, describing the ocean today and its history, the sea-routes and landfalls of the voyage - and also providing a short account of the arts of poetry and painting - the book is arranged in seven chapters representing each of 'the seven seas' in turn, beginning and ending at Greenwich. The imaginary voyage explores the North Atlantic first, followed by the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, then the Antarctic, before turning northwards again to tour the South Atlantic, passing through the Panama Canal to reach the South and North Pacific, and finally the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic and North Sea, before returning home. Each port of call is characterised in Sandra Lello's delightful illustrations and thoughtful verses from the pen of John Elinger, who are each experienced travellers and cruise-lecturers.

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Book SynopsisWaymarks tracks one man through significant encounters with the natural world, around the globe.An Ethiopian lake, an Australian rainforest, an American desert, an English beach: the stage keeps changing, but the intent stays the same. A poet enters a deep dialogue with birds, animals, people, plants, seas, and all the forces that threaten and churn this mix of life.James Thornton is a zen priest, and Waymarks sits alongside other classics of metaphysical writing in which poets bare their soul. Teachings from great figures along the way permeate the collection: a West Coast poet, a Japanese Zen Master, a spiritual leader, and the Dalai Lama.Trade ReviewWaymarks is a beautiful collection of poems which act as a bridge between human spirit and the spirit of nature. These poems are elegant, simple and profound. When I read these poems I feel uplifted and inspired. They touch my heart and move my spirit. James Thornton is a poet of deep wisdom and love!' - Satish Kumar, Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist and Founder of Schumacher College''These poems are wonderful! They sing with passion and integrity, and make clear why James Thornton is such a vital ambassador and guardian of the planet.' - Baroness Rosie Boycott

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Book SynopsisWith a number of highly-acclaimed poetry collections to his name, this well-known poet has produced a chapbook of enigmatic and beautifully-crafted poems, each of which is accompanied by an illustration by the poet who reveals himself as an accomplished artist. This will undoubtedly be a collector's piece.

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE 2014 IRISH BOOK LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDPaul Durcan has been at the heart of Irish cultural life for 30 years and his poetry has acquired a huge international following. Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil is his most challenging and engaging collection yet, one that addresses itself through Ireland and the Irish diaspora to the whole world beyond.Trade ReviewDurcan’s must be the most capacious and generous mind in contemporary poetry: in the face of the rabid and murderous dark he finds always something or someone to celebrate -- Theo Dorgan * Sunday Tribute *Paul Durcan’s Ireland is the one we inhabit. At times he is ready to celebrate the bizarre amd the ordinary; at other times he is full of a surreal rage against both order and disorder -- Colm Toibin * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisIn her fourth collection Isobel Dixon takes readers on a journey to far-flung and sometimes dark places in poems that are vivid forays of discovery and resistance, arrival and loss. Bearings sings of love too, and pays homage to lost friends and poets – the voices of John Berryman, Michael Donaghy, Robert Louis Stevenson and others echo here. And there is respite for the weary traveller – jazz in the shadows, an exuberant play of words between the fire and tremors.As Dixon explores form and subject, conflict and the self, she keeps a weather eye out for telling detail, with a sharp sense of the threat that these journeys, our wars and stories, and our very existence pose to the planet.

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Book SynopsisFrom politics to pop, from the UK to California, wherever digital heartbeats flutter and stutter, Ticker-tape is a maximalist take on 21st century living. Rishi Dastidar’s first full collection showcases one of contemporary poetry’s most distinctive voices, delivering effervescence with equal servings of panache and whiplash-quick wit.Here is sheer madcap ingenuity and also impressive breadth; ranging from odes of love to deconstructed diversity campaigns and detonations of banter’s worst excesses, plus appearances from ex-SugaBabes, a shark who comes to tea, to the matters of matchstick empires and national identity. Ticker-tape is bold, adventuresome and wry – an unmissable and irrepressible debut.

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Book SynopsisSandra Alland, Khairani Barokka and Daniel Sluman co-edit Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, a ground-breaking anthology examining the poetics of disabled and D/deaf cultures. With contributions that span Vispo to Surrealism, and range from hard-hitting political commentary to intimate lyrical pieces – these poets refuse to perform or inspire according to tired old narratives. Five years after the seminal U.S. anthology, Beauty is a Verb, Nine Arches Press brings you its exciting UK progeny: Stairs and Whispers. The first of its kind and packed with fierce poetry, essays, photos and links to accessible online videos, this book showcases a diversity of styles, opinions, and survival strategies for a world that often works to shut us down.

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Book SynopsisAn outcast, an outsider, an oddball. With too much ambition and not enough talent, Saffron Jack has never fitted. Now, with the feeling that his time is running out, he needs to do something drastic to change his life. So what better idea than to run away to the nearest war zone and do the thing he’s always wanted to do: start his own country and declare himself king..."A bravura meditation on crown and country, borders, and what it means to belong." - Niven Govinden“It’s exciting to see what a poet already celebrated for their high-concept execution within individual poems can achieve when they have the courage to. The wide canvas of Saffron Jack allows Dastidar to untether his imagination and uses its permutational form to gather momentum and force as it zooms in and out on the titular antihero and his doomed and self-justified quest. Urgent, caustically funny and provocative – compulsory and deeply enjoyable reading.” – Luke Kennard

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Book Synopsis‘Interspersed with acts of breathtaking linguistic daring.’Charlotte Mendelson, Observer Book of the YearOpening with a powerful and tender ‘Ode to the Hymen’, Sharon Olds uses this age-old poetic form to address many aspects of herself, in a collection that is centred around the female body and female pleasures, and touches along the way on parts of her own story which will be familiar from earlier works, each episode and memory now burnished by the wisdom and grace of looking back. In such poems as ‘Ode to My Sister’, ‘Ode of Broken Loyalty’, ‘Ode to My Whiteness’, ‘Blow Job Ode’, ‘Ode to the Last 38 Trees in New York City Visible from This Window’, Olds treats us to an intimate self-examination that, like all her work, is universal and by turns searing and charming in its honesty. From the early bodily joys and sorrows of her girlhood to the recent deaths of those dearest to her – the ‘Sheffield Mountain Ode’ for Galway Kinnell is one of the most stunning pieces here – Olds shapes her world in language that is startlingly fresh, profound in its conclusions, and life-giving for the reader.Trade ReviewOlds’s descriptive gift is like a fire hose of frankness…undeniably powerful. -- Jeremy Noel-Tod * Sunday Times *Olds’s inspired new collection alerts us to taboos we barely think about ordinarily…These odes, because they illuminate what it is to live inside a body and survive its outrages, are useful – and beautiful too. -- Kate Kellaway * Guardian *[An] inspired new collection… She writes…with a driven perkiness… Throughout, there is a bold sexiness that goes beyond sex, that borders on camp, fey or funny… Marvellous odes… Beautiful. -- Kate Kellaway * Guardian Weekly *[It is] interspersed with acts of breathtaking linguistic daring. -- Charlotte Mendelson * Observer, Book of the Year *Her new collection, Odes, is an exquisite follow up [to Stag’s Leap.] * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisThe late 1980s witnessed two devastating chemical attacks by the Saddam régime on Iraqi Kurdistan. The first of these, in 1988, known as the Anfal campaign, saw the destruction of 3000 Kurdish villages, over 40 chemical attacks launched, and 100,000 civilians buried in mass graces, with hundreds more dying of exposure to chemical weapons. The second attack was on the town of Halabja where over 5000 people died instantly. Thousands of people who had survived the attacks in both Anfal and Halabja but had been mildly affected by the gas later died from cancer and other diseases. Butterfly Valley is Sherko Bekes’ response to these atrocities. Stunned by the world’s silence in the face of this genocide, Bekes – in exile in Sweden at the time – longs to go home and mourn the victims. He laments the repetitive cycles of continuous oppression and suppressed revolutions in Kurdish history, and in his despair speaks to other exiled Kurdish poets (Nali, Hani and Mawlawi among them) from the sixteenth century to the present day. This long poem unfolds in beautifully-drawn images of the poet’s homeland – mountains and forests, rivers and villages, meadows and flowers – which are juxtaposed with scenes of death, destruction and suffering. This is an immensely powerful poem, at once lyrical and heart-rending, and Choman Hardi’s fine translation at last gives the English-speaking reader the most extensive example yet of his outstanding writing.

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Book SynopsisEllen Hinsey's new book-length sequence, The Illegal Age, is a powerful investigation into the twentieth-century's dark legacy of totalitarianism and the rise of political illegality. It explores the enduring potential for human beings to set neighbour against neighbour and commit final acts of violence. A book of lyrical reflection and prophesy, The Illegal Age chronicles the arrival of a new, disquieting reality unfolding in our midst. As Marilyn Hacker has written, "In dialogue with Celan, Szymborska, Milosz... this is a daring text - for its political acuity, and for its demonstration of the power in poetry to recount, remember, move the heart while opening the mind." Written in parallel with her first-hand research into the rise of authoritarianism carried out over the last decade, Hinsey's volume warns that - rather than an "Age of Anxiety" - we may indeed be facing the start of the "Illegal Age".

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Book SynopsisFor Gilles Ortlieb, the day’s ration is hard won. He takes the art of noticing to a new level, petrifying us with moments of bleakness and ushering us out of them through his humanity. He states things as they are, with exactitude, with authenticity, and with humour and his voice is compelling. Ortlieb is among the very best poets writing in France today, and this bi-lingual selection of his work will cement his growing reputation in the anglophone world."A poet of uprootedness and displacement, with a uniquely gentle and rueful wit" -TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT"It is no disservice to Gilles Ortlieb, not to place him among the “visionaries”. Rather, he is possessed of an eye that can discern, within the thicket of the real, the unnoticed, which may be its accessory or its reject. For the unnoticed is also this: the thing we conceal from ourselves." -JACQUES RÉDA"Reading the poems of Gilles Ortlieb, one’s focus is never blurred. Rather, everything is extraordinarily distinct. One emerges with clearer vision, and with an increased interest in the world." -JEAN-PIERRE LEMAIRE

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Book SynopsisEmery brings an unusually wide-ranging poetic vocabulary to the encounters in Modern Fog, depicting wildlife on the Norfolk Broads or a multi-storey car park with equal fluency. These are elegiac, tough-minded poems of marked originality and scope."It's as if these attentive, atmospheric, musical poems can light up everywhere: seascapes, edgelands, interiors, even a carpark. Chris Emery's art is at once earthy, spiritual, dreamlike and exact. So often, the language is irresistible: 'Above us, in its immaculate empire, / a bird whirrs up and saves / its eyes for the militant hour.'"-Moniza Alvi

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Book SynopsisKatherine Gallagher has a loyal readership both in the UK and in her native Australia and her latest book from Arc will not disappoint. Ranging in time and place from her childhood in the Australian outback to heady youthful days in Paris of the '60s, to slower-paced recent years in the gardens and open spaces around her north London home, these poems are full of a colour and energy that paint a picture of life lived to the full, and also a reflectiveness, a gentle humour, and occasionally a sense of loss, as the poet looks back on times past.

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Book SynopsisManuel Forcano, the outstanding Catalan poet, is a great traveller, and the poems in this, his first full-length book in English translation, embrace the cities, the landscapes and the people of the Middle East. Drawn from his four most recent collections, these poems use geographical and historical references to deepen and inform the narrative, and also to lay before the reader the idea of the continuity, over many centuries, of human love and desire. The beauty, joy, grief and tenderness in these poems are universal and belong to every kind of human affection – indeed Forcano has been described by the Catalan journalist and academic Pere Ballart as ‘our foremost love poet’.Anna Crowe’s beautiful translations demonstrate a remarkable understanding of, and sensitivity to, Forcano’s poetry, so much so that one might say that Maps of Desire represents the perfect union of poet and translator.

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Book SynopsisPrize-winning poet Kevin Crossley-Holland has been described by Philip Pullman as a master, a magician and commander of the language', a view that this eagerly-awaited Collected Poems will undoubtedly support.

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Book SynopsisA second volume of poems by Lyn Ebenezer. -- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru

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Book SynopsisThe book showcases 75 beautiful words evocative of the wild, from all around the world, that describe natural happenings in nature. It includes words that describe weather, or a feeling you have when in nature as well as sensory words that explain the smell or sound of a place. The words used to express what is seen in the world are vital to an appreciation of it – language is a key component in the call of the wild. As words vanish from a language, it follows that what they describe may disappear. Words deepen understanding of what is seen, and what is seen comes more vividly to life through the words used to describe it. As the natural world and the time spent in it diminish in the face of modern life, it’s more vital than ever to recall it into being with the magic of language. Each of the 75 words will have a 100-word description, including its pronunciation, a geographical/historical/cultural background, as well as reflecting on the emotional/mindful response the natural phenomenon can inspire. Each word will be paired with an illustration Examples of words: Mångata. Sweden. Noun. The path of light that the moon makes on water. Sugar weather. Canada. Noun. A period of warm days and cold nights – the perfect weather to start the sap flowing in maple trees. Rudėnja. Lithuania. The way nature begins to feel as autumn takes hold and the vestiges of summer disappear. Komorebi. Japan. Noun. Beams of sunlight filtering down through the trees.

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