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Black Cat Bone
John Burnside

Format: Paperback - Released: 04/08/2011
Lovereading Price: £7.50 - Saving £2.50 (25%)

Winner of the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry 2011. John Burnside's remarkable new book is full of strange, unnerving poems that hang in the memory like a myth or a song. These are poems of thwarted love and disappointment, of raw desire, of the stalking beast, 'eye-teeth/and muzzle/coated with blood'; poems that recognise 'we have too much to gain from the gods, and this is why/they fail to love us'; and, poems that tell of an obsessive lover coming to grief in a sequence that echoes the old murder ballads, or of a hunter losing himself in the woods while pursuing an unknown and possibly unknowable quarry. Drawing on sources as various as the paintings of Pieter Brueghel and the lyrics of Delta blues, Black Cat Bone examines varieties of love, faith, hope and illusion, to suggest an unusual possibility: that when the search for what we expected to find - in the forest or in our own hearts - ends in failure, we can now begin the hard and disciplined quest for what is actually there. Full of risk and wonder, Black Cat Bone shows the range of Burnside's abilities, but also strikes out for new territories. He remains consistently, though, one of our finest living lyric poets and each of these astonishing poems is as clear and memorable as 'a silver bracelet/falling for days/through an inch and a half/of ice'. ]]> http://www.lovereading.co.uk//book/6715/Black-Cat-Bone-by-John-Burnside.html

The Bees
Carol Ann Duffy

Format: Hardback - Released: 07/10/2011
Lovereading Price: £11.24 - Saving £3.75 (25%)

Winner of the Costa Poetry Award 2011.   Shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry 2011.   Shortlisted for the Galaxy UK Author of the Year Award 2011.   Reviewed and selected by our poetry expert, Liam Parkin. Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s new collection is a diverse range of poetry in both technique and form. Her talent at capturing the essence of moments in time is on full show, and her explorations of war survivors, companions and historical figures are suitably surrounded by thematic investigations into the life of bees. The bees that pervade the anthology - both explicitly and implicitly – contain a variety of interesting and unique motifs; of nature, beauty and a profound awareness of our spiritual encounters in life. As is written, ‘Yes, I think a poem is a spell of kinds/ that keeps things living in a written line’ (Spell), and it is this sentiment that captures the tone of the collection. Duffy contains what is important within her lines, and it is a beautiful reminder of what life can, and should, be about.   Click here to visit the Poetry Book Society page for Reading Groups and to download extracts from the T S Eliot Prize shortlist. ]]> http://www.lovereading.co.uk//book/6716/The-Bees-by-Carol-Ann-Duffy.html

The Picador Book of Funeral Poems
Don Paterson

Format: Paperback - Released: 05/01/2012
Lovereading Price: £7.49 - Saving £2.50 (25%)

Designed for those in need of poetic solace, and a gift book for the recently bereaved, it is also intended as a book to read from at memorial ceremonies, when judging the tone and hitting the right note is everything. ]]> http://www.lovereading.co.uk//book/6877/The-Picador-Book-of-Funeral-Poems-by-Don-Paterson.html

The Picador Book of Wedding Poems
Peter Forbes

Format: Paperback - Released: 05/01/2012
Lovereading Price: £7.49 - Saving £2.50 (25%)

A romantic collection of poems perfect for popping the question, making a public speech or privately declaring your intentions. ]]> http://www.lovereading.co.uk//book/6876/The-Picador-Book-of-Wedding-Poems-by-Peter-Forbes.html

The Picador Book of Love Poems
John Stammers

Format: Paperback - Released: 05/01/2012
Lovereading Price: £7.49 - Saving £2.50 (25%)

Here, old favourites from Spenser to Tennyson sit side by side with poems by Carol Ann Duffy and Michael Donaghy, the distance between the poets closed by their single timeless theme. Whether you're feeling tempted, seduced, tormented, or rejected, or falling in love, or out of love this is the perfect book to inspire, console, and give a voice to every facet of our deepest and most complex human emotion. ]]> http://www.lovereading.co.uk//book/6875/The-Picador-Book-of-Love-Poems-by-John-Stammers.html

The Picador Book of Birth Poems
Kate Clanchy

Format: Paperback - Released: 05/01/2012
Lovereading Price: £7.49 - Saving £2.50 (25%)

Where do we find the words to greet a new arrival? In this celebratory book, poet Kate Clanchy has made an inspired choice of poems that speak powerfully of the wonder, joy, bewilderment and mystery that new life brings, from conception through to the first years of parenthood.  ]]> http://www.lovereading.co.uk//book/6874/The-Picador-Book-of-Birth-Poems-by-Kate-Clanchy.html

The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin

Format: Hardback - Released: 19/01/2012
Lovereading Price: £30.00 - Saving £10.00 (25%)

The manuscript and printed sources have been scrutinized afresh; more detailed accounts than hitherto available of the sources of the text and of dates of composition are provided; and, previous accounts of composition dates have been corrected. Variant wordings from Larkin's typescripts and the early printings are recorded. For the first time, the poems are given a comprehensive commentary. This draws critically upon, and substantially extends, the accumulated scholarship on Larkin, and covers closely relevant historical contexts, persons and places, allusions and echoes, and linguistic usage. Due prominence is given to the poet's comments on his poems, which often outline the circumstances that gave rise to a poem, or state what he was trying to achieve. Larkin played down his literariness, but his poetry enrichingly alludes to and echoes the writings of many others; Archie Burnett's commentary establishes him as a more complex and more literary poet than many readers have suspected. ]]> http://www.lovereading.co.uk//book/6870/The-Complete-Poems-of-Philip-Larkin-by-Philip-Larkin.html