Poetry Books
Short and sweet poems and sonnets or lyrical and lengthy epics, sit back and relax while you enjoy the work of these wonderful wordsmiths.
Falling Awake
Working as before with an ear to the oral tradition, these poems attend to the organic shapes and sounds and momentum of the language as it's spoken as well as how it's thought: fresh, fluid and propulsive, but also fragmentary, repetitive. These are poems that are written to be read aloud. Orpheus and Tithonus appear at the beginning and end of this book, alive in an English landscape, stuck in the clockwork of their own speech, and the Hours - goddesses of the seasons and the natural apportioning of Time - are the presiding figures. The persistent conditions are flux and falling, and the lines are in constant motion: approaching, from daring new angles, our experience of being human, and coalescing into poems of simple, stunning beauty.
Say Something Back
Say Something Back will allow readers to see just why the name of Denise Riley has been held in such high regard by her fellow poets for so long. The book reproduces A Part Song, a profoundly moving document of grieving and loss, and one of the most widely admired long poems of recent years. Elsewhere these poems become a space for contemplation of the natural world and of physical law, and for the deep consideration of what it is to invoke those who are absent. But finally, they extend our sense of what the act of human speech can mean - and especially what is drawn forth from us when we address our dead.
We British The Poetry of a People
‘We British’ is a remarkable book, full to the brim with some extraordinary poetry that will encourage you to open your heart and mind. Andrew Marr looks beyond the obvious, even when including some of our most famous poets and he also firmly links poetry with British history through the ages giving you a sense as you read, of capturing a slice in time. If you are British, this is a book to encourage questions, a thirst for more knowledge and a feeling of accessibility to our poetry and history. There are many famous poets mentioned or quoted, plus some I had not heard of, and that really is one of the joys of this book. I loved re-reading old favourites, such as Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and Chaucer’s ‘The Miller’s Tale’ and often found myself reading out loud, sighing, weeping or laughing as the words, the rhythm connected inside me. I was also introduced to some new poetry, poetry that perhaps I should have known, such as ‘Last Post’ by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. With the intriguing yet entirely appropriate mix of poetry and history, ‘We British’ is not only the 'poetry of a people', but also the essence, structure and, a wonderful chronicle of the lands that make up Great Britain. ~ Liz Robinson
Talking Dead
Like Neil Rollinson's earlier books, Talking Dead is a refreshment of the senses: lifting the lid on the human condition in a heartfelt celebration of the act of being, whether in moments of love or mortality, sex or feasting. In the central sequence of the book - a meditation on the space between life and death - the dead speak of their final earthly moments with a liberating sense of fascination, and a luminous awe. Elsewhere we enjoy al fresco sex, astronomy via many pints in the Cat and Fiddle, and the deliverance of an Indian monsoon after weeks of thirst and drought. In 'Christmas in Andalucia' two lovers Skype each other achingly across hundreds of miles - 'I am full of loss and longing,' the poet says, 'the heart is hewn from elm and oak and mistletoe.' As provocative, sensual and subversive as ever, these poems seek and find the numinous in the everyday: some element of ritual or wonder that transforms experience. Although the spectre of darkness is never far away, it is the spirit of pleasure that endures, and we discover to our delight, as D.H. Lawrence did, that the Dionysian finally prevails over the Apollonian.
Almost the Equinox Selected Poems
This is a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Sarah Maguire's first collection, Spilt Milk, established her as one of the most original voices in British poetry, and led to her being chosen as one of the New Generation Poets. Three critically acclaimed volumes have since followed - The Invisible Mender, The Florist's at Midnight and The Pomegranates of Kandahar - to form a lucid, lyrical and rich body of work remarkable for its intelligence and artistry.
Desert Songs of the Night 1500 Years of Arabic Literature
With 1500 years of poetry and prose included in this anthology, there is a hugely diverse range of thoughts and feelings on display. In the introduction, the editors Suheil Bushrui and James M. Malarkey explain the importance of and provide a really useful summary of Arab literature and history, detail the difficulty of translation and express their hope that readers from all cultures may be receptive to a wider exploration of literature that might be previously unknown to them. The work chosen, crosses the boundaries of religion, sex, history, and culture; a book to dip in and out of, to open your mind to. Some of the editors' choices may be more difficult to connect with, the common bond may feel remote or unobtainable, some encourage consideration and reflection, while others quite simply sing to the soul, it is all a matter of personal choice. Personally, ’Rejoice’ by May Ziadah struck an immediate chord, reading without thought of religion, politics or social injustice, it simply spoke to me of the joy of positivity. Desert Songs of the Night allows a step towards observation and exploration but most importantly, it highlights the wonder of the written word. ~ Liz Robinson
Physical
This book was shortlisted for the 2015 Forward Prize for Best First Collection, Longlisted for the 2015 Guardian First Book Award, and, Longlisted for the 2015 Foyles Green Carnation Prize. Raw and urgent, these poems are hymns to the male body - to male friendship and male love - muscular, sometimes shocking, but always deeply moving. We are witness here to an almost religious celebration of the flesh: a flesh vital with the vulnerability of love and loss, to desire and its departure. In an extraordinary blend of McMillan's own colloquial Yorkshire rhythms with a sinewy, Metaphysical music and Thom Gunn's torque and speed - 'your kiss was deep enough to stand in' - the poems in this first collection confront what it is to be a man and interrogate the very idea of masculinity. This is poetry where every instance of human connection, from the casual encounter to the intimate relationship, becomes redeemable and revelatory. Dispensing with conventional punctuation, the poet is attentive and alert to the quality of breathing, giving the work an extraordinary sense of being vividly poised and present - drawing lines that are deft, lyrical and perfectly pitched from a world of urban dereliction.
Poems That Make Grown Men Cry 100 Men on the Words That Move Them
Representing 20 nationalities and ranging in age from their early 20s to their late 80s, the majority are public figures not prone to crying. Here they admit to breaking down when ambushed by great art, often in words as powerful as the poems themselves. 75 per cent of the selected poems were written in the 20th century, with more than a dozen by women. Their themes range from love in its many guises, through mortality and loss, to the beauty and variety of nature. Three men have suffered the pain of losing a child; others are moved to tears by the exquisite way a poet captures, in Alexander Pope's famous phrase, 'what oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd'. From J.J Abrams to John le Carre, Salman Rushdie to Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Radcliffe to Nick Cave, Ian McEwan to Stephen Fry, Stanley Tucci to Colin Firth, and Seamus Heaney to Christopher Hitchens, this collection delivers private insight into the souls of men whose writing, acting, and thinking are admired around the world.
Loop of Jade
Shortlisted For The Forward Prize For Best First Collection 2015. There is a Chinese proverb that says: 'It is more profitable to raise geese than daughters.' But geese, like daughters, know the obligation to return home. In her exquisite first collection, Sarah Howe explores a dual heritage, journeying back to Hong Kong in search of her roots. With extraordinary range and power, the poems build into a meditation on hybridity, intermarriage and love - what meaning we find in the world, in art, and in each other.
The Observances
In the informal rituals of the tide remaking its tideline, of a painter absorbed in the act of painting or of an old couple greeting the night, the English poet Kate Miller sees and charts the creative process at work. As its title suggests, Miller's striking debut collection explores perception, the poet's eye and ear trained on distances that stretch beyond comfort zones. This is a book full of movement: even quiet reflections on home and family life are rarely still.
Life, Love and the Archers Recollections, Reviews and Other Prose
Wendy Cope has long been one of the nation's best-loved poets, with her sharp eye for human foibles and wry sense of humour. For the first time, Life, Love and the Archers brings together the best of her prose - recollections, reviews and essays from the light-hearted to the serious, taken from a lifetime of published and unpublished work, and all with Cope's lightness of touch. Here readers can meet the Enid-Blyton-obsessed schoolgirl, the ambivalent daughter, the amused teacher, the sensitive journalist, the cynical romantic and the sardonic television critic, as well as touching on books and writers who have informed a lifetime of reading and writing. Wendy Cope is a master of the one-liner as well as the couplet, the telling review as well as the sonnet, and Life, Love and the Archers gives us a wonderfully entertaining and unforgettable portrait of one of England's favourite writers. A book for anyone who's ever fallen in love, tried to give up smoking, or consoled themselves that they'll never be quite as old as Mick Jagger.
Selected Poems of T. S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot - editor, poet, critic and publisher - was the greatest poet of his generation. The winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature, virtually every English language poet since owes him a debt of gratitude.
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