General

John Donne (1572-1631) is perhaps the most important poet of the seventeenth century. In his day it seemed to his admirers that Donne had changed the literary universe, and he is now widely regarded as the founder of the metaphysical `school'...

James Fenton's An Introduction to English Poetry offers a master class for both the reader and writer of poetry. Simply and elegantly written and discussing the work of poets as wide ranging as W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Tennyson, Kipling, Milton and...

Poetry has never been so rigorous and diverse, nor has its audience been so numerous and engaged. Strong words? Not if the poets are right. As Ezra Pound wrote: 'You would think anyone wanting to know about poetry would go to someone who knew something...

'No poet in Scotland now can take as his inspiration the folk impulse that created the ballads, the people's songs, the legends of Mary Stuart and Prince Charlie,' proposed Edwin Muir. Yet many of the poems in Mick Imlah's new collection do take the most...

Still little known in the West, Persian poetry offers extraordinary riches. While celebrating the beauty of the world in poems about love, wine and poetry itself, or telling anecdotes of everyday life, Persian poetry set these themes in the wider...

'the highest matter in the noblest form' John Donne's description of the Psalms celebrates not only the perfection of the biblical psalms but their translation into poetic form by the Sidneys, who turned them into some of the most accomplished lyric...

The Secret Life of Poems is a primer which offers a poem - or on occasion an excerpt - succeeding with commentary in which rhythm, form, metre and sources are the order of the day, not ethical commentary or descriptive paraphrase. This brief engagement...

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is regarded as the most important poet of the early eighteenth century. An invalid from infancy, Pope devoted his energies towards literature and achieved remarkable success with his first published work at the age of 21...

J.H. Prynne is Britain's leading late Modernist poet. His austere yet playful poetry challenges our sense of the world, not by any direct address to the reader but by showing everything in a different light, enacting slips and changes of meaning through...

Winner of an Eric Gregory Award, 2020 Winner of a Somerset Maugham Award, 2020 'The old Shetland fishermen still speak with something like reverence of the forgotten art of steering by the moder dy (mother wave), the name given to an underswell...

This selection gives equal weight to the two aspects of Robert Burns's reputation, as a lyricist and as a much-loved Scottish poet. Placing works in probable order of composition, it includes lyrics to his most well known songs, such as the nostalgic...

From the internationally bestselling author of Love Her Wild, The Dark Between Stars, and The Truth About Magic comes LVOE., a dazzling new journey into the great unknown by Atticus. Featuring over 250 brand new poems, this sees Atticus take his readers...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.AwardsShort-listed for Newcomer of the Year 2022 (Ireland).Book InformationISBN 9781785374395Author Fiacre RyanFormat HardbackPage Count 128Imprint Merrion PressPublisher Merrion...

Once confined to a literary elite in Japan, haiku are now written all over the world by poets who find their combination of brevity, technical discipline and expressive content irresistible. This collection brings together hundreds of poems by Japanese...

Cultivating the Empty Field is a modern translation of the core of Chinese Ch'an master Hongzhi's Extensive Record.First to articulate the meditation method known to contemporary Zen practitioners as shikantaza ("just sitting") Chinese Zen master Hongzhi...

When Edward Thomas was killed at the Battle of Arras in 1917 his poems were largely unpublished. But in the years since his death, his work has come to be cherished for its rare, sustained vision of the natural world and as 'a mirror of England' (Walter...

Daljit Nagra possesses one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary English poetry. British Museum is his third collection, following his electrifying version of the epic Ramayana, and marks a significant departure of style to something quieter,...

An anguished god surveys a world stricken by fundamentalism in these powerful poems by a writer whose cultural experience spans three countries: Pakistan, the country of her birth, and Britain and India, her countries of adoption. Her main themes are...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781903110966Author Toria GarbuttFormat PaperbackPage Count 94Imprint Wrecking Ball PressPublisher Wrecking Ball Press

John Clare (1793-1864), the 'peasant poet', worked as an agricultural labourer in Northamptonshire until a deterioration in his mental health saw him committed to an insane asylum. He published four volumes of verse, including Poems, Descriptive of Rural...

'The most compelling, original, charismatic and poetic guide to poetry that I can remember. A handbook written from the heart by one of the true modern masters of the craft.' Simon Armitage A collection of short essays and reflections on poetry from...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780156806466Author Deceased Bertolt BrechtFormat PaperbackPage Count 179Imprint Ecco PressPublisher Ecco PressWeight(grams) 254gDimensions(mm) 217mm * 140mm...

One of the English language's best-loved living poets, in Nature Carol Ann Duffy presents us with her favourites among her poems on the natural world. Drawing on work written over four decades and arranged chronologically, Duffy also adds to her...

Ovid's love-poetry was typically original and innovative. His witty analysis in the Amores (Loves) of the elegiac relationship develops with relentless irony its essential paradox - love as simultaneously fulfilling and destructive - to its logical...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Alas that mortalsShould blame the gods! From us, they say,All evils come. Yet they themselvesIt is who through defiant deedsBring sorrow on them-far more...

This new translation in free verse conveys the full force of Lucan's writing and his grimly realistic view of the subject. The Introduction sets the scene for the reader unfamiliar with Lucan and explores his relationship with earlier writers of Latin...

Roger Robinson's range is wide: the joys and pains of family life; observations on the threatening edge of violence below the surface energies of Black British territories in London; memories of an older Trinidad and visits that tell him both how he and...

In this remarkable second collection, Sean Hewitt describes a journey haunted by love, loss and estrangement - from one of the Sunday Times 30 under 30 in Ireland'Points to a bright future for Irish poetry' SUNDAY TIMES'An exquisitely calm and insightful...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781912196753Author Ian McMillanFormat PaperbackPage Count 30Imprint Smith|Doorstop BooksPublisher Smith|Doorstop Books

In Elise Paschen's prize-winning poetry collection, Infidelities, Richard Wilbur wrote that the poems ". . . draw upon a dream life which can deeply tincture the waking world." In her third poetry book, The Nightlife, Paschen once again taps into dream...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781789509694Author Lord ByronFormat PaperbackPage Count 224Imprint ArcturusPublisher Arcturus Publishing Ltd

Jane Hirshfield is a visionary American writer whose poems ask nothing less than what it is to be human. Both sensual meditations and passionate investigations, they reveal complex truths in language luminous and precise. Rooted in the living world, her...

A good poetry idea should help the children feel excited about writing and enable them to think of what to write - developing their imagination, creativity and writing skills. Jumpstart! Poetry is about involving children as creative writers through...

In a stunningly original mix of poetry, drama, and narrative, Anne Carson brings the red-winged Geryon from Autobiography of Red, now called 'G', into manhood, and through the complex labyrinths of the modern age. We join him as he travels with his...

A.S.J. Tessimond (1902-1962) was one of the most individual, versatile and approachable voices in 20th century poetry. Influenced at first by the Imagists, his poetry is remarkable for its lucidity and formal exactness and for its witty, humane depiction...

Being Alive is the sequel to Neil Astley's Staying Alive, which became Britain's most popular poetry book because it gave readers hundreds of thoughtful and passionate poems about living in the modern world. Now he has assembled this equally lively...

A London Review Bookshop Book of the Year. Rebecca Goss' fourth and most ambitious collection, Latch, is a study in the act of returning. It is about reconnecting to a place, Suffolk, and understanding what it once held, and what it now holds for a...

Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human have introduced many thousands of new readers to contemporary poetry, and have helped poetry lovers to discover the little known riches of world poetry. Each anthology in the Staying Alive series has 500...

'An embrace of a book' Florence Welch 'Poetry was my place, my little clearing in the forest, where I could quietly put everything I was holding. I'm not sure what gave me the courage to open up that space to you,...

"I came to explore the wreck. / The words are purposes. / The words are maps. / I came to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail." These provocative poems move with the power of Rich's distinctive voice.About the AuthorAdrienne...