Originally published in 1958, The Cathedral is a verse sequence evoking the spirit of an English cathedral and the characters associated with its history. Although Salisbury is at its core, the book does not focus on the portrait of one specific cathedral, but instead includes features from many. It brings to life the figures that it portrays, giving voices to a wide variety of characters from the Peasant's Daughter to The Devil, and the Spire-Builder to the Queen. The Cathedral will appeal to those with an interest in poetry, Christianity, and religious architecture.

Here, for the first time, is a fully scrutinized text of Eliot's poems, carefully restoring accidental omissions and removing textual errors that have crept in over the full century in which Eliot has been so frequently printed and reprinted. The edition also presents many poems from Eliot's youth which were published only decades later, as well as others that saw only private circulation in his lifetime, of which dozens are collected for the first time.

The first volume respects Eliot's decisions by opening with his Collected Poems 1909-1962 in the form in which he issued it, shortly before his death fifty years ago. There follow in this first volume the uncollected poems from his youth that he had chosen to publish, along with such other poems as could be considered suitable for publication.

The Poems of T. S. Eliot is a work of enlightening scholarship that will delight and inform all those who read Eliot for pleasure, as well as all those who read with pleasure and for study. Here are a new accuracy and an unparalleled insight into the marvels and landmarks from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land through to Four Quartets.

Words like Thunder: New and Used Anishinaabe Prayers is a collection of poetry by award-winning Ojibwe author Lois Beardslee. Much of the book centers around Native people of the Great Lakes but has a universal relevance to modern indigenous people worldwide. Beardslee tackles contemporary topics like climate change and socioeconomic equality with a grace and readability that empowers readers and celebrates the strengths of today's indigenous peoples. She transforms the mundane into the sacred. Similar in style to Nikki Giovanni, Beardslee might lure in readers with the promise of traditional cultural material, even stereotypes, before quickly pivoting toward a direction of respect for the contemporaneity and adaptability of indigenous people's tenacious hold on traditions. Made up of four sections, the book is like a piece of artwork. Parts of the word-canvas are quiet so the reader can rest and other parts lead the reader quickly from one place to another, while always maintaining eye contact. More than anything, Beardslee emphasizes the notion that indigenous peoples are competent and wonderful, worthy of praise, and whose modernity is a function of their survival. She writes unapologetically with a strong ethnic identity as a woman of color who witnessed and experienced community loss of resources that defined her culture. Her stories transcend generations, time, and geographical boundaries-varying in voice between first person or that of her elders or children-resulting in a collective appeal. Beardslee continues to break the mold and push the boundaries of contemporary Native American poetry and prose. This book will appeal to a general readership, to people who want to learn more about indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes, and to people who care about the environment and socioeconomic equality. Even young readers, especially students of color, will find parts of this book to which they can relate.

Oaks are some of our oldest companions, and have been rooted in human imagination and language for millennia. Their great, slow lives have always demanded our careful consideration (indeed Virginia Woolf's Orlando took 300 years over their own quercian epic). Katharine Towers' new sequence of poems accompanies the oak from acorn to grave, and into its afterlife; playful, lyric and lucid, Oak is also shot through with an ecocritical awareness that renders it utterly contemporary. Towers' precise eye and gift for sharp comparison allows us to enter into the life of the tree, and the birds and insects and plants it hosts; it shows how its seven ages echo and rhyme with our own, and how, by implication, we may also be tied to the same cycle of death and renewal. Oak wins its power through an extraordinary act of imaginative voicing, and accomplishes the most important work of the nature poem: to take the reader out of themselves, and into the larger world they also inhabit.

Sappho, the earliest and most famous Greek woman poet, sang her songs around 600 BCE on the island of Lesbos. Of what survives from the approximately nine papyrus scrolls collected in antiquity, all is translated here: substantial poems and fragments, including three poems discovered in the last two decades. The power of Sappho's poetry - her direct style, rich imagery, and passion - is apparent even in these remnants. Diane Rayor's translations of Greek poetry are graceful, modern in diction yet faithful to the originals. Sappho's voice is heard in these poems about love, friendship, rivalry, and family. In the introduction and notes, Andre Lardinois plausibly reconstructs Sappho's life and work, the performance of her songs, and how these fragments survived. This second edition incorporates thirty-two more fragments primarily based on Camillo Neri's 2021 Greek edition and revisions of over seventy fragments.

James Harpur entered a boy's boarding school in the 1970s and survived to tell the tale. His sequence of poems is a searingly honest and compelling account of his five-year journey, from leaving home for the first time and sleeping in a dormitory in which enemies appear like shadows, to his sadness at his parents' separation and the death of a father figure from a bomb. For as well as Prog Rock, flared trousers and industrial strikes, this was the era of the Troubles. An introvert in an extraverted world, Harpur took refuge in Homer and the magical world of Troy, and found that school could be a haven, and even fun: a sex education lesson that backfired; a rare sighting of girls at a dance; a scary ride on his brother's illegal motorbike; a surreal trip to Covent Garden. Powerful, poignant and humorous, The Examined Life re-creates a 'vale of soul-making' that, with its tragedy and comedy, heroes and villains, is like a microcosm of life itself. 'A quite marvellous work...an Odyssey, a Ulysses shaken up in the snow-dome of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.' -From the foreword by STEPHEN FRY

This collection of short, accessible essays serves as a supplementary text to Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's play, Emilia. Critically acclaimed and beloved by audiences, this innovative and ground-breaking show is a speculative history, an imaginative (re)telling of the life of English Renaissance poet Aemilia Bassano Lanyer. This book features essays by theatre practitioners, activists, and scholars and informed by intersectional feminist, critical race, queer, and postcolonial analyses will enable students and their teachers across secondary school and higher education to consider the play's major themes from a wide variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives. This volume explores the current events and cultural contexts that informed the writing and performing of Emilia between 2017 and 2019, various aspects of the professional London productions, critical and audience responses, and best practices for teaching the play to university and secondary school students. It includes a foreword by Emilia playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre, arts activism, feminist literature, and theory.

Kobus Lombard se vierde digbundel word gekenmerk deur ’n sterk gevoel vir plek. Soos te verwagte is daar verwysings na bekende plekke in Namibie, soos Gobabis, Rundu, Swakopmund, die stad Windhoek, die Kavango- en Nossobrivier, die woestyn en die seekus van die dood. Selfs in gedigte waar daar geen duidelike verwysings na die Namibiese landskap is nie, bly die leser bewus van die wye en dikwels ongenaakbare landskap wat die agtergrond vir die meeste gedigte vorm, soos in “Ylblou berg”: “ … word hy bruin en ruig begroei/met swart voels wat sirkel/teen die grynslag van sy kranse”. Hierteenoor is daar in baie gedigte ook sprake van kleiner, intiemer en mensliker ruimtes: ’n strandhuis, die binneruimte van ’n kerk, museums, restaurante, selfs grafte en ’n klerekas. Met sowel die groter as die intiemer ruimtes tree die digter in gesprek. Dit is opmerklik hoe dikwels die aanspreek van plekke, mense en dinge die inslag van die gedigte vorm, asof die digter homself gedurig in verhouding met die ander stel en in die gedig hierdie verhouding wil verken en peil. Verweef met die menslike verhoudings is ook die verhouding met die verlede, met sy eie kinderjare en ’n verbygegane plattelandse lewe, wat nooit geromantiseer word nie, maar met ’n effens ironiese toon opgeroep word, soos in die gedig “Gobabis”, waar die verval van die dorpie so geteken word: “die stof hang ’n kring om die sweet van jou tiervelhoed/die vensters van jou oe is gebreek/jou mure skilfer soos oumensvel”. Die digter kyk ook ewe ironies na menslike gedrag in verskillende kontekste: kerkgangers, besoekers aan restaurante, die beheptheid met fiksheid, die verandering van straatname en selfs sy eie skryfpogings. Oor al hierdie dinge en verskynsels val die skaduwee van die sonwyser, en word die leser vroeg reeds bewus van die verbygaan van tyd sodat sekere dinge onafgehandel moet bly (“Ongevra”) en die onvermoe om te behou of te bestendig: “vergeefs soek ons taal/wat ruik na vars hopies grond/om ons verliese te begrawe”.

Die twaalfde letter is die bekende digter, akademikus en radioman Daniel Hugo se sestiende digbundel. Die liefdesvers, die erotiek, die speelse gedig, die spel met ander digters, die obsessie met die dood keer in hierdie bundel terug. Oor die gedigte in hierdie bundel se Joan Hambidge: “Waarskynlik was al die ander bundels net repetisies vir Die twaalfde letter, wat in sy vaardigheid en suiwerheid die kroon span op ’n lang en produktiewe digterskap.

Francis Grobler skuif die sluier van ’n verskuilde wêreld met ’n afgerigte werklikheid en konformiteite oop met ’n moderne benadering tot digkuns. Die digbundel se outentieke benadering dra by tot ‘n skaars, maar nodige kommoditeit in Afrikaanse poësie.

Nagblind is ’n kragtige, eiesoortige en eenmalige leserservaring. Die woord word verhelder deur retoriek en metafore wat vonk en word sterk beeldend verwoord. Dit delf in die geestelike dimensie en verfyn en rond die eindproduk tot ’n “andersheid” af wat ver verby die grense van konvensies gaan en aan die geskrewe woord ’n nuwe betekenis gee.

Nagblind breek behoorlik die skedels tot nuwe denke.

The first English translation of Dracontius' Orestes, written in an accessible way to appeal to scholars and non-scholars alike, accompanied by detailed notes and a comprehensive introduction to the work and its many contexts for all readers.

WINNER OF THE T S ELIOT PRIZE 2021. The female body is a political space. C+nto enters the private lives of women from the butch counterculture, telling the inside story of the protests they led in the '90s to reclaim their bodies as their own - their difficult balance between survival and self-expression. History, magic, rebellion, party and sermon vibrate through Joelle Taylor's cantos to uncover these underground communities forged by women. Part-memoir and part-conjecture, Taylor explores sexuality and gender in poetry that is lyrical, expansive, imagistic, epic and intimate. C+nto is a love poem, a riot, a late night, and an honouring.

Verbal precision is the best way to describe this compelling and daunting collection, where poetry and all the known demands of writing poetry are constantly deconstructed.

In a no-nonsense approach devoid of self-pity, Strang utilises wry acerbic humour coupled with a fine technical skill to debunk commonly held perceptions on an array of topics including femicide and gender-based violence, physical and mental illness/death, childhood and aging, sex and sexuality, and armed conflict and political violence.

It is a complex, brilliant volume of poetry blending the intellectual with the intuitive, utilising an array of inter-texts including fairy tales, the 2 tarot, the Bible, and art in various forms, interwoven with primordial wisdoms and mythology

These empathic, deeply felt poems, with their sense of sacredness violated, are artistically done. Herbert Lomas, Ambit. Christine McNeill's The Outsider is eloquent poetry of witness, mainly to those who have lived through war or displacement in twentieth-century Europe. This and her previous collection, Kissing the Night, face evasions and handle complex stories and time lines with fierce grace. I cannot recommend The Outsider strongly enough. Nancy Mattson, Critical Survey The lead poem, The Refugee, displays Christine McNeill's high, finely-wrought talent. She can evoke a scene, an attitude, an image in few and precisely chosen words. pennilesspress.co.uk/reviews

This will be the first major collection of poems by Bernard Kops for more than 20 years. He is one of Britain's most celebrated writers, with seven previous volumes of poetry, 40 plays for stage and radio, nine novels, and two autobiographies, making him one of Britain's most prolific and versatile authors. Earlier this year, in recognition of his literary work, he had the rare honour of a Civil List pension being conferred on him by the Queen. Awarded for life, it puts him in the exalted company of poets such as Lord Byron and William Wordsworth. This collection contains many new poems and also his most celebrated poems from his exceptional and varied body of work, such as "Shalom Bomb", an unofficial anthem for the CND movement in the 1960's and his more recent "Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East" which, mourns the passing of the old library in the East End of London, where he grew up. Events include: December 29 Limmud Festival, Warwick University; Feb 17 Housman's Bookshop, London; Feb 28 Jewish Book Week reading with George Szirtes and Michele Wandor, 11 am March Josephs Bookstore; April 1 Whitechapel Art Gallery (free admission) 20-50 expected; and, Aug 12 Lauderdale House (Thursday).

The career of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) affords an extraordinary glimpse into the intellectual ferment of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain. As a popular poet, practicing physician, inventor of speaking machines and mechanical birds, essayer of natural history from geology to meteorology, and proponent of an evolutionary theory that inspired his famous grandson Charles, he left a lasting impression on almost every branch of knowledge. His magnum opus, and the synthesis of his myriad interests, is The Botanic Garden (1792) - an epic poem that aims to "enlist the Imagination under the banner of Science." Part I, The Economy of Vegetation, sings the praises of British industry as a dance of supernatural creatures while part II, The Loves of the Plants, wittily employs metaphors of human courtship to describe the reproductive cycles of hundreds of flowers. Darwin supplements his accomplished verses with (often much longer) "philosophical notes" that offer his idiosyncratic perspective on the scholarly controversies of the day. Despite a recent surge of academic interest in Darwin, however, no authoritative critical edition of The Botanic Garden exists, presenting a barrier to further scholarship. This two volume set comprises a complete, meticulously transcribed, reading text - including all the poetry, prose apparatus, and illustrations - along with extensive commentary that situates Darwin within contemporary debates about the natural sciences. This set will be of interest to readers as the definitive reference edition of The Botanic Garden and due to its efforts to make the work more practically and intellectually accessible to seasoned and novice readers alike. The first volume presents a wide ranging and authoritative introduction to The Botanic Garden, detailing the background to the work and the various contexts in which it should be understood. These include: aesthetic theory and practice, the science of the mind, love and sexuality, politics, spirituality, the natural sciences, and evolutionary theory and the two Darwins. The full text of Part I of the The Botanic Garden, The Economy of Vegetation, then follows accompanied by the editors' annotations, discussion of illustrations and textual notes.

The career of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) affords an extraordinary glimpse into the intellectual ferment of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain. As a popular poet, practicing physician, inventor of speaking machines and mechanical birds, essayer of natural history from geology to meteorology, and proponent of an evolutionary theory that inspired his famous grandson Charles, he left a lasting impression on almost every branch of knowledge. His magnum opus, and the synthesis of his myriad interests, is The Botanic Garden (1792) - an epic poem that aims to "enlist the Imagination under the banner of Science." Part I, The Economy of Vegetation, sings the praises of British industry as a dance of supernatural creatures while part II, The Loves of the Plants, wittily employs metaphors of human courtship to describe the reproductive cycles of hundreds of flowers. Darwin supplements his accomplished verses with (often much longer) "philosophical notes" that offer his idiosyncratic perspective on the scholarly controversies of the day. Despite a recent surge of academic interest in Darwin, however, no authoritative critical edition of The Botanic Garden exists, presenting a barrier to further scholarship. This two volume set comprises a complete, meticulously transcribed, reading text - including all the poetry, prose apparatus, and illustrations - along with extensive commentary that situates Darwin within contemporary debates about the natural sciences. This set will be of interest to readers as the definitive reference edition of The Botanic Garden and due to its efforts to make the work more practically and intellectually accessible to seasoned and novice readers alike This second volume includes the full version of the second part of The Botanic Garden, The Lives of Plants along with the related textual apparatus consisting of the editors' annotations, discussion of the illustrations, textual notes, and a taxonomic table of the flowers mentioned.

An Introduction to Poetic Forms offers specimen discussions of poems through the lens of form. While each of its chapters does provide a standard definition of the form in question in its opening paragraphs, their main objective is to provide readings of specific examples to illustrate how individual poets have deviated from or subverted those expectations usually associated with the form under discussion. While providing the most vital information on the most widely taught forms of poetry, then, this collection will very quickly demonstrate that counting syllables and naming rhyme schemes is not the be-all and end-all of poetic form. Instead, each chapter will contain cross-references to other literary forms and periods as well as make clear the importance of the respective form to the culture at large: be it the democratising communicative power of the ballad or the objectifying male gaze of the blazon and resistance to same in the contreblazon - the efficacy of form is explored in the fullness of its cultural dimensions. In using standard definitions only as a starting point and instead focusing on lively debates around the cultural impact of poetic form, the textbook helps students and instructors to see poetic forms not as a static and lifeless affair but as living, breathing testament to the ongoing evolution of cultural debates. In the final analysis, the book is interested in showing the complexities and contradictions inherent in the very nature of literary form itself: how each concrete example deviates from the standard template while at the same time employing it as a foil to generate meaning.