A generously discursive collection of punchy 'n' pithy poems.

Robert Lowell, with Elizabeth Bishop, stands apart as the greatest American poet of the latter half of the twentieth century--and "Life Studies and For the Union Dead "stand as among his most important volumes. In "Life Studies," which was first published in 1959, Lowell moved away from the formality of his earlier poems and started writing in a more confessional vein. The title poem of "For the Union Dead "concerns the death of the Civil War hero (and Lowell ancestor) Robert Gould Shaw, but it also largely centers on the contrast between Boston's idealistic past and its debased present at the time of its writing, in the early 1960's. Throughout, Lowell addresses contemporaneous subjects in a voice and style that themselves push beyond the accepted forms and constraints of the time.

Drawing from every stage of the Nobel laureate's career, Derek Walcott's "Selected Poems "brings together famous pieces from his early volumes, including "A Far Cry from Africa" and "A City's Death by Fire," with passages from the celebrated "Omeros" and selections from his latest major works, which extend his contributions to reenergizing the contemporary long poem. Here we find all of Walcott's essential themes, from grappling with the Caribbean's colonial legacy to his conflicted love of home and of Western literary tradition; from the wisdom-making pain of time and mortality to the strange wonder of love, the natural world, and what it means to be human. We see his lifelong labor at poetic crafts, his broadening of the possibilities of rhyme and meter, stanza forms, language, and metaphor. Edited and with an introduction by the Jamaican poet and critic Edward Baugh, this volume is a perfect representation of Walcott's breadth of work, spanning almost half a century.

In his third poetry collection, Itch, Zane Frederick scratches memory. He pokes the bear of his past. Ventures further out into its woods to see what still lurks and what needs to be settled. Itch captures the complexity of revisiting memory and the whirlwind of emotions that emerge from loose ends that have yet to be tied up. He shouts into the void and calls out the skeletons in his closet. He lets anger out like a beast locked away. He is stuck in a limbo between holding on and letting go, finding his way out of the forest that held his most rotted roots.  Itch is about forgiving but never forgetting. It’s about taking the armor off and going home. It challenges the notion that our scars won’t always sting, but embraces the sting as a reminder of what we’ve healed from.

Poetry and prose to encourage us to grow. Watering the Soul is a timeless reminder that everyone needs time, love, and forgiveness. In the deepest, most enchanting part of the forest, a creature hands you a seed. Within the seed is your soul, ready to be grown again. From internationally bestselling author Courtney Peppernell comes her new book of poetry and prose, Watering the Soul. In true Peppernell style, the book is divided into sections, this time following a step-by-step recipe, to heal your soul. Filled with themes that focus on forgiveness, gratitude, togetherness, and equality, Peppernell takes you on a journey to find a precious yet profound understanding; that a seed is not grown with haste and nor is becoming whole, that in each and every step, we find the meaning of watering the soul. This is the story of your soul and how it can be grown again.

Songs of the Darkness brings together a selection of poems for Christmas written over a period of more than thirty years. They are notable for their combination of a close focus and breadth, and for the way in which the seasonal is celebrated alongside the challenges of history and the beauty of the natural world. topographically the poems range from a Romanian convent to a Devon beach to an alpine cablecar. The finely drawn illustrations by Erica Sail, the writer's daughter, add their own note of precision and detail. Taken together with the poems, they help to create a perspective in which the darkness of winter really does yield up its music. All royalties from sales of Songs of the Darkness will be given to Trusts for African Schools, a registered charity which acts as a conduit for money raised in the UK to be sent out to some of the poorest schools in Africa. More information, and details of the ten individual schools currently supported by the Trusts, eight in Kenya, and one each in Uganda and Ethiopia, are available on the website www.trustsforafricanschools.org.

"My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge" is a fierce and original collection--its generosity of voice and emotional range announce the arrival of a major new poet.

At the age of twelve, Paul Guest suffered a bicycle accident that left him paralyzed for life. But out of sudden disaster evolved a fierce poetic sensibility--one that blossomed into a refuge for all the grief, fury, and wonder at life forever altered. Although its legacy lies in tragedy, the voice of these brilliant poems cuts a broad swath of emotions: whether he is lamenting the potentiality of physical experience or imagining the electric temptations of sexuality, Guest offers us a worldview that is unshakable in its humanity.

Rapture is the newest collection from a remarkable voice in American poetry. Susan Mitchell's poems are about self-discovery, and how memory and experience blend to lead us to newer, more realized and complex selves. Mitchell's gift is her ability to see, with humor and acuity, the extraordinary within the commonplace. Whether listening to a jazz pianist reaching for new sounds as he lingers over a hotel piano or recalling a runaway child on a bus trip across America, Mitchell guides us into a world of her narratives, a world in which she creates her reality by the mere act of observing it, and this reality, at once wholly unique and deeply familiar, has an exhilarating capacity for transcendence. Combining a boldly realistic vision with graceful, evocative lyricism, and moving easily between free verse and elegant versification, Rapture confirms Mitchell's place as one of the most compelling poets writing today.

This collection features one hundred poems selected by award-winning poet Jordi Larios. Keenly aware that we measure the world through words, he also knows that words become worn with use, and that poetry recalibrates their instrumentation, injecting them with fresh focus for graphing elusive terrains of inner and outer experience, prodding us to encounter and engage the world in a way that sustains and renews the self. Each Larios poem is a magnet, impacting us with the infixed force that its reading unleashes, subtle yet powerful in its imagery. A seagull, unfazed by the 'crisis of the sunset,' declares life on a greying backdrop ('Rough Weather'), and desolate landscapes can set the scene for unexpected solace ('Cold,' 'Historical Present'): pulling sunken memories to the surface and bringing poetic imagery into alignment with points of inwardness in search of outward counterparts. Along with the subtle power of imagery, Larios blends into his poems an uncanny marshalling of words, reassigning them to posts of optimal meaning and musicality. Technique underlies the poems, but the resulting art is greater than the sum of words, lifting language above 'the clattering of / too many words,' which, bereft of poetry, only render us alone ('Man Alone').

From Hannah Lavery, Edinburgh's Makar. 'Speaks to and for the conflicted conscience of Scotland ... with a power and authenticity like perhaps no other' - The Scotsman In a moment that is demanding you to constantly choose your side, how do you find your humanity, your own voice, when you are being pushed to find safety in numbers? Blood Salt Spring is a meditation on where we are - exploring ideas of nation, race and belonging. Much of the collection was written in lockdown and speaks to that moment, the isolation and the traumas of 2020 but it also looks to find some meaning and makes an attempt to heal the pain and vulnerabilities that were picked and cut open again in the recent cultural shifts and political wars. Organised into three sections this book takes the reader on a journey from the old inherited wounds, the trauma of tearing open again these chasms within recent discourses and events, to a hopeful spring, where pain and trauma can be laid down and a new future can be imagined. In this collection, the poet has sought to heal these salted wounds, and move out of winter and into spring - into hope. The National Theatre of Scotland has launched a new digital visual album, Blood, Salt, Spring - a digital accompaniment to Hannah Lavery's collection. You can view the visual album here.

Die bundel bevat ‘n vyftigtal sonnette wat uitsluitlik oor heiliges handel en in dié opsig aansluit by die digkuns van Sheila Cussons. Die verse is religieuse meditasies oor die lewe en werk van heiliges waarvan ‘n hele aantal ook bekend sal wees vir lesers met ‘n Protestantse agtergrond. Ander is egter weer onbekend vir die gemiddelde Afrikaanse leser, maar kort biografiese sketse word as toeligting verskaf. ‘n Aantal oorspronklike ikone van die heiliges word in die bundel opgeneem en help skep aan ‘n sfeer waarbinne die gedigte verstaan en ervaar moet word. Die streng sonnetvorm stel hoë eise aan die digter, en in hierdie debuutbundel toon Van der Riet dat hy oor die vakmanskap beskik om nie slegs binne die bestek van veertien reëls ‘n klein wêreld te herskep nie, maar ook om die leser te nooi om die afstand te oorbrug en te besin oor die raakpunte van die heiliges met sy of haar eie leefwêreld.

Social media sensation Billy Chapata shares insight and advice into the powerful world of love, heartbreak, and what comes next. This collection of poetry and prose will justify heartache and inspire the fortitude to survive and prosper. From Chameleon Aura author Billy Chapata comes his second major poetry collection, Flowers on the Moon. Chapata presents his signature blend of experience and advice through a chaptered series of prose and poetry. Filled with the familiar themes of love, loss, resilience, and growth From Chameleon Aura but with fresh poems and new advice, his touching narrative celebrates humanity for its undeniable worth, and this collection will leave readers warm with hope for growth, rebirth, and, most prominently, self-acceptance.

This long-awaited volume, a new selection of his later poems, spans ten major collections by one of America's most visionary and influential poets. Chosen by the author himself, the poems in "Notes from the Air" represent John Ashbery's best work from the past two decades, from the critically acclaimed "April Galleons" and "Flow Chart" to the 2005 National Book Award finalist "Where Shall I Wander."

While Ashbery has long been considered a powerful force in twentieth-century culture, "Notes from the Air" demonstrates clearly how important and relevant his writing continues to be, well into the twenty-first century. Many of the selections found here are regularly taught in university classrooms across the country, and critics and scholars vigorously debate his newest works as well as his classics. He has already published four major books since the turn of the new millennium, and, although 2007 marked his eightieth birthday, this legendary literary figure continues to write fresh, new, and vibrant poetry that remains as stimulating, provocative, and controversial as ever.

"Notes from the Air" reveals, for the first time in one volume, the remarkable evolution of Ashbery's poetry from the mid-1980s into the new century, and offers an irresistible sampling of some of the finest work by a poet the "New York Times" has called a "national treasure."

More than 100 poems about Britain's nature in a beautifully illustrated book Seven chapters touch on different aspects of the British countryside, including seasons, birds and wildlife, woods, water, moors and mountains. This carefully chosen collection will inspire you to explore nature through a poet's eye - the perfect antidote to 'times when the world is too much with us', as Wordsworth so beautifully put it. There are celebrated poems by the greats - Keats, Yeats, Tennyson, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, John Masefield, Robert Burns, Dylan Thomas - as well as others by contemporary poets whose work you will want to seek out and explore further, including Carol Anne Duffy, Simon Armitage and Jean Sprackland. Where poems have links to National Trust sites, footnotes are included to explain the connections.