Dié jongste bundel verse deur Philip de Vos is vir jonk én oud, en getuig opnuut van sy vakmanskap as digter, sy slinkse, aweregse humor maar ook sy fyn waarnemingsvermoë.

Ritme dien as ruggraat vir elke vers, met ’n goeie skeut tong-in-die-kies stuitigheid, maar soms ook met ’n melancholiese, elegiese ondertoon.

Daar is verse oor die Skepping, oor Moses en oor Lot, verskeie oor nig Mara en Maraaia, en ter afsluiting meer as ’n handvol stoute kwatryne.

In setting the poets side by side, this volume also highlights the two main faith traditions of the West: Deane with his Roman Catholic background, rooted in the landscape of Mayo; and Harpur with his Protestant (Church of Ireland and Quaker) heritage, influenced by myth, medieval history and mystics. Their two approaches to everyday life and ultimate reality - including nature, saints and mystics, music, art, prayer, and issues of faith and doubt - combine to make a single volume full of lyrical beauty and powerful witness. In addition, an afterword consisting of an informal dialogue between the two poets complements in prose the themes their poems explore. This is a book to challenge, console, delight and make its readers think again about their own journeys through this "vale of soul-making".

The "birds, beasts and flowers" of Isobel Dixon’s new collection are in conversation with DH Lawrence's essay ‘Whistling of Birds’, thus lending this publication its name, though each poem here is its own vivid testament to the natural world, and our often troubled and troubling place in it.

Lyrical, vigorous, inventive, the poems share points of creative contact with Lawrence’s iconic collection, Birds, Beasts and Flowers, but also ranges widely through the worlds of other writers and makers. Threaded throughout is the beautiful complexity and vulnerability of the planet, and the joy and difficulty of making art. With its resonant elegies and notes of celebration, this is a collection that flexes, hums and brims with energy, yet draws you surely in to its quiet, reflective heart.

Poetry as powerful connection and recapitulation, and, even in landscapes of exile and diminishment, the art of rewilding and replenishing the self.

Die woord “skryn” het verskillende betekenisse: 'n Skryn is 'n klein kissie of houer waarin kosbaarhede soos juwele bewaar word, en as werkwoord kan die woord dui op afskuur of -skaaf (soos wat 'n skrynwerker doen) of op 'n pynlike wrywingsproses (vandaar die beskrywing van 'n ervaring as “skrynend” of “skrynerig”). Alhoewel al hierdie betekenisse geaktiveer word in Emma Bekker se debuutdigbundel, sal die leser vergeefs soek na konvensionele “vroulike” skatte soos juwele, klere en meubels. Reeds in die tweede gedig is daar 'n aanduiding van wat in die res van die bundel te wagte gaan wees: In hierdie herinnering aan 'n ontwrigtende kinderervaring, word die dogtertjie se krytblikkie, versier met 'n afbeelding van die Taj Mahal, 'n soort skryn word waaraan sy kan vashou. Algaande ontvou die beweging tussen die skrynende en die kosbare wat as gedigte bewaar word en word die bundel self die skryn. 'n Tweede belangrike tema in die bundel is die verkenning van 'n enigsins ongewone, onkonvensionele vroulikheid. Al open die bundel met 'n kwatryn oor die gewone buurt met “'n drankwinkel, 'n pawn shop en die Spar” waar die digteres woon, word hierdie skynbaar gewone voorstedelike bestaan gou die vertrekpunt van waar verskillende enigsins alternatiewe en onkonvensionele vroulikhede ondersoek word. Sy maak die luike van die binnekamer oop en ervaar tuin, veld en stad; Sy herken die tierboskat in haar skootkat en in haarself; In die liefdespel wil sy niemand se baby wees nie; Sy waag dit om op 'n tweede wittebrood die jas van “onverpoosde verantwoordelikheid” uit te trek en in die kombuis gee sy haar oor aan die sinnelike vreugde – en soms selfs wrede – van kosmaak. Bewaring en blootstelling, kwesbaarheid en krag, sinnelikheid en spiritualiteit word in hierdie bundel verwoord deur 'n vaardige digteres wat sowel die tug van die kwatryn, die liriese van kabaretagtige verse as vryer, narratiewe verse beheers.

Caustically humorous and polemically compulsive, Trump Rant is a work of meticulous political portraiture: a deep-delving and epoch-spanning investigation into the nature of power in American life, made luminous by Agee's nuanced, exploratory understanding of authoritarian drift and thwarted democratic aspiration in a number of world-historical contexts, from Belfast to the Balkans to the formerly Confederate South. Free-roaming in its breadth of reference and tonal range, the Rant is at once viscerally personal and unsettlingly resonant, infused throughout with an almost hypnotic sense of scale, largesse, and historical moment. Already renowned as a poet of emotional delicacy and singular stylistic vision, Agee's hallmark gifts of writerly intimacy and ethical resolve are here expanded and reconfigured on a panoramic canvas - moving from a pared-back opening section to the accelerating pace and barrage-like linguistic assaults of the latter addenda. But for all its freewheeling furies, shifting emotional registers and Kubrick-like black humour, it remains a remarkably formal work, moored to the relentlessly dangerous drumbeat of Donald J. Trump. The result is a combination of long-form radicalism and eclectic satire, startingly unique in its blend of aphorism, acuity and epic cultural imagining. Composed chronologically for nearly four years (from early 2017 until Election Day 2020), Trump Rant is a triumph of artistic witness and denunciation; an urgent retort to a global culture of imperilled legal standards and depleted literary response; and an incisive model of enlightenment and outrage in a "post-truth" world being visibly darkened by its criminal shadows.

Met haar nuutste bundel, Disteltyd, neem die digter Marlise Joubert bestek op haar lewe; die verouderingsproses met gepaardgaande fisieke aftakeling en verlies, maar ook besinning oor familie, eie kinderjare en die onlangse inperking, beurtkrag en geweld.

Dit is gedigte met ’n sterk poëtiese en visuele inslag en word gekenmerk deur ’n introspektiewe, selfs nostalgiese, toonaard. Soos die distel as onkruid ’n saadpluim lewer wat lig, dartelend en lieflik is, is hierdie gedigte ook.

Disteltyd is ’n bundel wat weens die geskakeerdheid daarvan ’n belangrike bydrae lewer tot die steeds groeiende korpus van laatwerke; gedigte wat meestal ontroer weens die menslikheid en humor daarin verwoord, maar terselfdertyd ook die leser konfronteer met die maatskaplike onregte kenmerkend van ons tyd.

Willie van der Merwe se debuutbundel handel oor religieuse ontnugtering, geklee in vele vorme, en is ’n verkenning van die eksistensiele vakuum soos selde tevore in Afrikaans. Die titel sinspeel op die eenvoudige kwaliteite van die alledaagse mens aan die een kant, maar aan die ander kant op die fisiese en geestelike dood wat as goue draad deur die bundel loop. Die dualisme tussen skoonheid en weerloosheid word van meet af aan ondersoek en die gebroke werklikheid van die digter se ervaringswereld word treffend verbeeld. Dit is ’n donker bundel vol swart humor, wat die weersin van erotiek en oorlog op skrydende en dikwels ironiese wyse verwoord. Dit eindig egter met ’n evangeliese optimisme: met van die mooiste liefdesgedigte wat nog in Afrikaans verskyn het.

Here are Sappho's songs and poems as English poems, all her famous pieces, all the fragments that can make connected sense, and all the discoveries of 2004 and 2014. These translations set out to be good English poetry first and foremost, and succeed well beyond other current versions. They have been made directly from Sappho's Greek, by a poet with three collections to his credit, and are relatively close to the Greek. Each piece has a concise footnote that explains references and allusions, and suggests critical appreciation. A substantial Afterword says much more about Sappho's themes, her art and style, and her historical setting. Sappho is one of the greatest poets of the western world. She lived on the Greek island of Lesbos around 600 BCE, near the very beginning of western literature, and composed 300 or so poems and songs. Her poems create a woman-centred world in which women and relationships are highly valued, a world of beauty and grace, love and loss, sandals and hairbands, all sometimes exalted and idealised. She opposes women's values to those of the dominant male society around her, and is the first to do this in the western canon. She was famous in her lifetime and has been deeply admired ever since.

Henry Normal's third volume of collected poems includes every poem from Strikingly Invisible, The Beauty Within Shadow and The Distance Between Clouds. "Shove up National Treasures. We need to make room for Henry Normal." - Radio Times

Memory Rose into Threshold Speech gathers the poet Paul Celan's first four books, written between 1952 and 1963, which established his reputation as a major post-World War II German-language poet. Celan, a Bukovinian Jew who lived through the Holocaust, created work that displays both great lyric power and an uncanny ability to pinpoint totalitarian cultural and political tendencies. His quest, however, is not only reflective: there is in Celan's writing a profound need and desire to create a new, inhabitable world and a new language for it. In Memory Rose into Threshold Speech, Celan's reader witnesses his poetry, which starts lush with surrealistic imagery, become gradually pared down; its syntax tightens and his trademark neologisms and word formations increase toward a polysemic language of great accuracy that tries, in the poet's own words, to measure the area of the given and the possible. Translated by the prize-winning poet and translator Pierre Joris, this bilingual edition follows the 2014 publication of Breathturn into Timestead, Celan's collected later poetry. All nine volumes of Celan's poetry are now available in Joris's carefully crafted translations, accompanied here by a new introduction, as well as extensive commentary by Joris and Barbara Wiedemann. The four volumes in this edition show the flowering of one of the major literary figures of the last century. This volume collects Celan's first four books: Mohn und Gedachtnis (Poppy and Memory), Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (Threshold to Threshold), Sprachgitter (Speechgrille), and Die Niemandsrose (NoOnesRose).

Daughter of poet, author, and creative writing teacher, Finuala Dowling, and satirist, performer, and playwright, Guy Willoughby, Beatrice Willoughby grew up immersed in Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde and Billy Collins. Her school holidays were spent learning classic poems off by heart and performing comic sketches and take-offs for her uncles, aunts and cousins.

Following in her maternal grandfather’s footsteps, she pursued copywriting, for which she has won several awards. She lives in Cape Town. So, is her debut collection of poetry.

Hierdie uitstekende Afrikaanse vertaling van antieke gedigte hoef vir niemand Grieks te wees nie.

Die skrywer gee duidelike toeligting oor die tyd en omstandighede waarin hierdie gedigte ontstaan en voorgedra is, sodat selfs diegene wat geen kennis van Grieks het nie, daardeur geboei word.

Anders as wat die hedendaagse leser verwag, is die antieke elegiese poësie nie treurverse nie, maar kon oor enige denkbare onderwerp handel: politiek, sosiale probleme, die kortstondigheid van die lewe, patriotisme en liefde.

In Feminine Gospels, Carol Ann Duffy draws on the historical, the archetypal, the biblical and the fantastical to create various visions - and revisions - of female identity. Simultaneously stripping women bare and revealing them in all their guises and disguises, these poems tell tall stories as though they were true confessions, and spin modern myths from real women seen in every aspect - as bodies and corpses, writers and workers, shoppers and slimmers, fairytale royals or girls-next-door. 'Part of Duffy's talent - besides her ear for ordinary eloquence, her gorgeous, powerful, throwaway lines, her subtlety - is her ventriloquism . . . From verbal nuances to mind-expanding imaginative leaps, her words seem freshly plucked from the minds of non-poets - that is, she makes it look easy' Charlotte Mendelson, Observer

This unique collection of poems from the Poet Laureate, filled with her characteristic wit, is a feminist classic and a modern take on age-old mythology. Who? Him. The Husband. Hero. Hunk. The Boy Next Door. The Paramour. The Je t'adore. Behind every famous man is a great woman - and from the quick-tongued Mrs Darwin to the lascivious Frau Freud, from the adoring Queen Kong to the long-suffering wife of the Devil himself, each one steps from her counterpart's shadow to tell her side of the story in this irresistible collection. Original, subversive, full of imagination and quicksilver wit, The World's Wife is Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy at her beguiling best.

"for days i looked for my poems in the streets, and since i could not find them, light fell like a flower on the lonely square. - the light sounded the drum of a thud. beauty came grovelling forward begging, and children went for days without food." * Poetry is a simple way to remind us of our humanity. It guards against placing blind faith in the sciences which are constricting to the human spirit. In poetry, we discover our basic selves. Intensely lyrical and deeply expressionist, the poems of New Country register the intuitiveness of Mxolisi Nyezwa's vision of his land and his life. Nyezwa has carved for himself a voice and a style that is entirely his own and unlike any South African poet before him.