This book is a celebration of who we are, good stuff, and not so good, our amazing senses, language, love, gossip, war and cheese. John Siddique's poems blast off the page into real life or they can melt as gently as a snowflake on you tongue. If you've not read a poetry book before then this is the one to start with, and if you have, here we go into a new land. Many of the poems in this book were conceived in primary schools, so John has added special bonus material to help you enjoy reading & writing more, and there is an exclusive interview about what it is to be a poet.

This book is a guide to the spiritual path that clearly reveals the signposts of success on the journey, as well as the blockages and traps that hold us back from a life of presence, meaning and enlightenment. By laying out the signs and blockages clearly and honestly and with a lot of love and humour, the book offers a wonderful resource for growth. Whatever level of freedom the reader feels drawn to - basic human freedom, or the great goal of the spiritual life of enlightenment - this roadmap will guide readers to tread the path of their ordinary life and receive the benefit in the here and now. From Signpost 1, The Arising of Questions to, finally, Signpost 16, Giving Everything to Love, the book explores all the indications of progress those who embark on a spiritual journey will encounter, offering reassurance as well as highlighting blocks such as the painbody, object consciousness, spiritual bypassing, the cult of individualism and dualistic thinking, and hard-to-spot cultural, religious and spiritual influences. In addition to sharing encouraging real-life stories, the books also offers a huge range of tools and practices, from using writing and drawing to explore our own teachability to self-reflections designed to expand awareness and let go of ego, to instructions for effective, safe, meditative practices little known in the West.

Intelligent, sensual, highly erotic, manly and beautifully mortal - Full Blood is the result of a fifteen-year labour of love. This is literature in its most empowered state, and poetry at its most radical, lyrical and affecting. Full Blood invites you in easily, and then turns into one of those books that you can't put down because it has become your close friend. John Siddique was born in 1964. His discovery of his local library when young began his life-long love affair with what words mean and how they sit together. He is the bestselling author of Recital - An Almanac, Poems From A Northern Soul, The Prize and now Full Blood. He is the co-author of the story/memoir Four Fathers. He has contributed poems, stories, essays and articles to many publications, including Granta, The Guardian, Poetry Review, and The Rialto. The Prize, published to wide acclaim in 2005, was nominated for the Forward Prize. His children's book Don't Wear It On Your Head was shortlisted for the CLPE Poetry Award in 2007. On publication in 2009, Recital was described as "one of the most important British poetry books of the last twenty years" by Lauri Ramey of CSULA. Jackie Kay describes Siddique's writing as "A brilliant balancing act." Siddique is admired for his captivating readings and his infectious love of literature. He teaches poetry and creative writing in the UK and abroad, and has worked with The British Council, The Arvon Foundation, The Poetry School and The Poetry Society. He has a website at www.johnsiddique.co.uk

John Siddique is a poet who wants you to read his work, his writing isn't a puzzle you have to figure out. Gathered in these pages is the work of an artist who believes in stories - our stories. From the domestic realities of everyday life to a world distraught with crises and confrontation Recital looks at our lives over the space of a year. Drawing on inspiration from Grave's 'White Goddess,' Siddique's book uses the lunar cycle to tap into the intimate relations of the modern soul; our doubts, hesitations and need for meaning. Glimpses of inspiration from Larkin, Cummings and Neruda inform the poetry here, but Siddique's own voice takes those ways of looking at the world and sets out stories of who we are right now in the 21st century. In a time when so many consider poetry to be of little relevance, here is a writer and a book that has never been more relevant to the questions of today and the people we are. Yet it is with a sensuous and loving eye that Siddique writes about secrets that we almost dare not think about. He reveals the quest for love and the spiritual meaning that underpins us.