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'When you are old and grey and full of sleep', 'A handful of dust', 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day'... These and many others are famous lines of poetry that often occur in everyday speech. But do you know the rest of the verse, or even the rest of the poem? An anthology to warm the coldest heart or charm the least romantic soul, this is a collection of poems (or in some cases, extracts) that are not only memorable, but lend themselves to being learned by heart. This is the perfect book for anyone with even the vaguest interest in poetry, providing a wonderful opportunity to revisit those much-loved lines remembered from earlier days. ISBN 9781789292152 -
Ariel, first published in 1965, contains many of Sylvia Plath's best-known poems, written in an extraordinary burst of creativity just before her death in 1963. Including poems such as 'Lady Lazarus', 'Edge', 'Daddy' and 'Paralytic', it was the first of four collections to be published by Faber & Faber. Ariel is the volume on which Sylvia Plath's reputation as one of the most original, daring and gifted poets of the twentieth century rests. ISBN 9780571322725 -
More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, west off the coast of what is present Turkey. Little remains today of her writings, which are said to have filled nine papyrus rolls in the great library at Alexandria some 500 years after her death. The surviving texts consist of a lamentably small and fragmented body of lyric poetry - among them poems of invocation, desire, spite, celebration, resignation and remembrance - that nevertheless enables us to hear the living voice of the poet Plato called the tenth Muse. ISBN 9780140455571 -
A stunning collection of poems from one of the most revered rap artists in the world, Tupac Shakur. His talent was unbounded, a raw force that commanded attention and respect. His death was tragic - a violent homage to the power of his voice. His legacy is indomitable - remaining vibrant and alive. Here now, are Tupac Shukar's most honest and intimate thoughts conveyed through the pure art of poetry - a mirror into his enigmatic life and its many contradictions. Written in his own hand at the age of nineteen, they embrace his spirit, his energy and his ultimate message of hope. ISBN 9781416511656 -
Pygmalion both delighted and scandalized its first audiences in 1914. A brilliantly witty reworking of the classical tale of the sculptor who falls in love with his perfect female statue, it is also a barbed attack on the British class system and a statement of Shaw's feminist views. In Shaw's hands, the phoneticist Henry Higgins is the Pygmalion figure who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl, into a duchess at ease in polite society. The one thing he overlooks is that his 'creation' has a mind of her own. ISBN 9780141439501 -
In Joe and Kate Keller's family garden, an apple tree - a memorial to their son Larry, lost in the Second World War - has been torn down by a storm. But his loss is not the only part of the family's past they can't put behind them. Not everybody's forgotten the court case that put Joe's partner in jail, or the cracked engine heads his factory produced which caused it and dropped twenty-one pilots out of the sky ... ISBN 9780141189970 -
Even the men in black armor, the ones Jangling handcuffs and keys, what else Are they so buffered against, if not love's blade Sizing up the heart's familiar meat? In Wade in the Water, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith's signature voice - inquisitive, lyrical and wry - turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men and violence. The various connotations of the title, taken from a spiritual once sung on the Underground Railroad which smuggled slaves to safety in 19th-century America, resurface throughout the book, binding past and present together. Collaged voices and documents recreate both the correspondence between slave owners and the letters sent home by African Americans enlisted in the US Civil War. Survivors' reports attest to the experiences of recent immigrants and refugees. Accounts of near-death experiences intertwine with the modern-day fallout of a corporation's illegal pollution of a major river and the surrounding land; and, in a series of beautiful lyrical pieces, the poet's everyday world and the growth and flourishing of her daughter are observed with a tender and witty eye. Marrying the contemporary and the historical to a sense of the transcendent, haunted and holy, this is a luminous book by one of America's essential poets. ISBN 9780141987842 -
A girl travels the path to her future in this powerful coming-of-age collection. Exploring relationships, deep feelings and the comfort of words, we follow her as she grows up - determined to find the freedom to be herself. This is an outstanding young teen collection by a poet at the height of her powers, with striking graphic illustrations by Milo Hartnoll. Great for Teens & Young Adults ISBN 9781913074586 -
A special edition of the poem The Hill We Climb, read at the inauguration of the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, on January 20, 2021 On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet, at age twenty-two, to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Her inaugural poem, The Hill We Climb, is now available to cherish in this special edition. ISBN 9781784744601 -
The Stone Jug is the third collection of poems by Frank McGuinness. The first of this new poetry collection's three parts is a series of evocations of his native Buncrana in County Donegal, "my home town, my hard town". The third is rooted in the styles and subjects of Old English poetry. The centrepiece of the collection is 'Gyrfalcon' a sequence of sixty sonnets whose ecstatic energies embrace affairs, recriminations and a set of ghostings by the dead. "I believe only in what's rough, red and raw," he writes - a claim this edgy, ferocious, passionate work supports. ISBN 9781852353520 -
In Pathogens Love A Patsy, Rita Ann Higgins bears witness to a moment in Irish life unlike any seen in a century: the Covid-19 crisis. Many of these pandemic poems, broadcast on Brendan O’Connor’s RTÉ Radio 1 radio show, were composed weekly in direct response to the emerging crisis. At the centre of the collection, a devastating sequence celebrates the memory of Hanna Greally, wrongfully incarcerated in an Irish psychiatric hospital for almost two decades. Then, completing an informal triptych, a selection of work written before the emergency marks the point when everything changed. Rita Ann Higgins’s wry, conversational style serves a serious purpose: to tell it like it is. Together, the poems in Pathogens Love a Patsy form a narrative that spans eighty years, from a past that is still being addressed, to a present moment that is still unfolding. ISBN 9781912561902 -
"A beautiful book and an outstanding debut collection." Moyra Donaldson. "Poetry belongs to myth rather than history and it is myth making rather than documentary. However, I suppose one of the ways in which, in my poems, I am something of a historian is that I think poetry is a great way of refashioning and preserving language. Linguistically, we live in an increasingly homogenised world; many of the words and phrases I heard everyday as a child have disappeared. I tried ... to say something about the disappearance of those words and phrases and maybe to at, least pay homage to them. And I suppose every poet is a historian of their own past and the past of their families, so poems rooted in childhood or childhood memories are a version of history, but like all versions not necessarily true." Linda McKenna. ISBN 9781907682766 -
"A profound and tender read that requires cups of tea, a sense of humour and a packet of tissues. At turns comforting and heart-breaking, the poems address life and death without sentimentality as the poet skillfully navigates relationships with loved ones, herself and the world around her with a conversational ease that left me stumped. There are few collections of poetry that have touched me so deeply." - Alvy Carragher. ISBN 9781910669792 -
Compiled around 1235, the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, or Ogura’s 100 Poems by 100 Poets, is one of the most important collections of poetry in Japan. Though the poets include emperors and empresses, courtiers and high priests, ladies-in- waiting and soldier-calligraphers, the collection is far more than a fascinating historical document. This new translation, entitled A Gap in the Clouds, is the first to be published in Ireland. As the translators note in their Introduction, “these beautiful poems have endured because their themes are universal and readily understood by contemporary readers”. Published on 11 February, 2021, to mark Japan’s National Foundation Day. ISBN 9781910251829 -
Mark Ward’s long-awaited first collection Nightlight is a journey through a city and a reaching towards whatever light can be found; be that in a sex club, with a board game, a new friendship or a changing relationship. Throughout this journey, Ward feels his way back to touchstones of queer history as well as trying to make himself at home in his surroundings and his increasingly rebellious brain. These poems, deeply attuned to craft and form, mark the arrival of a fearless new voice in Irish poetry addressing sexuality, mental health, and the intricacies of relationships with a fresh eye and fierce command . “In Nightlight, Mark Ward gives us poems that are closely attuned to the body, to physical encounter, to the way history exists inside and beyond us. Ward’s poems sing from the testimony of memory, decipher its evidences, and trace its passage, both as it enters us and as it leaves. These lyrics are unashamed and visceral.” Seán Hewitt. "In one poem, Mark Ward writes “body parts should become agents of commotion”, at another point he writes “Each touch is a spotlight”. In this powerful, energetic collection, the reader is asked to witness the performances, loving, erotic, fearful, which the body must endure." Andrew McMillan. ISBN 9781915022288 -
In a series of evocative vignettes, celebrated Iraqi poet Majed Mujed lyrically traverses the fraught landscapes of beauty, longing and resistance in a country at war. The Book of Trivialities, originally written in the poet’s native Arabic, is beautifully rendered into English by award-winning translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid. "Majed Mujed’s The Book of Trivialities is a gem of a book; intimate, tender, thought-provoking and intricately crafted, these aphoristic fragments contain a wisdom and humour that marks them as anything but trivial. These are poems to revisit again and again for their sharp wit, and their revelatory power." — Jessica Traynor ISBN 9781915017000 -
No one captures the graces and idiosyncrasies of cats quite like the painters, printmakers, and haiku masters of Japan. From the Edo to the Showa period, many artists turned their gaze toward an unlikely subject: their small feline companions. Closely observed portraits in words and ink elevate the everyday adventures of cats: taking a nap on a Buddha statue's lap, daintily eating a rice ball, courting the neighbor's cat. This curated collection of poems, prints, and paintings will leave you inspired to cultivate the serenity and wonder embodied by these creators - and by the cats themselves. Presented as a sweet, jacketed paperback with thoughtful design touches, this volume includes each poem in both English and Japanese. ISBN 9781797211749 -
From John Agard and Julia Donaldson to Nikita Gill, Brian Bilston and Carol Ann Duffy, The Big Amazing Poetry Book is a brilliant, accessible introduction to poetry and to fifty-two fantastic poets. Introduced by Roger McGough, the book features the illustrations of former Children's Laureate and beloved author of the Goth Girl and Ottoline series, Chris Riddell. A warm, funny collection, this book is packed with many different styles of poetry - ballads, riddles, tongue-twisters, shape poems, haikus, sonnets and raps - about seasons, festivals, animals, birds, love, war, food, fish and football and much more. Each poet is showcased with seven of their poems alongside a biography to give exciting, engaging context to their work - plus a stunning line artwork on every page. A must have for any young readers, The Big Amazing Poetry Book primarily features work from twentieth and twenty-first century poets. Included are John Agard, Brian Bilston, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Coelho, Julia Donaldson, Carol Ann Duffy, Nikita Gill, Jackie Kay, Roger McGough - and many more. '[A] warm, funny and imaginative celebration of verse, and the ideal introduction to a mix of diverse poets' - Lancashire Post Great for Ages 7-13.
