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Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems
by Billy CollinsAimless Love is Billy Collins’ first compilation of poems in twelve years, and a wonderful successor to his first, the bestselling Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes. Aimless Love presents more than fifty new poems together with generous selections from his four previous books. No poet writing today communicates so directly and effectively, and no living poet has managed to both enrich the tapestry of contemporary poetry and expand it so dramatically: his poems appeal to readers and live audiences across the globe, and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. By turns playful, ironic and serious, Collins’s poetry unearths the wonder in the everyday: in his own words, his poems ‘begin in Kansas and end in Oz’. Weaving the themes of love, loss, joy and poetry itself, these poems showcase the best work of this ‘poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace’.
The Alcaic Metre in the English Imagination
by John TalbotThis book reveals how a remarkable ancient Greek and Latin poetic form -- the alcaic metre -- found its way into English poetry, and continues shaping the imagination of poets today. English poets have always admired the extraordinary beauty and intricacy of the alcaic stanza (Tennyson called it 'the grandest of all measures') and their inventive responses to the ancient alcaic have generated remarkable innovations in the rhythms, sounds and shapes of modern poetry. This is the first book-length study of this neglected strand of English literary history and classical reception. Attending closely to the rhythm and texture of their verses, John Talbot reveals surprising connections between English poets across five centuries, among them Mary Shelley, Milton, Marvell, Tennyson, Edward FitzGerald, Wilfred Owen, W. H. Auden and Donald Hall. He gives special attention to a flourishing of English alcaics during the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and what it suggests about the changing place of classics and poetic form in contemporary culture.
The Alcaic Metre in the English Imagination
by John TalbotThis book reveals how a remarkable ancient Greek and Latin poetic form -- the alcaic metre -- found its way into English poetry, and continues shaping the imagination of poets today. English poets have always admired the extraordinary beauty and intricacy of the alcaic stanza (Tennyson called it 'the grandest of all measures') and their inventive responses to the ancient alcaic have generated remarkable innovations in the rhythms, sounds and shapes of modern poetry. This is the first book-length study of this neglected strand of English literary history and classical reception. Attending closely to the rhythm and texture of their verses, John Talbot reveals surprising connections between English poets across five centuries, among them Mary Shelley, Milton, Marvell, Tennyson, Edward FitzGerald, Wilfred Owen, W. H. Auden and Donald Hall. He gives special attention to a flourishing of English alcaics during the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and what it suggests about the changing place of classics and poetic form in contemporary culture.
Alchemy and Exemplary Poetry in Middle English Literature (The New Middle Ages)
by Curtis RunstedlerThis book explores the different functions and metaphorical concepts of alchemy in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English poetry and bridges them together with the exempla tradition in late medieval English literature. Such poetic narratives function as exemplary models which directly address the ambiguity of medieval English alchemical practice. This book examines the foundation of this relationship between alchemical narrative and exemplum in the poetry of Gower and Chaucer in the fourteenth century before exploring its diffusion in lesser-known anonymous poems and recipes in the fifteenth century, namely alchemical dialogues between Morienus and Merlin, Albertus Magnus and the Queen of Elves, and an alchemical version of John Lydgate’s poem The Churl and the Bird. It investigates how this exemplarity can be read as inherent to understanding poetic narratives containing alchemy, as well as enabling the reader to reassess the understanding and expectations of science and narrative within medieval English poetry.
Alden Nowlan Selected Poems: Selected Poems (A List)
by Alden NowlanThe best of beloved poet Alden Nowlan's explicitly honest, direct, and insightful poetry. Now featuring an introduction by Susan Musgrave. Alden Nowlan, one of Canada's finest and most influential poets, died in 1983. He leaves a rich legacy of poetry that is accessible yet profound, and that speaks to people's lives with wry observation and keen insight. Alden Nowlan Selected Poems is for Nowlan fans and new readers alike. The poems included in this volume reflect the recurring themes that illuminate Nowlan's work, and it is truly the best of his poetry. Above all, this volume is a tribute to a poet who deserves to be treasured for all time.
Aleskander Fredro: Three Plays (Oberon Modern Playwrights)
by Noel ClarkThe extraordinary career and impressive literary output of the ‘Father’ of Polish comedy, Aleksander Fredro, was the subject of much celebration in Poland in 1993, the bicentenary of his birth. These new translations by Noel Clark of three of Fredro’s best known plays should do much to repair the relative ignorance of his works in this country. Virgins’ Vows – generally regarded as Fredro’s most accomplished comedy – and The Annuity, both reflect the author’s awareness of the disadvantages suffered by young women in a male-dominated society. Revenge is a seemingly innocent social comedy about a property dispute, but the Russian censors of his day were not slow to spot the subversive potential of the play. Noel Clark’s translations of Revenge and Virgins’ Vow’s have been broadcast, to much acclaim, by the BBC World Service
Alexa, what is there to know about love?
by Brian Bilston'Brian Bilston is a laureate for our fractured times.' Ian McMillan'Someone who knows their way round both a joke and a bittersweet narrative.' The Times'Part John Cooper Clarke, part Frank Sidebottom . . . all brilliant.' Esquire'Bilston is a magician with words' GuardianAlexa, what is there to know about love? is a wonderful collection of poems about love in all its forms, covering everything from romantic love to familial love, to long-distance love, and even love on the internet.The collection also features poems about the true passions for many booklovers, reading and literature, and the odd one about the subject causing many of us heartbreak: politics. With titles like ‘Hold My Hand While We Jump Off This Cliff’ and ‘Remembrance of Things Pasta’, there’s something for even the most jaded romantic within these pages.The perfect, witty gift for Valentine’s and beyond.
Alexander Blok: Selected Poems
by Avril PymanAlexander Blok: Selected Poems showcases the artistic nature of Blok through his poems. The book first presents verses from the collection “Ante Lucem“ and poems of the 1905 revolution. Verses lifted from the two collections are presented. The poems cover various topics and were accomplished in different time frames. Although portions of the poems are only presented, they have managed to illustrate the creative mind of Blok. The text also highlights the works of Blok in English, French, German, Italian, and Russian. An index of first lines and titles are also presented. The book is a fine reference for students of poetry and researchers interested in the works and contributions of Blok in poetry.
Alexander Pope (Routledge Revivals)
by G.S. FraserFirst published in 1978, Alexander Pope is an introduction to Pope’s life and work, which sets the poet solidly in his age and relates the liveliness and variety of his poetry to the strange combination of chronic invalidism and a sociable disposition which marked his life. G. S. Fraser argues that Pope is a more varied figure than his reputation as a great satirist indicates and that he is in some ways more a survivor from the Restoration than a precursor of middle-class morality. Special attention is paid to the poems in the first Collected Works of 1717, which displays both Pope’s gaiety and his sense of colour and beauty. The dignity of his translation of Homer and the thoughtfulness and piety of An Essay on Man are also emphasised. His satirical genius, which found its greatest expression during the later years of declining health, is not ignored but set in perspective. Many readers of this persuasively argued study will be surprised to discover in it a gayer, more warm-hearted and more likeable Pope than they had, perhaps, imagined. Students of English literature will find this book immensely refreshing.
Alexander Pope (Routledge Revivals)
by G.S. FraserFirst published in 1978, Alexander Pope is an introduction to Pope’s life and work, which sets the poet solidly in his age and relates the liveliness and variety of his poetry to the strange combination of chronic invalidism and a sociable disposition which marked his life. G. S. Fraser argues that Pope is a more varied figure than his reputation as a great satirist indicates and that he is in some ways more a survivor from the Restoration than a precursor of middle-class morality. Special attention is paid to the poems in the first Collected Works of 1717, which displays both Pope’s gaiety and his sense of colour and beauty. The dignity of his translation of Homer and the thoughtfulness and piety of An Essay on Man are also emphasised. His satirical genius, which found its greatest expression during the later years of declining health, is not ignored but set in perspective. Many readers of this persuasively argued study will be surprised to discover in it a gayer, more warm-hearted and more likeable Pope than they had, perhaps, imagined. Students of English literature will find this book immensely refreshing.
Alexander Pope: The Poet in Poems (PDF)
by Dustin H. GriffinWhat is the precise relation between the "Pope" of the poems and the Pope of history? Seeking to clarify the nature of the intimate link between the historical self and the idealized self of the poetry, Dustin Griffin examines the various ways in which Pope's poems may be said to be self-expressive. He brings a sensitive critical reading of the texts and an impressive knowledge of the poet's life and writings to his discussion of poems from the entire range of the poet's career. The author argues that Pope is present in his poems as a private person whose special imaginative and psychological concerns emerge because they are expressed publicly. In some poems, Pope confronts quite openly his fervent moral idealism with his powerful aggressive feelings, and he explores his conflicting impulses toward retirement and engagement. In others, he reveals impulses and attractions that he would not admit to full consciousness in his letters. Pope is also present as poet-protagonist, self-consciously attempting to present and master a body of poetic material. Professor Griffin's study recovers some of the personal energy that invigorates Pope's greatest poems and makes them strikingly self-expressive products of an imagination intrigued and often at odds with itself and, yet more sharply, with the world.Originally published in 1979.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Alexander Pope: A Literary Life (Literary Lives)
by Felicity RosslynPart of a series which follows the outline of writers' working lives, aiming to trace the professional, publishing and social contexts which shaped their writing. This is a sympathetic portrait of the poet who overcame the obscurity of his origins to become the uncrowned Laureate of his age.
Alexander Pope and the Traditions of Formal Verse Satire (PDF)
by Howard D. WeinbrotRanging over the tradition of verse satire from the Roman poets to their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century imitators in England and France, Howard D. Weinbrot challenges the common view of Alexander Pope as a Horatian satirist in a Horatian age.Originally published in 1982.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Alfred Tennyson
by Andrew LangINTRODUCTION. IN writing this brief sketch of the Life of Tennyson, and this attempt to appreciate his work, I have rested almost entirely on the Bio- graphy by Lord Tennyson with his kind per- mission and on the text of the Poems. <P> <P> As to the Life, doubtless current anecdotes, not given in the Biography, are known to me, and to most people. But as they must also be familiar to the author of the Biography, I have not thought it desirable to include what he rejected. The works of the localisers I liave not read Tennyson disliked these researches, as a rule, and they appear to be unessential, and often hazardous. The professed commentators I have not consulted. It appeared better to give ones own impressions of the Poems, unaffected by the impressions of others, except in one or two cases where matters of fact rather than of taste seemed to be in question. Thus on two or three points I have ventured to differ from a distinguished living critic, and have given the reasons for my dissent. . .
Alfred Tennyson: A Literary Life (Literary Lives)
by Leonee OrmondThroughout his long working life, Tennyson was experimenting with new forms and subjects. Widely read in a range of disciplines, he responsed to many of the personalities, events and discoveries of the Victorian age. Still widely regarded as an apologist for the 'establishment', Tennyson was always an outsider. Scourged by reviewers, and haunted by his own nervous disposition, Tennyson endured years of despair. Even when the tide turned in 1850 Tennyson remained a stern critic of his contemporaries.
An Algebra (Phoenix Poets)
by Don Bogenfrom Bagatelles Bagatelles, mere gestures in dry air, each pluck a dot, strokes marked on silence reaching into the dark. Beauty is strict, it passes: an echo, a wedge of harmony, sudden, broken—Who goes there? An Algebra is an interwoven collection of eight sequences and sixteen individual poems, where images and phrases recur in new contexts, connecting and suspending thoughts, emotions and insights. By turns, the poems leap from the public realm of urban decay and outsourcing to the intimacies of family life, from a street mime to a haunting dream, from elegy to lyric evocation. Wholeness and brokenness intertwine in the book; glimpsed patterns and startling disjunctions drive its explorations. An Algebra is a work of changing equivalents, a search for balance in a world of transformation and loss. It is a brilliantly constructed, moving book by a poet who has achieved a new level of imaginative expression and skill. Praise for After the Splendid Display “In his best work . . . conscience and craft fuse seamlessly, and the result is original and arresting."—The Nation
An Algebra (Phoenix Poets)
by Don Bogenfrom Bagatelles Bagatelles, mere gestures in dry air, each pluck a dot, strokes marked on silence reaching into the dark. Beauty is strict, it passes: an echo, a wedge of harmony, sudden, broken—Who goes there? An Algebra is an interwoven collection of eight sequences and sixteen individual poems, where images and phrases recur in new contexts, connecting and suspending thoughts, emotions and insights. By turns, the poems leap from the public realm of urban decay and outsourcing to the intimacies of family life, from a street mime to a haunting dream, from elegy to lyric evocation. Wholeness and brokenness intertwine in the book; glimpsed patterns and startling disjunctions drive its explorations. An Algebra is a work of changing equivalents, a search for balance in a world of transformation and loss. It is a brilliantly constructed, moving book by a poet who has achieved a new level of imaginative expression and skill. Praise for After the Splendid Display “In his best work . . . conscience and craft fuse seamlessly, and the result is original and arresting."—The Nation
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass: An Illustrated Classic (Macmillan Collector's Library)
by Lewis CarrollOn a glorious summer's afternoon, young Alice happens upon a smartly dressed rabbit looking at his watch and muttering 'I'm too late!' This being an unexpected occurrence, she follows him down a nearby rabbit hole and falls in Wonderland.Lewis Carroll's timeless children's stories Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There are magically brought to life in this new adaptation by Adrian Mitchell, specially commissioned for a Christmas production by the RSC. The amazing Lobster Quadrille, the Queen of Hearts' infamous croquet match and the Mad Hatter's Tea Party are just a few of the remarkable events and characters in this enchanting play.
Alice Walker: Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965-1990
by Alice WalkerThe collected poems of the Pulitzer Prize winning author of THE COLOR PURPLE.'I am the womanoffering two flowerswhose roots are twin.Justice and HopeHope and JusticeLet us begin'Alice Walker has been writing poetry since the summer of 1965, when she travelled to East Africa and began the collection ONCE while sitting beneath a tree facing Mount Kenya.Encompassing the collections ONCE, REVOLUTIONARY PETUNIAS & OTHER POEMS, GOOD NIGHT WILLIE LEE I'LL SEE YOU IN THE MORNING, and HORSES MAKE A LANDSCAPE LOOK MORE BEAUTIFUL as well as other poems, this is a wonderful, surprising, entertaining collection that offers a historical perspective on the evolution of both the poetry itself and the political and spiritual inspiration behind it.
Aliens Love Underpants
by Claire Freedman Ben Cort"Aliens love underpants, in every shape and size, But there are no underpants in space, so here's a big surprise. . . . " This zany, hilarious tale is delightfully brought to life by Ben Cort's vibrant illustrations. With a madcap, rhyming text by award-winning Claire Freedman, this is sure to enchant and amuse the whole family! Perfect for joining in, this story is fantastically fresh and funny - you'll laugh your pants off!
All About Cats: Fantastically Funny Rhymes
by Frantz WittkampAll About Cats is a collection of hilarious rhymes . . . all about cats! These short, funny rhymes are brought to life with illustrations from Axel Scheffler, the bestselling illustrator of The Gruffalo. Cats are sleek, and cats are slick. They read, and do arithmetic!Have you ever seen a cat playing a piano? Or taking a bubble bath with a rubber duck? Find out what cats really get up to when people aren't around! Axel Scheffler's charming and witty illustrations introduce all kinds of cats – making mischief, playing games, singing songs and out on adventures. This collection of hilarious, quirky poems by Frantz Wittkamp is wonderfully adapted from German to English for the very first time by celebrated children's author David Henry Wilson.With fourteen delightfully funny short poems, and full-page colour illustrations by Axel Scheffler, the genius illustrator of Room on the Broom, Zog, The Smeds and the Smoos and many more, this collection is sure to entertain children young and old, and is the perfect gift for any cat fan.
All The Names Given
by Raymond AntrobusFrom the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2019Raymond Antrobus’s astonishing debut collection, The Perseverance, won both Rathbone Folio Prize and the Ted Hughes Award, amongst many other accolades; the poet’s much anticipated second collection, All The Names Given, continues his essential investigation into language, miscommunication, place, and memory. Beginning with poems meditating on the author’s surname – one which shouldn’t have survived into the modern era – Antrobus then examines the rich and fraught history carried within it. As he describes a childhood caught between intimacy and brutality, sound and silence, and conflicting racial and cultural identities, the poem becomes a space in which the poet can reckon with his own ancestry, and bear witness to the indelible violence of the legacy wrought by colonialism. The poems travel through space, shifting between England, South Africa, Jamaica, and the American South, and move fluently from family history, through the lust of adolescence, and finally into a vivid and complex array of marriage poems — with the poet older, wiser, and more accepting of love’s fragility.Throughout, All The Names Given is punctuated with [Caption Poems] partially inspired by Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim, which attempt to fill in the silences and transitions between the poems, as well as moments inside and outside of them. Direct, open, formally sophisticated, All The Names Given breaks new ground both in form and content: the result is a timely, humane and tender book from one of the most important young poets of his generation.
All of Us: The Collected Poems (Vintage Contemporaries Ser.)
by Raymond CarverRaymond Carver, who became a master-storyteller of his generation and was hailed in Europe as 'the American Chekhov', wrote of himself: "I began as a poet. My first publication was a poem. So I suppose on my tombstone I'd be very pleased if they put 'Poet and short-story writer - and occasional essayist', in that order." This complete edition allows readers to experience the range and overwhelming power of Carver's poetry for the first time. It brings together in the order of their American publication the poems of Fires (1985), Where Water Comes Together with Other Water (1986), Ultramarine (1988), A New Path to the Waterfall (1989) and No Heroics, Please (1991). For readers who know Carver's middle period only through his selected poems, In a Marine Light (1988), it includes the windfall of 51 poems not previously published in Britain. All of Us is edited by Professor William L. Stull of the University of Hartford, and introduced with an essay on Raymond Carver's methods of composition by his widow, the poet Tess Gallagher.
All One Breath
by John BurnsideShortlisted for the 2014 T.S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize for Best Collection‘There are lines in All One Breath for instance, that brand themselves into your brain with the fire of painful recognition. And yet it is also part of his genius to be ever alert to beauty, too.’ - Sebastian Barry, a New Statesman Book of the YearIn this absorbing, brilliant new collection – his first since Black Cat Bone – John Burnside examines our shared experience of this mortal world: how we are ‘all one breath’ and – with that breath – how we must strive towards the harmony of choir. Recognising that our attitudes to other creatures – human and non-human – cause too much damage and hurt, that ‘we’ve been going at this for years: / a steady delete / of anything that tells us what we are’, these poems celebrate the fleeting, charged moments where, through measured and gracious encounters with other lives, we find our true selves, and bring some brief, insubstantial goodness and beauty into being. He presents the world in a series of still lifes, in tableaux vivants and tableaux morts, in laboratory tests, anatomy lessons, in a Spiegelkabinett where the reflections in the mirrors, distorted as they seem, reveal buried truths. All the images are in some sense self-portraits: all are, in some way, elegies.One of the finest and most celebrated lyric poets at work today, John Burnside is a master of the moment – when the frames of our film seem to slow and stop and a life slips through the gap in between – and each poem here is a perfect, uncanny hymn to humanity, set down ‘to tell the lives of others’.