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  Trophic Cascade

  Camille T. Dungy

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  “A soulful reckoning for our twenty-first century, held in focus through echoes of the past and future, but always firmly rooted in now.” —Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet  Winner of the Colorado Book Award in Poetry (2018)   In this fourth book in a series of award-winning survival narratives, Dungy writes positioned at a fulcrum, bringing a new life into the world even as her elders are passing on. In a time of massive environmental degradation, violence and abuse of power, a world in which we all must survive, these poems resonate within and beyond the scope of the human realms, delicately balancing between conflicting loci of attention. Dwelling between vibrancy and its opposite, Dungy writes in a single poem about a mother, a daughter, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, brittle stars, giant boulders, and a dead blue whale. These poems are written in the face of despair to hold an impossible love and a commitment to hope. A readers companion will be available at wesleyan.edu/wespress/readerscompanions.  “Dungy asks how we can survive despair and finds her answers close to the earth.” —Diana Whitney, The Kenyon Review  “Trophic Cascade frequently bears witness—to violence, to loss, to environmental degradation—but for Dungy, witnessing entails hope.” —Julie Swarstad Johnson, Harvard Review Online  “Tension. Simmering. Beneath her matter-of-fact, easy-going, sit-yourself-down, let-me-tell-it-like-it-is clarifying. And her power we take deadly seriously.” —Matt Sutherland, Foreword Reviews  “[Trophic Cascade] asks us, in spite of the pain or difficulty of being human today, to find joy and vibrancy in our experiences.” —Elizabeth Flock, PBS Newshour

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  Born in the USA - Exploring...

  Emma Lazarus, Alan Seeger,...

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  Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another.  Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us. 
   
  Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition and even in its more hubristic moments, the crushing triumph of an enemy. 
   
  In the volumes of this series we take a look through the prism of individual regions of the United States through the centuries and decades. 
   
  The United States may be many things: the world’s policeman, a bully, a shameless purveyor of mass market culture but it also, in its better moments, a standard bearer for truth, transparency, equality and the more positive qualities of democracy. 
   
  Little wonder that’s its poets are rightly acknowledged as wonders of their art.  Leading lights in the fight against slavery and for equality, even if the rest of the Nation is finding it problematic to catch up.   
   
  In this volume we have collected verse from poets born in one of the most famous cities in the World: New York. Within its five boroughs are a small universe of wonder and magic, a kaleidoscope of almost everything the planet has to offer.  In past times New York was a gateway to a new land and a new future whatever the misery and tragedy of your former life.  Of course, this golden vision was not attained by everyone.  But our local poets, including such luminaries as Emma Lazarus, Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, Alice Duer Miller, and Alan Seeger bring vision and truth to this unrivalled city and its hallowed status in the world of verse

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  Scorch (NHB Modern Plays)

  Stacy Gregg

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  A touching and provocative story of first love though the eyes of a gender-curious teen, Scorch was inspired by recent UK cases of 'gender fraud'.
  For those who feel they're not living the right life, online is a place to be yourself.
  'More real than real life. I'm honest on there. I'm being honest. That's important.'
  Out in the real world, though, things can be very different.
  Stacey Gregg's play for a solo performer premiered at the Outburst Queer Arts Festival, Belfast, in 2015, co-produced by Prime Cut, MAC and Outburst. It won the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Play and the Writers Guild of Ireland ZeBBie Award for Best Theatre Script. It was presented in Paines Plough's Roundabout at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, before touring Ireland.
  'A compelling look at teenage identity… The real life issue takes on heightened dramatic resonance, fractured and splintered by Gregg's syncopated prose style' - Irish Times

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  The Poetry of Alan Seeger -...

  Alan Seeger

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  Alan Seeger was born on 22nd June 1888 in New York.  When he was one the family moved to Staten Island and nine years later onwards to Mexico for two years.   
   
  After attending several elite preparatory schools he enrolled at Harvard in 1906, where he also edited and wrote for the Harvard Monthly. 
   
  He graduated in 1910 and went to live the life of a bohemian in New York’s Greenwich Village, and thereafter moved to Paris to continue his poetry writing in the Latin quarter.  
   
  War’s looming dark shadow was to have a transformative effect on the young poet and on 24th August 24th 1914 he joined the French Foreign Legion so he could fight for the Allies. 
   
  On American Independence day, 4th July 1917 whilst urging on his fellow soldiers in a successful charge at Belloy-en-Santerre he was hit several times by machine gun fire and died. 
   
  His poetry was published posthumously later that year, it although not a great success his poem ‘I Have a Rendezvous with Death . . .’ is now regarded as a classic. 
   
  On the sixth anniversary of his death a memorial to the American volunteers was unveiled in the Place des Etats-Unis.   
   
  The memorial was created by Jean Boucher who had used a photograph of Seeger as his inspiration.   
   
  Also inscribed upon it are Seeger’s moving words: “They did not pursue worldly rewards; they wanted nothing more than to live without regret, brothers pledged to the honour implicit in living one's own life and dying one's own death. Hail, brothers! Goodbye to you, the exalted dead! To you, we owe two debts of gratitude forever: the glory of having died for France, and the homage due to you in our memories.” 
  1 - The Poetry of Alan Seeger - An Introduction 
  2 - I Have a Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seeger 
  3 - Resurgam by Alan Seeger 
  4 - The Hosts by Alan Seeger 
  5 - Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France by Alan Seeger 
  6 - Maktoob by Alan Seeger 
  7 - On a Theme in the Greek Anthology by Alan Seeger 
  8 - Sonnet I by Alan Seeger 
  9 - Sonnet 3 by Alan Seeger 
  10 - Sonnet 5 by Alan Seeger 
  11 - Sonnet 6 by Alan Seeger 
  12 - Sonnet 8 by Alan Seeger 
  13 - Sonnet 10 by Alan Seeger 
  14 - Sonnet 11 by Alan Seeger 
  15 - Sonnet 12 by Alan Seeger 
  16 - Sonnet 14 by Alan Seeger 
  17 - With A Copy Of Shakespeares Sonnets On Leaving College by Alan Seeger 
  18 - Juvenilia, An Ode to Natural Beauty by Alan Seeger 
  19 - Tezcotzinco by Alan Seeger 
  20 - On The Cliffs Newport by Alan Seeger 
  21 - Do You Remember by Alan Seeger 
  22 - All Thats Not Love by Alan Seeger 
  23 - I Loved.... by Alan Seeger 
  24 - Fragments by Alan Seeger 
  25 - The Need To Love by Alan Seeger 
  26 - Champagne 1914-1915 by Alan Seeger 
  27 - Paris by Alan Seeger 
  28 - Introduction and Conclusion of a Long Poem by Alan Seeger

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  The Poetry of Alfred Austin

  Alfred Austin

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  Poetry is a fascinating use of language.  With almost a million words at its command it is not surprising that these Isles have produced some of the most beautiful, moving and descriptive verse through the centuries.  In this series we look at individual poets who have shaped and influenced their craft and cement their place in our heritage.  In this volume we look at the works of the Victorian Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin.Born in Headingly, Yorkshire in 1835 Austin went on to graduate from the University of London in 1853.  Training to be a barrister was a success but his love was literature and he turned to this full time as a novelist, playwright and poet.  After several false starts he published as a poet in 1861, it arrived with a measure of success.  In 1870 he wrote a book Poetry Of The Period which managed to criticize the great Victorian poets of Tennyson, Arnold, Swinburne and Browning without an undue measure of negativity. With the death of Tennyson in 1892 a number of candidates were looked at for the post of Poet Laureate.   Finally in 1896 after it was rejected by William Morris the post was Austin’s.  His work was entwined with his love of Nature and he is a fine example of this Imperial age. His poems have a softness, texture and comfort that is deeply rewarding. Alfred Austin died in 1913. Many of the poems are also available as an audiobook from our sister company Portable Poetry.  Many samples are at our youtube channel   http://www.youtube.com/user/PortablePoetry?feature=mhee The full volume can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.  Among our readers are Richard Mitchley and Ghizela Rowe. Index Of Poems; To England; Songs From Lucifer; Agatha; Song, A March Minstrel; An April Fool; An April Love; A Night In June; Give A November Note; Give Me October's Meditative Haze; December Matins; A Border Burn; A Captive Throstle; A Farewell To Youth; A Rare Guest; A Reply To A Pessimist; A Sleepless Night; A Voice From The West; A Wild Rose; At Her Grave; By The Fates; Celestial Heights; Free Forgiveness; Gleaners Of Fame; How Florence Rings Her Bells; In Praise Of England; In Sutton Woods; Inflexible As Fate; Love’s Harvest; Love’s Unity; My Winter Rose; Primacy Of Mind; Resignation; Since We Must Die; Sorrow’s Importunity; Spartan Mothers; Spiritual Love; The Evening Light; The Mountains; The Passing Of The Century; The Silent Muse; Though All The World; Time’s Weariness; Too Late; Unseasonable Snows; Wardens Of The Wave; When Acorns Fall; When I Am Gone; Winter Violets.

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  How My Light Is Spent (NHB...

  Alan Harris

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  Every Wednesday evening, Jimmy calls Kitty. For precisely nine minutes. At £1.20 a minute.
  Jimmy is thirty-four, lives with his mum and works at Newport's only drive-through doughnut restaurant. Kitty is an adult chatline operator, living in the granny flat of a topiary enthusiast. Things were looking up for Jimmy, but then he loses his job and he begins to disappear, starting with his hands.
  Will this unlikely duo succeed in turning each other's world upside down?
  How My Light Is Spent is a funny, hopeful play about loneliness, longing and being left behind. Winner of the Judges' Award in the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, it premiered in 2017 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in a co-production with Sherman Theatre and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick.

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