Other books that might interest you

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  Idyll

  Matt Hartley

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  Tempers are fraying in the scorching heat as a rural village is overwhelmed by noise, cars and day trippers… Scratch the surface and you'll find danger bubbling away.
  Matt Hartley's captivating short play Idyll was first presented as an open-air production by Pentabus Theatre Company in 2021.

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  'Look Back to Look Forward' -...

  Frank O'Connor

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  While Frank O'Connor was known primarily as one of Ireland's finest short-story writers, he was also an accomplished translator. In the long line of Irish writers given to translating poems in Irish into poems written in English – a tradition stretching back at least as far as Jonathan Swift – he stands out above all the rest.
  Between the mid-1920s and the mid-1960s, O'Connor published 121 translations that give voice to the full range of this centuries-old tradition. Collected here in full for the first time, O'Connor's work shows an uncanny aptitude for carrying over into English verse many of the riches to be found in the originals – the ancient voice of the Hag of Beare lamenting her decline into old age; the voices of the early monks describing the Irish landscape, Irish weather, their religious faith, and, in at least one instance, their cat; the voice of Hugh O'Rourke's wife torn between loyalty to her husband and a rising desire for her seducer. All these voices haunted O'Connor throughout his career, whatever else he was doing. The collection includes the Irish-language sources for all 121 translations along with literal translations, enabling the reader to see what O'Connor started from.
  O'Connor's translations sprang from a compulsive desire to breathe life into Ireland's past, to 'look back to look forward,' as he once put it; for him the Irish-language tradition was not for scholars and archives alone, but formed a living body of work vitally relevant to an Ireland that seemed puzzlingly indifferent to it.
  Thanks to O'Connor's profound love of his country's language and its rich, literary subsoil – 'a literature of which no Irishman need feel ashamed', he once said – these voices from Ireland's past can still be heard. Strikingly modern in tone, they conjoin flesh and spirit, the sacred and the secular, in a way that speaks to humankind.

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  Lobe

  Cia Mangat

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  Winner of the 2024 New Poets Prize, judged by Holly Hopkins.
  A gold bangle, a barber's shop and Diana Princess of Wales in an Indian wedding video. In Lobe, Cia Mangat navigates what we inherit and what we leave behind in a book which plays with private and public mythologies. These poems create a world of love and surveillance, where Diana's revenge dress prepares for the paparazzi and aunties gossip in the threading parlor. Bodies are pierced and cut from magazines while the wedding halls beckon. Lobe is a book of resistance and reimagining, where Di escapes her buttercream wedding, a woman shaves her head and 'george michael will sing every song you have ever wanted to you /directly accompanied by hundreds of thousands of people you love'.

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  Rhyme A Dozen A - Unrequited...

  A E Housman, William...

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  ‘A dime a dozen’ as known in America, is perhaps equal to the English ‘cheap as chips’ but whatever the lingua franca of your choice in this series we hereby submit ‘A Rhyme a Dozen’ as 12 poems on many given subjects that are a well-rounded gathering, maybe even an essential guide, from the knowing pens of classic poets and their beautifully spoken verse to the comfort of your ears. 
   
  1 - A Rhyme A Dozen - 12 Poems, 12 Poets, 1 Topic - Unrequited Love - An Introduction 
  2 - Because I Liked You  by A E Housman 
  3 - Sonnet 87 - Farewell! Thou Art Too Dear For My Possessing by William Shakespeare 
  4 - No One So Much As You by Edward Thomas 
  5 - No Platonic Love by William Cartwright 
  6 - Sonnets On Miss Savage by Samuel Butler 
  7 - I Prithee Send Me Back My Heart by Sir John Suckling 
  8 - Heart We Will Forget Him by Emily Dickinson 
  9 - The Spring by Thomas Carew 
  10 - The Forsaken Lover Consoleth Himself With Rememberance of Past Happiness by Sir Thomas Wyatt 
  11 - The Given Heart by Abraham Cowley 
  12 - Longing by Matthew Arnold 
  13 - Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

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  Chris Bush Plays: One

  Chris Bush

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  Since her play Steel opened in her native Sheffield in 2018, Chris Bush has rapidly become one of the UK's most successful and widely staged playwrights, with her plays on stage at the National Theatre, in the West End, and across Europe. Celebrated for her spirited dissections of power, female agency and northern identity, her work is infused with wit, empathy, and a powerful sense of place and belonging.
  Included here are five of her plays, all first performed between 2018 and 2021, together with a revealing introduction in which she reflects on the tumultuous period from which they emerged.
  Steel (Sheffield Theatres, 2018) is a political epic constructed from minimal resources, a two-hander spanning three decades of women in politics. 'Sharp, witty and uncannily topical' The Stage
  Faustus: That Damned Woman (Headlong, 2020) is a radical reimagining of the classic tale, asking what women must sacrifice to achieve greatness. 'Original, ambitious and fantastically revisionist' Guardian
  Nine Lessons and Carols(Almeida Theatre, 2020) is a play, with songs by Maimuna Memon, about connection and isolation, forged during the Covid pandemic, exploring what we hold on to in troubled times. 'A reminder of the power of theatre and our need for it' Telegraph
  Hungry (Paines Plough, 2021) is a pithy two-hander about food, love, class and grief in a world where there's little left to savour. 'Reconfirms Chris Bush as one of our greatest, most relevant contemporary playwrights' Broadway World
   Not  the End of the World (Schaubühne, Berlin, 2021) is a daringly theatrical investigation of the climate crisis through the perspectives of class, patriarchy and colonialism. 'Staggering… Bush's remarkable text melds a ruthless structural concept with exquisite lyricism' Guardian
  'One of our most prolific and arresting writers'Evening Standard
  'A writer of great wit and empathy'The Times

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  Poetry Book Society Summer 2025...

  Alice Kate Mullen

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  The Poetry Book Society Bulletin is your beautifully designed quarterly guide to the most essential new poetry from the UK and Ireland. Curated by expert poet-selectors, each issue features exclusive poems, illuminating commentary from leading poets, and insightful reviews of our prestigious PBS Selections: an accolade marking the very best in contemporary poetry. Founded by T. S. Eliot, the PBS remains a trusted compass for readers, writers, and booksellers navigating today's vibrant poetry landscape. A must-have for anyone passionate about poetry, this issue features Mona Arshi, Simon Armitage, John Burnside, and more.

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