Other books that might interest you

• 

  Poems of the Orient

  Khayyam

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The Rubá’iyát of Omar Khayyam, in the famous translation by Edward FitzGerald, remains one of the most popular poems. It expressed the fascination of Victorian England with the Orient. Here, it forms the main work in the first half, along with other shorter poems by other leading Persian and Indian figures, including Rumi, Sa’di and Rabindranath Tagore. The second half is devoted to works written by Western poets on the theme of the East with The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, an excerpt from Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh – one of the best-sellers of the early nineteenth century.

  Show book

• 

  The Graveyard Poets

  Thomas Gray, Thomas Dermody,...

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  At first thought this seems an unlikely area to find fine poetry. The "Graveyard Poets", also known as “Churchyard Poets or "the Boneyard Boys” began in pre-romantic days with a leaning towards gloom, melancholy and the general decay of churchyards. It should be remembered that in the 18th Century City graveyards were a teeming mass of overcrowding and disease, their country brethren better but hardly idylls of worship. 
  What would eventually lead to the Gothic literary genre began, in the main, with reflections by Christian clergymen upon God, mortality and the assumed after-life. 
  And in their musings are classics from such talented poets as Thomas Gray, Thomas Parnell, James Thomson and Edward Young together with many others who elevate words from a perhaps murky underworld to examples of poetic beauty which few can rival. 
   This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialized imprint from Deadtree Publishing.  Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.

  Show book

• 

  On The Boats - A Tragi-Comedy

  Cherry Coombe

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  ‘A snake-bite in the gullet’ Martin Boileau 
  Foreword from Sir Anthony Seldon: 
  'Like a fine Prosecco in summer, they trickle easily through your body, leaving you gently uplifted and transported. 
  The author is a brilliant teacher and inspirer of creative writing, a passionate supporter of students and staff, and our very own ‘Happiness Tsar’, responsible for driving forward our pioneering well-being agenda. 
  Many of the poems that follow reveal the author’s rare combination of skill as a writer and deep human sensitivity. To me, perhaps understandably, the poem on the Boss epitomises that combination at its best.'

  Show book

• 

  Thon Man Molière (NHB Modern Plays)

  Liz Lochhead

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Welcome to Paris at the time of Louis XIV. Come backstage and meet the King's theatre company – a troupe of grandes dames, old hams, ingénues and, of course, their leading man, author of their dramas and cause of all their troubles... thon man Molière.
  Under constant threat of debtors' prison, in big bother with church and state and – worst of all – disastrously in love, Molière writes brilliant, scurrilous comedies inspired by a desperate life. But telling the truth is a dangerous business and his latest drama could be the death of him…
  Liz Lochhead's play Thon Man Molière was first performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in 2016, in a production starring Jimmy Chisholm and Siobhan Redmond.
  'I was so moved by this play, which surprised me, as I had expected a knockabout comedy. Don't get me wrong, it was funny. But I hadn't expected the tenderness and emotional complexity. The bond – eternal, exasperated, essential – between Molière and Madeleine is the core of the piece, but all of these characters seem every bit as human and deep and strange and needy as theatre people always are.' David Greig

  Show book

• 

  Second Place Rosette - Poems...

  Richard O'Brien

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Second Place Rosette is a calendar of the customs, rituals and practices that make up life in modern Britain. The poems take in maypole dancing, mehndi painting, and medical prescriptions. Some events, like the Jewish Sabbath, happen every week; some, like the putting away of Christmas decorations, thankfully come only once a year. The subjects range from the universal to the personal: every family might have its own ritual, and each culture its own important figures to remember and commemorate. In the introduction, co-editor Emma Wright notes how, as the daughter of a refugee, she felt 'deeply disturbed by current discourse about Britishness and how it seems impossible to separate talk of national identity and pride from talk of exclusion and isolation.' Against that divisive rhetoric, Wright and co-editor Richard O'Brien have assembled a refreshingly inclusive take on national identity. Poets from different cultural backgrounds speak to their sense of what Britain means through their own daily lived experience, through what they care about on a grass-roots level. The nation which emerges from the poems is a patchwork quilt of betting tips and TV dinners, nights out on Bold Street and strolls in the park. While the years pass, the seasons cycle, and the people who make up the country change, these poets reveal how much stays the same. In Britain, there will always be a man running late who really should have been allowed to get the bus, and a warm spot by the fire in a pub in December. Much of the book displays an ambivalence towards the land and its rituals, but there is also love, affection and pride. Mixed feelings: what could be more British than that?

  Show book

• 

  Musings Poetic Echoes

  Eugenia Fain

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Inspirational poems

  Show book