Publisher: Ethos Books
Vital Possessions by Marc Nair contemplates how city-dwellers negotiate their uneasy relationship with nature in a world where growth is both man-made and natural. The jungle is always one trim away from over-running us and we are often oblivious to it. The poems question what we hold as vital amid ceaseless consumption and our urban existence.
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - Only this, and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had tried to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore - For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore, Nameless here for evermore.” These are the first two verses of ‘The Raven’, a poem full of dark and disturbing images, rife with tension, fear, paranoia, terror and a yearning for a lost love that has returned to this earth as a ghost. As a poem ‘The Raven’ is without doubt more famous and widely known than the troubled author who penned it. His name was Edgar Allan Poe, and his work was directly responsible for shaping the modern horror industry as we know it. He was the Godfather of Gore, the Father of Fear, the Master of the Macabre, and the Guardian of the Gruesome. Poe was also one of the best mystery writers of all time, however the most fascinating puzzle he left us was that of his own life, and in this journal, we will follow in the great man’s footsteps to turn detective. Edgar Allan Poe was born early in the 19th Century, yet still his legacy lives on. Throughout this celebration of his life and work, you’ll also get the opportunity to read extracts from his poetry and prose, some of which will be very familiar but just as terrifying all the same!Show book
A thrilling, witty, superhuman coming-of-age story about the quest to find your place in the world. When a mysterious cosmic event hits, a group of unsuspecting teenagers is suddenly granted superpowers and together they must work out what to do with their newfound abilities. But their new world of endless possibilities soon starts to crumble as trust is shaken, lines are drawn, and conflicts erupt. Can they pull together in time to save themselves – and the world? Kwame Owusu's play HORIZON was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, in a production by the Bush Young Company. The Nick Hern Books Multiplay Drama series features large-cast plays specifically written to be performed by and appeal to young people. For more information, visit www.multiplaydrama.co.uk.Show book
What is Dynamo? It is the first full-length collection by an extraordinarily entertaining and exhilarating poet. Over the course of this book, things break down, start again, light up, get stuck. Relationships stagnate, mountains and seas diminish, White nationalists fall over in Blackpool, and a wealthy couple's house disappears one day, leaving them surrounded by their appliances, tanned and eating an egg. I'm always listening out for a new poet who can take the deceptively effortless, witty yet ultimately serious chops of the New York School, make it work for this generation and bring the whole thing in to land just outside a British city, losing nothing in transit. And God it's been worth the wait. This is a poetry of exquisite timing, with some of the most satisfying last lines I've ever read. Yates can take an everyday domestic detail and make it sparkle with the mystery of a Raedecker painting. – Luke KennardShow book
What is it to feel nostalgia, to be skeptical of it yet cleave intently to the complex truths of feeling and thought? In a series of 64 gorgeous, ramifying, unsettling prose poems addressing late-twentieth- and twenty-first century experience and its discontents, The Ruins of Nostalgia offers a strikingly original exploration of the misunderstood phenomenon of nostalgia as both feeling-state and historical phenomenon. Each poem, also titled The Ruins of Nostalgia, is a kind of lyrical mini-essay, playful, passionate, analytic. Some poems take a location, memory, conceit, or object as their theme. Throughout the series, the poems recognize and celebrate the nostalgias they ironize, which are in turn celebrated and then ironized again. Written often in the fictional persona of the first-person plural, The Ruins of Nostalgia explores the rich territory where individual response meets a collective phenomenon.[sample poem]The Ruins of Nostalgia 13Where once there had been a low-end stationery store minded by an elderly beauty queen, there was now a store for high-end espresso machines minded by nobody. Where once there had been an illegal beer garden in a weedy lot, there was now a complex of luxury lofts with Parisian-style ivory façades. Where once there had been a bookstore and a bike shop and a bakery, there was now a wax museum for tourists. Where once there had been an empty lot there was now a building. Where once there had been an empty lot there was now a building. Where once there had been an empty lot there was now a building. Where once there had been an empty lot there was now a building. Where once there had been farms there were now subdivisions. Where once there had been subdivisions there were now sub-subdivisions. We lived in a sub-subdivision of a subdivision. We ourselves had become subdivided—where once we had merely been of two minds. * Where once there had been a river there was now a road. A vocal local group had started a movement to break up the road and "daylight" the river, which still flowed, in the dark, underneath the road. * Could we daylight the farms, the empty lots, the stationery store, the elderly beauty queen, the city we moved to? Was it still flowing somewhere, under the luxury lofts, deliquescing in the dark, inhabited by our luxury selves, not yet subdivided, because not yet whole? * Could we daylight the ruins of nostalgia?Show book
Robert Southey was born on the 12th of August 1774 in Bristol. A poet of the Romantic school and one of the "Lake Poets". Although his fame has been eclipsed by that of his friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey's verse was highly influential and he wrote movingly against the horrors and injustice of the slave trade. Among his other classics are Inchcape Rock as well as a number of plays including Wat Tyler. He was great friends with Coleridge, indeed in 1795, in a plan they soon abandoned, they thought to found a utopian commune-like society, called Pantisocracy, in the wilds of Pennsylvania. However, that same year, the two friends married sisters Sarah and Edith Fricker. Southey's marriage was successful but Coleridge's was not. In 1810 he abandoned his wife and three children to Southey's care in the Lake District. Although his income was small and those dependent upon him growing in number he continued to write and burnish his reputation with a wider public. In 1813 on the refusal of Walter Scott he was offered by George II the post of Poet Laureate, a post Southey accepted and kept till his death 30 years later. Southey was also a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer, historian and biographer. His biographies included those of John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell and Horatio Nelson. He was a renowned scholar of Portuguese and Spanish literature and history, and translated works from those two languages into English and wrote a History of Brazil (part of his planned but un-completed History of Portugal) and a History of the Peninsular War. Perhaps his most enduring contribution is the children's classic The Story of the Three Bears, the original Goldilocks story, first published in Southey's prose collection The Doctor. In 1838, Edith died and Southey married Caroline Anne Bowles, also a poet, on 4 June 1839. Robert Southey died on the 21st of March, 1843 and is buried in Crosthwaite Church in Keswick. 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
I am staring at a blank piece of paper, wondering what to write. Where do I begin? My mind begins to wander—pleasant thoughts of Disney's Fantasia dance in my head. The dancing hippopotamus comes to mind, and this made me laugh. The result: I penned a poem on the hippopotamus from which a chapbook was born: The Usefulness of Hippopotamus: A Humorous Chapbook for Trying Times. One cannot imagine a world without humor. Without humor, the world will be dark, cold, and a sad place, tragically lacking joy, cheerfulness, and laughter. Humor is medicine. During rough times, humor will help lighten and lessen physical and mental anxiety. In challenging times, I chose humor. During the Pandemic, I had to deal with my bladder cancer. In my struggle not to get depressed or dwell in negativity, to find solace, contentment, and peace, I chose to seek out beauty and laugh. In search of happiness, the humor worked its charm, resulting in a treasure chest of joy. So, I wrote my chapbook, The Usefulness of Hippopotamus: A Humorous Chapbook for Trying Times, and discovered humor even among the hippopotami! You can, too. Peace & flowers. Love & light. Vincent J. Tomeo, Author/PoetShow book
