Other books that might interest you

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  The Elephant Tests

  Matt Merritt

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  The Elephant Tests, the third collection of poems from Matt Merritt, takes sheer delight in the full possibilities of language in this study of birds and natural history, travel, personal and universal memory, and even of the occasional elephant too. In the process, it captures the quiet wonder of the fleeting moments that amaze, puzzle and trouble us.
  Eco-poetry and exploration are met perfectly with myths and epiphanies; the wide, wild world outside is precisely spoken for, just a moment before taking flight or merging into dusk. This is poetry unafraid of new territories; Matt Merritt pushes out the boundaries of each poem without ever once losing the humour, grace and gentle melancholy at their heart.
  "A poet's talent follows no maps. Insight, rueful humour and a perfectly tuned ear make Matt Merritt's The Elephant Tests an exceptional collection, whose poems absorb and startle. Here are elephants, benign or brooding, hares, 'sharp against the last sun', humans, who 'lie and wait for the ceiling rose to bloom', birds, imagined and real: 'Rain bird (see also yarrow, yappingale, yaffle)'. Each poem reveals its own richness: 'and the last thing you see / will be the last thing you ever expected.'"
  
  Alison Brackenbury
  "I've become a pretty ardent Matt Merritt fan in recent years. A more observant and articulate poet is hard to imagine. The Elephant Tests is at least as strong as its two predecessors, whilst also being thematically and stylistically his most ambitious and varied book to date."
  
  Rory Waterman
  "The Elephant Tests shows a fully mature poet who continues to explore the relationship between verse and his life. Merritt accompanies us on a poetic journey that forces us to reflect on ever-growing uncertainties."
  
  Matthew Stewart, Rogue Strands
  "There's a great variety of tone and style here, though; much wider than is sometimes found in smaller press publications, more than I have room to discuss here – a couple of the Elephant poems, for example, which drew me to this collection, are great fun whilst also using the metaphor to discuss worth and memory. These are poems of acute observation that enjoy playing with language, both sound and meaning, and I very much enjoyed reading them."
  
  Rosemary Badcoe, Antiphon
  Matt Merritt is a poet and wildlife journalist. His previous collections are hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica (Nine Arches, 2010), Troy Town (2008) and the pamphlet Making The Most Of The Light (2005). He reviews poetry for Magma, New Walk, Under the Radar and Sphinx, and is co-editor of Poets on Fire. He lives near Leicester.

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  The Canterbury Tales

  Geoffrey Chaucer

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  Chaucer’s greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society, and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of The Knight’s Tale to the joyous bawdy of the Miller’s; all are told with a freshness and vigour in this modern verse translation that make them a delight to hear.

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  Absalom and Achitophel

  John Dryden

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  John Dryden published Absalom and Achitophel: A Poem in 1681. It is an elaborate historical allegory using the political situation faced by King David (2 Samuel 14-18) to mirror that faced by Charles II. Each monarch had a son whom a high-ranking minister attempted to use against him. James Scott, first Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son, was detected planning a rebellion late in 1681, supposedly instigated by the Earl of Shaftesbury, who was tried for high treason, and it is believed that Dryden wrote the poem in an effort to sway the jury in his trial. The fates of both Absalom (Monmouth) and Achitophel (Shaftesbury) are left unspecified at the end of the poem (Monmouth did rebel in 1685, after his father's death, and was executed, and Shaftesbury was acquitted), but we are left to surmise that their fates would resemble those of their Biblical counterparts: Absalom was killed against David's instructions and Achitophel hanged himself.The poem can be enjoyed without any special knowledge of either the Bible or seventeenth-century English history, but it is useful to understand why Monmouth (AKA Absalom) was such a useful tool to use against his father: Charles had many illegitimate offspring, but his wife was barren, so at his death the crown would pass (did pass) to his brother, James, who was Catholic, but Monmouth was Protestant as well as well-beloved by both the king and the people. England had good reason to dread a return of officially enforced Catholicism. The narrator's urbane attitude toward David's amatory adventures in the opening of the poem and his burlesque of the supposed Jebusitical plot (the "Popish Plot" of 1678) establish clearly his Tory bias in favor of the Establishment and his disdain of the panic caused by fear of Catholicism (Dryden himself converted to the Catholic faith at some time before 1685).

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  Michael Schmidt: Selected Poems

  Michael Schmidt

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  The Selected Poem ebooks are a new 'digitalonly' series drawn from the works of smith|doorstop poets published during the last 26 years.
  
  Michael Schmidt was born in Mexico in 1947. He studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford. He is Professor of Poetry at Glasgow University and a Writer in Residence at St John's College, Cambridge. He is a founder (1969) and editorial and managing director of Carcanet Press Limited, and a founder (1972) and general editor of PN Review. An anthologist, translator, critic and literary historian, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and received an O.B.E. in 2006 for services to poetry.

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  Citysong (NHB Modern Plays)

  Dylan Coburn Gray

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  Late-night taxis, teen discos, home nurses, Jewish launderettes, vigilantes, babies, immigrants, seagulls. Citysong is a play, a poem and a chorus of voices showing three generations of a Dublin family on one day.
  Intimate and sweeping, joyous and ridiculous, it's modern-day Dublin's Under Milk Wood via Metamorphoses (not the book about the cockroach). It's different things at different times, which makes sense seeing as it's about change.
  Dylan Coburn Gray's play Citysong was winner of the 2017 Verity Bargate Award, and premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in May 2019, before transferring to Soho Theatre, London.

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  Timeless Tall from Two Distinct...

  Christian Capri, Amon Aeinarr

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  This opus is loosely based on a true story – and it is dedicated to the twenty-nine men who lost their lives on Michigan’s Lake Superior, the evening that the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald mysteriously went down. “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”Gordon Lightfoot… The Mysterious Wreck of The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald: there’s songs sung about her! Books written about her! Stories upon stories are told about her, and each year in Detroit, Michigan, a play about her is performed! “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down from the big lake they called Gitchee Gumee…” Now isn’t it time for another fabulous tale, and a movie?!www.davidswarbrick.webs.com

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