Other books that might interest you

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  Bewilderment - New Poems and...

  David Ferry

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  Winner of the National Book Award for Poetry. “This is one of the great books of poetry of this young century.”—Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker   To read David Ferry’s Bewilderment is to be reminded that poetry of the highest order can be made by the subtlest of means. The passionate nature and originality of Ferry’s prosodic daring works astonishing transformations that take your breath away. In poem after poem, his diction modulates beautifully between plainspoken high eloquence and colloquial vigor, making his distinctive speech one of the most interesting and ravishing achievements of the past half century.   Most poets write inside a very narrow range of experience and feeling, whether in free or metered verse. But Ferry’s use of meter tends to enhance the colloquial nature of his writing, while giving him access to an immense variety of feeling. Sometimes that feeling is so powerful it’s like witnessing a volcanologist taking measurements in the midst of an eruption.      Ferry’s translations, meanwhile, are amazingly acclimated English poems. Once his voice takes hold of them they are as bred in the bone as all his other work. And the translations in this book are vitally related to the original poems around them.   “These poems highlight an age-old quest for truth that leads the speaker to consider his present and past, and to translate works by Horace, Virgil, Catullus and others . . . vivid and sometimes heartbreaking.”—The Washington Post “Astonishing—a haunted book where ghosts prove that the haunted are still alive and allow for the continuing company of literature.”—Slate   “A necessary book . . . shocking and heartbreaking.”—The Rumpus

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  The Beauty Within Shadow

  Henry Normal

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  The Beauty Within Shadow is narrated by Henry Normal.Written between August 2019 and June 2020, these poems are concerned with the balancing of darkness and light in our everyday lives, the search for an understanding of pain and sorrow, and the processing of other thoughts we’d usually avoid by filling our days with mindless distractions."Shove up National Treasures. We need to make room for Henry Normal." - Radio Times"The Alan Bennett of poetry" - The Scotsman"Distinctly funny" - Time Out"Witty and uncannily accurate with his observations." - The Stage"Dovetails bittersweet poetry with a sublimely observant wit." - The GuardianHenry Normal is a writer, poet, TV and film producer, founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Manchester Literature Festival) and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. In June 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television.Henry co-wrote and script edited the multi-award-winning Mrs Merton Show and the spin-off series Mrs Merton and Malcolm. He also co-created and co-wrote the first series of The Royle Family. With Steve Coogan, he co-wrote the BAFTA-winning Paul and Pauline Calf Video Diaries, Coogan’s Run, Tony Ferrino, Doctor Terrible, all of Steve’s live tours and the film The Parole Officer.Setting up Baby Cow Productions Ltd in 1999, Henry Executive Produced all, and script edited many, of the shows of its seventeen-and-a-half-year output during his tenure as MD. Highlights of the Baby Cow output during this time include Oscar-nominated Philomena, I Believe in Miracles, Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, The Mighty Boosh, Marion and Geoff, Red Dwarf, Uncle, Nighty Night, Hunderby, Camping and Alan Partridge.Since retiring in April 2016, Henry has written and performed six BBC Radio 4 shows, A Normal Family, A Normal Life, A Normal Love, A Normal Imagination, A Normal Nature and A Normal Universe, combining comedy, poetry and stories about bringing up his autistic son.

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  Lilies on the Land (NHB Modern...

  the Lion Part

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  A revealing, funny and wonderfully moving portrait of four women who sign up to join the Women's Land Army during World War II. The play was devised and first performed by the Lions part.
  Based on one hundred and fifty letters and interviews with original Land Girls, along with songs from the period, Lilies on the Land charts the personal journeys of four women who join the Women's Land Army - determined to work endless backbreaking hours on farms across the country in a bid to do their best for the War Effort.
  But how do these women, all hailing from different walks of life, torn from their families and bereft of all basic home comforts, deal with the hardships of farming life and the pressures of war? Maybe work clothes full of mice and toilet rolls falling from the sky are just what it takes for these girls to get through'
  This edition includes notes on staging and performing the play.
  'full of gems... a heartwarming, unsentimental show' - The Stage
  'poignant and humorous... it's impossible not to be awed' - The Times
  'wonderful... beautifully crafted... has the satisfying tang of lived experience... one leaves the theatre moved, amused and with the strong conviction that one has encountered the British character at its absolute best' - Daily Telegraph

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  Casual Conversation

  Renia White, Aracelis Girmay

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  A Blessing the Boats Selection with a Foreword by Aracelis Girmay, Renia White’s debut poetry collection pushes against state-sanctioned authority and societal thought while ruminating on Black joy. 
  
  
   
  Renia White’s debut poetry collection strikes up a conversation, considering what’s being said, what isn’t, and where it all come from. From her vantage point of Black womanhood, White probes the norms and mores of everyday interactions. In observations, insights, and snippets of speech, these poems look to the unspoken thoughts behind our banter, questioning the authority of not only the rule of law but also of our small talk itself—the concepts we have accepted and integrated without pause.
  
   
  Casual Conversation imagines a new way of knowing, a way that encourages us to think through how we structure and stratify ourselves, inviting something strange and other to spill out. White challenges us to question whether there is anything casual about this life, even as she invites us to consider other logics and to think alongside each other. This book gives space to hold what we fear out of formality: consequence, embarrassment, anger. It plays, it tarries, it disrupts. It pulls apart what seems sound in an effort to see: what did we make here? How’s it going? 
   
  Read by the author.

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  The Poetry of Alexander Pope -...

  Alexander Pope

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  Alexander Pope was born on May 21st, 1688 into a Catholic family in London.  
  His education was affected by the then recent Test Acts, which upheld the status of the Church of England and banned Catholics from teaching.  In effect this meant his formal education was over by the age of 12 but Pope was to immerse himself in classical literature and languages and too, in effect, educate himself.   
  From this age too he also suffered from numerous health problems including Pott’s disease, a type of tuberculosis, which resulted in a stunted, deformed body.  Only to grow to a height of 4’ 6”, with a severe hunchback and complicated further by respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes and abdominal pain all of which served to further isolate him, initially, from society. 
  However his talent was evident to all. Best known for his satirical verse, his translations of Homer and the use of the heroic couplet, he is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare. 
  With the publication of Pastorals in 1709 followed by An Essay on Criticism in 1711 and his most famous work The Rape of the Lock in 1712, Pope became not only famous but wealthy. 
  His translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey further enhanced both reputation and purse.  His engagement to produce an opulent new edition of Shakespeare met with a mixed reception. Pope attempted to "regularise" Shakespeare's metre and rewrote some of his verse and cut 1500 lines, that Pope considered to be beneath the Bard’s standard, to mere footnotes. 
  Alexander Pope died on May 30th, 1744 at his villa at Twickenham (where he created his famous grotto and gardens) and was buried in the nave of the nearby Church of England Church - St Mary the Virgin. 
  Over the years and centuries since his death Pope’s work has been in and out of favour but with this distance he is now truly recognised as one of England’s greatest poets. 
   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.

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  Helen (NHB Modern Plays)

  Maureen Lennon

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  Helen is forty when she loses her husband. Her daughter Becca is fifteen when her dad dies. Now it's just the two of them… what do they do next?
  Unfolding through snapshots of a relationship over forty years, Helen explores the threads which bind mother and daughter together, how they damage each other, and how they come to each other's rescue.
  A play for two actors – about love, grief, and getting ashes stuck to your trouser leg – Helen by Maureen Lennon was shortlisted for the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award. It was first produced at Theatre503, London, in 2023, in a co-production with Terrain, a company dedicated to promoting Northern artists and the stories they tell.
  'Powerful… wrenchingly sad… successfully captures that dislocating out-of-body feeling that can accompany profound grief, and there are some truthful moments of humour and tenderness, too' - The Stage
  'Feels real… the dialogue is strong and natural… poignant with touches of humour' - Reviews Hub
  'Brisk, intense and with a strong emotional hit' - London Pub Theatres
  'A deeply poignant and profound look at how grief can impact a life… beautifully written… hugely recommended' - There Ought To Be Clowns

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