Publisher: The Poetry Business
A groundbreaking anthology of new work from five varied and distinctive poets. All five poets are alumni of The Writing Squad, a community of artists who make new work together and support each other's development. Their free two-year programme of workshops and 1-1 support has helped to develop over 270 writers aged 16-22 since 2001.
The life and career of a Poet is often thought of as musing at a desk, or lying in a meadow, or on long journeys to find inspiration for their next masterwork. But more often than not a poet was a part-time profession in subservient submission to their actual, salary-paying job. In this volume we bring together those professionals we engage to bring the full force of the law to bear where we have been wronged, either personally or professionally. Despite the complex morals of such work their verse sparkles with knowing and humane wisdom.Show book
Dear listener, I bare you my heart like an olive tree bares its fruit in the Levant sun. Written in both North Levantine Arabic and English, this is a poetry book on love as I have experienced it. I wrote it with a vision, an image of myself being back on the olive field where my late grandfather used to harvest ripe olives whilst I sat between the rocks and the olive trees.Show book
LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of What Is Love? by Ernest Dowson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 15, 2012.Ernest Christopher Dowson, born in Lee, London, was an English poet, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the Decadent movement.Dowson is best remembered for some vivid phrases, such as "days of wine and roses" from his poem "Vitae Summa Brevis". (Summary by Wikipedia)Show book
Human—Angel—Nephilim. How can Riley fit in anywhere when he doesn’t know who or what he is? With his mysterious heritage shrouded in shadow, Riley Shepard struggles with his identity, his confusing sexuality, and the prohibited—but deepening—feelings for his guardian angels. Questions remain unanswered. His Guardians harbor secrets. And danger lurks just out of sight. When disaster strikes, Riley must make a choice that will change everything. But will his sacrifice destroy the life he’s built? Will there be anything left when the dust settles? To him, it makes no difference. Because for them, it is worth the risk. Sacrifice is the second book in the slow-burn harem/poly romance series, Fire & Brimstone, featuring hurt/comfort, temptingly sexy guardian angels, forbidden love, and an unlikely hero who discovers what it means to be free.Show book
The Field in Winter, the third collection of poetry by David Clarke, winner of the Michael Marks Award, elegantly reflects on memory, time, and the very particular landscape of loss, in a calendar of poems, a 'charm of words' that track and loop through seasons of nature and living. The relationship between the environment, the human body and the self takes centre stage here in poetry that is concerned with being in the world - senses alive to the detail of things, the trunk of a linden tree , the shock of cold water, the frenzy of bees and blossom. But these remarkable poems also write towards the intangible in the late summer's dusk – an empty cage, a bird flown; history's slow grind and echo. Clarke's elegies reach out to touch what passes us fleetingly in a moment of time – 'before the tongue can catch them' – held for that second, precious, in his poised and finely weighted poetry.Show book
Inventive poetry explores Jewish identity in America "How can I teach a prayer / I only know how to recite?" "America, whose death / didn't you come from?" These are some of the questions that poet Joshua Gottlieb-Miller wrestles with in his beautiful, gripping new collection. By turns experimental and documentary, Dybbuk Americana draws out the questions around Jewish identity in the United States, and what it means to pass on Jewish identity to one's child. This hybrid text draws on art, mysticism, and history, taking the dybbuk, a figure from Jewish folklore, as its central metaphor. A dybbuk is a restless spirit who inhabits another's body, and as a possessing spirit the dybbuk is often treated as a demonic force, but it can be read as merely trying to climb the ladder of the afterlife. In other words, a kind of striver. Enacting the idea of competing selves in one body, Dybbuk Americana plays with form via a series of text boxes that create a multi-channel effect on the page. The body of the poem can be read with surrounding and intercutting text boxes to generate multiple interpretations. This innovative poetic technique maintains a dialogue with Jewish literary lineages: Talmudic commentary and interpretation of the oral law, as well as the fragmented nature of geniza, a place where Jews store sacred documents when they fall out of use. Dybbuk Americana weaves together the father-son arc within a larger socio-political commentary and historical narrative. Poems move deftly between the ironic and the mystic, from aphoristic questioning and inventive narratives, to interview, oral history, and archival materials. In these lines, "the angels./ They get as close as they can." Witty, curious, warm, and searching, Dybbuk Americana signals a fresh voice in Jewish-American poetry.Show book
