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  Immediate Song - Poems

  Don Bogen

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  From one of our finest poets comes a collection about time—about memory, remembrance, and how the past makes itself manifest in the world. Called “the poet of things” by Richard Howard, Don Bogen understands the ways objects hold history, even if they’ve grown obsolescent, even when they’ve been forgotten. So objects—rendered in cinematic detail—fill these poems. A desk, a mailbox, a house delivering its own autobiography. Hospitals: the patients who have passed through, the buildings that have crumbled. And, in a longer view, the people who survive in what they left behind: Thom Gunn, Charles Dickens, and the pre-Columbian architects who designed the great earthworks of Ohio two thousand years ago. Songs, ephemeral by nature but infinitely repeatable, run throughout the collection. “What did they tell me, all those years?” Bogen writes. Immediate Song offers us a retrospective glance that is at once contemplative and joyous, carefully shaped but flush with sensuous observation: a paean to what is both universal and fleeting.Praise for Immediate Song “The poems in Immediate Song are clear, perfect stanzas containing interior music, a man’s conscience, and his crystal reflections.” —Washington Independent Review of Books “From its stunning long poem “On Hospitals,” to its unflinching view of life “in the twilight of empire,” to its quiet, deft, and subtly lyrical “song” poems, Immediate Song is at once an extended elegy, a meditation on time, and a hard-won articulation of the largeness of small moments. Simultaneously ambitious and understated, these poems are unmistakably of today’s America, even as they mine the timeless concerns of loss and memory. Bogen is a brilliant and singular poet—wise yet unassuming, sharp yet unpretentious—with much to teach us about the complexities of living in the world.” —Wayne Miller, author of We the Jury

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  The Book of Iona - An Anthology

  Robert Crawford

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  Writings about the Scottish island from throughout history and today, from the likes of novelists, poets, playwrights, saints, queens, and more. This anthology is comprised of creative prose, nonfiction, and poetry that ranges from St. Columba to the present day, all linked by the isle of Iona. Featuring specially commissioned work by Meaghan Delahunt, Jennie Erdal, Sara Lodge, Victoria Mackenzie, Candia McWilliam, Ruth Thomas, and Alice Thompson, this wonderful collection will have broad historical and contemporary appeal. The Book of Iona is a celebration of one of Scotland’s most beautiful islands and follows on from the success of The Book of St. Andrews.Praise for The Book of Iona“A celebration of one of Scotland’s most beautiful islands, this wonderful collection has broad historical and contemporary appeal.” —Scottish Life Magazine“Enthusiasts of Iona will appreciate the rich woven through the pages, whilst those who have never visited will be captivated and spirited away to a special land.” —Life and Work“The Book of Iona shows just what an anthology can achieve when approached with an open mind and imagination.” —Gutter

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  Beowulf

  Frederick Rebsamen

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  This acclaimed modern verse translation of the timeless epic of bravery and battle captures the drama and tone of the Old English narrative poem. 
   
  Here is the stirring legend of Beowulf, the great hero who saves the Danish king from the monster Grendel—only to face the avenging wrath of Grendel’s Mother. The first masterpiece of English literature, it has survived for centuries, passed down across generations through numerous versions. In this modern verse translation, Frederick Rebsamen conjures both the excitement of Beowulf’s adventures and the richness of the Old English poetic form. 
   
  “No self-respecting college professor will want his students to be without it . . . With the subtle rules of alliteration, stress, and pause in place—and with a translator bold enough to invent his own vigorous and imaginative compound nouns—the poem suddenly takes flight and carries us to the highest mountains of achievement.” —Booklist 
   
  “There are lots of translations of Beowulf floating around, some prose, some poetry, but none manages to capture the feel and tone of the original as well as this one.” —Dick Ringler, Professor of English and Scandinavian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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  Dreams of Waking - An Anthology...

  Vincent Barletta, Mark L. Bajus,...

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  In this anthology, Vincent Barletta, Mark L. Bajus, and Cici Malik treat the Iberian lyric in the late Middle Ages and early modernity as a deeply multilingual, transnational genre that needs to break away from the old essentialist ideas about language, geography, and identity in order to be understood properly. More and more, scholars and students are recognizing the limitations of single-language, nationalist, and period-bound canons and are looking for different ways to approach the study of literature. The Iberian Peninsula is an excellent site for this approach, where the history and politics of the region, along with its creative literature, need to be read and studied together with the way the works were composed by poets and eventually consumed by readers. With a generous selection of more than one hundred poems from thirty-three poets, Dreams of Waking is unique in its coverage of the three main languages—Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish—and lyrical styles employed by peninsular poets. It contains new translations of canonical poems but also translations of many poems that have never before been edited or translated. Brief headnotes provide essential details of the poets’ lives, and a general introduction by the volume editors shows how the poems and languages fruitfully intersect. With helpful annotations to the poetry, as well as a selected bibliography containing the most important editions and translations from all three of the main Iberian languages, this volume will be an indispensable tool for both specialists and students in comparative literature.

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  The Norman Conquests

  Alan Ayckbourn

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  Ayckbourn’s celebrated triology The Norman Conquests - three hilarious and poignant plays depicting the same six characters in one house over one weekend, namely Norman and his romantic follies.Table Manners:England’s famous seducer of other men’s wives lays siege to his sister-in-law in the first “battle”. A middle-class family trying to have a pleasant country weekend is no match for Norman, who horrifies everyone by doing exactly as he likes.Living Together:In the second “battle” Norman gets drunk on homemade wine – and all hell breaks loose. He unleashes his merry brand of manipulative charm on the hapless guests and even his most formidable opponents go down in defeat on the drawing room rug.Round and Round the Garden:In the third “battle” the setting is Mother’s overgrown English garden, where something more troublesome than brambles lurks among the roses. Havoc ensues as this satirical masterpiece makes its way to a hilarious conclusion.L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performances featuring:Rosalind Ayres as SarahKenneth Danziger as RegMartin Jarvis as NormanJane Leeves as AnnieChristopher Neame as TomCarolyn Seymour as Ruth

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  Word-Play (NHB Modern Plays)

  Rabiah Hussain

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  In the Downing Street Press Office an emergency meeting has been called. The Prime Minister has been ad-libbing on live TV (again) and his words are going viral.
  There is a flurry of accusations, and demands for an apology; but as his team debate what to do next, it's already too late. His words have found their way to dinner parties, bus journeys and newspaper columns across the nation – and not everyone is angry.
  Rabiah Hussain's play Word-Play explores how language seeps into public consciousness and reverberates with far-reaching consequences that will last for generations. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London, in July 2023, directed by Nimmo Ismail.

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