Other books that might interest you

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  Top 10 Poets The - The U S - New...

  Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan...

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  The language of Poetry is an art that most of us attempt at some point in our lives.  Although its commonplace exposure has been somewhat marginalised in today’s often fast-paced lives we all recognise good verse that can empathise with our thoughts or open us up to experience new things in new ways, to better understand and to enjoy the many strands of our lives. 
  But finding a starting point can be overwhelming, even off-putting, so in this series we offer up our Top 10 classic poets, who brim with talent and verse, on a range of subjects and themes that we can all enjoy. 
  The United States may be far younger than many nations on Earth, yet its tumultuous history has reaped a harvest of poets and poetry of very fine calibre.  In this volume we explore the verse of New England.

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  The Ballad Of The White Horse -...

  Gilbert Keith Chesterton

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  "The Last Great Epic Poem in the English Language"- Dale Ahlquist"The ending is absurd. The brilliant smash and glitter of the words and phrases (when they come off, and are not mere loud colours) cannot disguise the fact that G. K. C. knew nothing whatever about the 'North', heathen or Christian."- JRR TolkienThe tale of King Alfred, the Christian king who in 878AD battled a Viking invasion that had conquered the rest of England and burnt some cakes. He then became the last holdout of resistance against the invaders and forced the conversion of the Danish king Guthrum to Christianity after the battle of Ethandun. Chesterton says "This ballad needs no historical notes, for the simple reason that it does not profess to be historical. All of it that is not frankly fictitious, as in any prose romance about the past, is meant to emphasize tradition rather than history. That is the use of tradition: it telescopes history."Named after the chalk horses carved into English hills (and partly set at Uffington), it begins with an exhortation to true Christianity in the face of despair and defeat, and ends with a prediction of more barbarian invasions. It focuses on the nature of faith in times of despair, and on the true strength of local kings in the face of empires."... you and all the kind of ChristAre ignorant and brave,And you have wars you hardly winAnd souls you hardly save...."In some far century, sad and slow,I have a vision, and I knowThe heathen shall return...."They shall come mild as monkish clerks,With many a scroll and pen;And backward shall ye turn and gaze,Desiring one of Alfred's days,When pagans still were men."

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  The Field in Winter

  David Clark

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  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.

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  More Than Weeds

  L Kiew

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  More Than Weeds, the debut poetry collection by L. Kiew, explores the language of migration and how it is used in relation to plant and animal species, as well as peoples. These knowledgeable and verdant poems draw deeply on botanical and ecological detail and reveal secret histories thriving in the gaps between definitions; here are precious seedlings, unforced flowers, tongues of leaves, tangled roots and rhizomes.
  With roots in decolonialising botany and horticulture movements, and influenced by the impact of the climate crisis and regenerative gardening practices, Kiew's poetry is alive and thronging with the interconnected nature of things – and the formative forces of nurture, family, food, refuge and love. Human and plant voices speak for themselves of experiences of belonging and displacement, as well as encounters with violence. These vivid poems that ask us to scrutinise what is really contained or constrained by demarcations – whether those of weed or wildflower, or of borders and hostile environments.

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  Desree

  Desree

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  Poetry Book Society Recommendation Spring 2025
  The debut poetry collection from award-winning writer and spoken word artist, Desree, Altar explores multifaceted dimensions of sacrifice, challenging its heroism and examining its ties to servility. The poems in Altar urge their protagonists to play neither lion nor lamb, but to live and flourish on their own terms. Each page glimmers with vivid, often devastating vignettes: we witness the resilience of youth, the strength of the Black female body, the complexity of chosen and unchosen family, the sweeping effects of gentrification. Through reflections on Black British identity, queer joy, place and belonging, faith and consent, Desree invites the reader on a journey of reclamation, while her wry wit and disarming tenderness hold us through the necessary storms that mark the way.
  "Gorgeous in its redefining of self" Yomi Sode
  "A collection of wonder and witness. These poems — both powerful and tender — grapple with the parallels of life and death, the body and spirit, loss and love, and demand a response." Rachel Long
  "This is thrilling writing. Unexpected, alive, and curious. Desree enters the page, stage left." Joelle Taylor
  "For those of us who wonder if we've been 'turned off at the wall', Desree's poems act as a hallway: we drop off selves we didn't realise we were carrying, and return, new and re-accepted into our own arms." Kareem Parkins-Brown

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  Chance Encounters - Poems

  Sister Sharon Hunter

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  A new collection from Sister Sharon Hunter, CJ celebrating the people and circumstances who help make us what we are.
  
  "For several months in 2020, I awoke most days at 3:00 a.m. to a mind busily at work; my own, of course. I had a choice to make, ignore it or explore it. Vivid memories, pictures really, of people I once knew climbed from the depth of my subconscious where I'd cleverly assigned them. They captured my attention, and rightfully so, for I owed them. When we reject our heritage, as I did, because it's not image worthy, we cancel as well those who enhanced our lives. Good people, brave people, wise people, sometimes shady and crooked people, all contribute to our circle of life. To fully understand me, I must include them. Chance Encounters is my thank you to those I carelessly tossed away in quest of shallow acceptability. They're alive once again on the pages of this book. And I'm forever grateful for their vibrant beauty, courage, ingenuity, and fascinating eccentricities. They paid the world the high compliment of being themselves." —Sister Sharon Hunter, CJ
  
   

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