Poetry
-
The Sonnets and a Lover’s Complaint: The Sonnets and a Lover’s Complaint (Clothbound Classics) (Penguin Clothbound Classics)
Part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.
When this volume of Shakespeare’s poems first appeared in 1609, he had already written most of the great plays that made him famous. The 154 sonnets – all but two of which are addressed to a beautiful young man or a treacherous ‘dark lady’ – contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, and deal with eternal subjects such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by Time. Also included is A Lover’s Complaint, originally published with the sonnets, in which a young woman is overheard lamenting her betrayal by a heartless seducer.
Read more
£13.50£16.10 -
Instructions for Traveling West: Poems
A vivid and inspiring poetry collection about what’s possible when we heed our instincts and honor our intuition, allowing ourselves to strike out for new territories of love, pleasure, and peace.First, you must realize you’re homesick for all the lives you’re not living. Then, you must commit to the road and the rising loneliness. To the sincere thrill of coming apart.
So begins Joy Sullivan’s Instructions for Traveling West–a lush debut collection that examines what happens when we leave home and leap into the deep unknown. Mid-pandemic, Sullivanleft the man she planned to marry, sold her house, quit her corporate job, and drove west. This dazzling collection tells that story as it illuminates the questions haunting us all: What possible futures lie on the horizon? What happens when we heed the call of furious reinvention?
A book for anyone flinging themselves into fresh starts, Instructions for Traveling West grapples with loss, loneliness and belonging. These poems teach us that naming our desire is profound alchemy. Each of us holds the power to set our own course forward.
Expansive and heart-opening–exquisite in their specificity, galvanizing in their scope–the poems in Instructions for Traveling West speak to the longing that lives within us all. They remind us that “joy is not a trick.”
Read more
£13.69 -
Pretty Boys Are Poisonous: Poems: A Collection of F**ked Up Fairy Tales
‘A glimpse to the person behind the glamour and drama . . . you get a real sense of the beating soul of Megan Fox’ – Glamour
Megan Fox showcases her wicked humor throughout a heartbreaking and dark collection of poetry. Over the course of more than 80 poems, Fox chronicles all the ways in which we fit ourselves into the shape of the ones we love, even if it means losing ourselves in the process.
“These poems were written in an attempt to excise the illness that had taken root in me because of my silence. I’ve spent my entire life keeping the secrets of men, my body aches from carrying the weight of their sins. My freedom lives in these pages, and I hope that my words can inspire others to take back their happiness and their identity by using their voice to illuminate what’s been buried, but not forgotten, in the darkness,” says Fox.
Pretty Boys Are Poisonous marks the powerful debut from one of the most well-known women of our time. Turn the page, bite the apple, and sink your teeth into the most deliciously compelling and addictive book you’ll read all year.
Read more
£13.85£16.99 -
The Crystal Text
Clark Coolidge’s book-length meditation on a crystal—long considered a masterpiece of American avant-garde poetry—returns in a new edition.
“No other poet ever has so exquisitely, and sometimes also turbulently, written sheer sonic wonder into poetry.”—Lyn Hejinian, author of My Life and My Life in the Nineties
In the summer of 1982, Clark Coolidge received an unexpected gift of a crystal; small, clear, entirely unexceptional, the crystal nonetheless provoked the poet into writing what has long been considered his masterpiece, The Crystal Text (1986). A durational poem composed over the course of 10 months, in daybook-like entries of varying length, The Crystal Text is multifaceted and elusive, constantly interrogating itself. Is it a meditation on its titular object like Keats’s “Urn” or a radical investigation of the limits of language as a signifying system? Is the poet channeling the crystal to access its message or is the crystal channeling the poet, drawing language from him to fill its colorless emptiness? Is it dictation or improvisation? Is the poem a record of its own crystalline growth or does it capture the process of consciousness itself?
The Crystal Text refuses to resolve the questions it raises but rather inhabits its various possibilities simultaneously, resulting in one of the major works of late 20th century American avant-garde poetry. This new edition includes a preface by poet and scholar Peter Gizzi and an afterword in which Coolidge discusses the text with poet Jason Morris and City Lights editor Garrett Caples.
Associated with the New York School and subsequently inspiring the Language Poets, Coolidge remains one of the most singular and original American poets of our time.
Read more
£13.99The Crystal Text
£13.99 -
WHAT
‘Nothing short of dazzling’ – Alex Turner
Dr John Cooper Clarke’s dazzling, scabrous voice has reverberated through pop culture for decades, his influence on generations of performance poets and musicians plain for all to see. In WHAT, the original ‘People’s Poet’ comes storming out of the gate with an uproarious new collection, reminding us why he is one of Britain’s most beloved writers and performers. James Brown, John F. Kennedy, Jesus Christ: nobody is safe from the punk rocker’s acerbic pen – and that’s just the first poem.
Hot on the heels of The Luckiest Guy Alive and his sprawling, encyclopaediac memoir I Wanna Be Yours, the good Doctor returns with his most trenchant collection of poems yet. Vivid and alive, with a sensitivity only a writer with a life as varied and extraordinary as Cooper Clarke’s could summon, WHAT is an exceptional collection from one of our foremost satirists.
Read more
£14.29£16.99WHAT
£14.29£16.99 -
Reflections on the Important Things: 500+ poems on important life subjects such as nature, faith, mental health, romance, in memoriam, and humor.
Reflections on the Important Things is a collection of over 500 poems on important life subjects such as nature, faith, mental health, romance, in memoriam, and humor. These beautiful poems were written by various poets from all over the world.Those whose works appear in this collection have decided to publish their poetic works under a title published by PoetrySoup and Arczis Web Technologies, Incorporated. Special permission was obtained for each copyrighted poem in this volume. The right to publish has been explicitly given to the publisher of this anthology by the respective poets. Almost 2000 poems were submitted for consideration. The editors of PoetrySoup.com chose a fraction of these for inclusion.
The poets in this anthology are members of the PoetrySoup.com website. PoetrySoup is a vast international community of about 45,000+ poets. PoetrySoup is known for its loyal, robust, welcoming, and growing community of poets (called Soupers). However, none of the poets in this anthology are personally known to the editors and selection committee. They are united by the fact that they are “Soupers” or members of the PoetrySoup community.
All Poems submitted are published as the poet’s original work and under the poet’s copyright. We wish to thank the poets (Soupers) who kindly allowed us to use their poetry in this anthology.
Read more
£15.30 -
This Wild and Precious Life: A Journal
A stunning journal featuring inspiring quotes from beloved poet Mary Oliver and delightful illustrations that illuminate her themes of wonder and nature.“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Simple, direct, and profoundly feeling, Mary Oliver touched countless readers with her tender, accessible verse, expressing her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Her poems deftly weave close observations of nature with an evergreen state of wonder, and her essays about the craft of writing are remarkable for their intelligent yet comprehensive advice.
Oliver is a perennial touchstone for writers and nature lovers. Here for the first time is a journal that invites you to actively engage with her poetry. Flip from page to page to find a comforting, inspiring, or challenging quote from one of her poems, with an occasional poem reprinted in its entirety. The questions that weave through her poems form natural journaling prompts—from “The Gardener,”for example: Have I lived enough? Have I loved enough? Or from “Gratitude”: What did you notice? What was most wonderful? A list of citations for the quotes included in the back offers journalers the ability to delve deeper into Oliver’s work.
With delightful nature drawings appearing alongside Oliver’s celebrated verse, this journal readers them an opportunity, for the first time, to engage personally in a written conversation with the beloved poet, page by page.
Read more
£16.10 -
Lobster: and other things I’m learning to love
A brand-new collection from the award-winning poet, the companion piece to the Sunday Times bestselling Slug.
This book is written out of both hate and love for the world
As people, we are capable of both love and hate; amazement and disgust; fun and misery.
So why do we live in a world that is constantly telling us to hate, both ourselves and others? We are told constantly to be repulsed by our own bodies, bodies that let us laugh and sweat and eat toast, amongst other activities; to be ashamed of pleasure; to be embarrassed by fun. In this brand-new collection, Hollie McNish brings her inimitable style to the question of what have been taught to hate, and if we might learn to love again.
‘Never have we needed her more’ Stylist
‘I’ve loved her work for years’ Jo Brand
‘She writes with honesty, conviction, humour and love’ Kae Tempest
Read more
£17.47£18.99Lobster: and other things I’m learning to love
£17.47£18.99 -
The End and the Death: Volume III (The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra)
The final part of book 8 of the global bestselling series, “The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra”.The Great Angel, Sanguinius, lies slain at his brother’s hand.
Terra burns as reality itself unravels and the greatest bastion of civilisation teeters on the brink of annihilation.
Desperate defenders gather, banding against the rabid traitor hordes. The Hollow Mountain, host to the pilgrims of Euphrati Keeler, is one of the last redoubts, held by the Dark Angels while the unclean host of Typhus lays siege. Malcador the Sigillite sits ablaze on the Golden Throne, trying to buy his master more time. But time is running out…
Guilliman races across the stars to reinforce the Throneworld. Will he return to ashes, where a Warmaster of Chaos has ascended to godhood, or will the Emperor have triumphed? And at what cost?
It all comes down to one final, climactic confrontation: the Emperor versus Horus. The father against the son.Read more
£18.65£22.00 -
Nordic Religions in the Viking Age (The Middle Ages Series)
The popular image of the Viking as a horn-helmeted berserker plying the ocean in a dragon-headed long boat is firmly fixed in history. Imagining Viking “conquerors” as much more numerous, technologically superior, and somehow inherently more warlike than their neighbors has overshadowed the cooperation and cultural exchange which characterized much of the Viking Age. In actuality, the Norse explorers and traders were players in a complex exchange of technology, customs, and religious beliefs between the ancient pre-Christian societies of northern Europe and the Christian-dominated nations surrounding the Mediterranean.
DuBois examines Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Mediterranean traditions to locate significant Nordic parallels in conceptions of supernatural beings, cults of the dead, beliefs in ghosts, and magical practices. These beliefs were actively held alongside Christianity for many years, and were finally incorporated into the vernacular religious practice. The Icelandic sagas reflect this complex process in their inclusion of both Christian and pagan details.
This work differs from previous examinations in its inclusion of the Christian thirteenth century as part of the evolution of Nordic religions from localized pagan cults to adherents of a larger Roman faith.
Thomas DuBois unravels for the first time the history of the Nordic religions in the Viking Age and shows how these ancient beliefs and their oral traditions incorporated both a myriad of local beliefs and aspects of foreign religions, most notably Christianity.Read more
£21.70£24.70 -
Rumi Illustrated (Chinese Bound)
JalÄl ad-DÄ«n Muhammad RÅ«mÄ« (1207–73) was a 13th-century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Iran. This Chinese-bound volume offers a selection of his many poems with a variety of themes, including love, marriage, life and death, passion and mysticism, as well as his religious collection, Rubaiyat, and his long poem, Masnavi, one of the most influential works of Sufism, an Islamic form of mysticism.
Rumi’s reach transcends national borders and ethnic divisions: his poetry has influenced not only Persian literature, but also the literary traditions of the Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Urdu, Bengali and Pashto languages.Read more
£21.80£28.50Rumi Illustrated (Chinese Bound)
£21.80£28.50 -
House Of Leaves: the prizewinning and terrifying cult classic that will turn everything you thought you knew about life (and books!) upside down
Discover the nightmarish tale of a house that is bigger on the inside than the outside that still inspires devotion among an army of fans… Experimental in terms of design, typography, structure and content, this is a fully immersive and novel reading experience you won’t be able to forget. Perfect for fans of Twin Peaks, Black Mirror, Stranger Things and IT.
‘House of Leaves has continued to reward readers prepared to navigate its labyrinth, with a community of fans ready to support them if they ever get lost in the dark’ – Guardian
‘At once a genuinely scary chiller, a satire on the business of criticism and a meditation on the way we read’ – Observer
‘Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent’ – BRET EASTON ELLIS
WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:
‘I’ve never read anything like it’ – 5 STARS
‘Strange, highly addictive and slowly creepy’ – 5 STARS
‘A book like no other’ – 5 STARS
‘The creativity and originality is astonishing’ – 5 STARS
‘Unreservedly recommended’ – 5 STARS
‘Buy it, read it, and explore it’ – 5 STARS********************************************************************************************
A young couple – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Will Navidson and his partner Karen Green – move into a small home on Ash Tree Lane.But something is terribly wrong – their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
Neither Will nor Karen are prepared to face the consequences of this impossibility.
What happens next is loosely recorded on videotapes and interviews, leading to a compilation of the definitive work on the events on Ash Tree Lane, unveiling a thrilling and terrifying history.
Loose sheets, stained napkins and crammed notebooks prove to be far more than the ramblings of a crazy old man . . .
___________________
Winner of the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award
Read more
£22.20£30.40 -
Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair
Few contemporary writers ask the questions about faith, morality, and God that Christian Wiman does, and even fewer – perhaps none – do so with his urgency and eloquence. Wiman, the author of My Bright Abyss and an award-winning poet, lays the motion of his mind on the page in this genre-defying work, an indivisible blend of poetry, criticism, theology, and searing memoir. As Marilynne Robinson wrote, “[Wiman’s] poetry and his scholarship have a purifying urgency that is rare in this world . . . It enables him to say new things in timeless language, so that the reader’s surprise and assent are one and the same.” Zero at the Bone begins with Wiman’s preoccupation with despair, and through fifty brief pieces, framed by two more, he unravels its seductive appeal. The book is studded with the poetry and prose of writers who inhabit Wiman’s thoughts, and the voices of Wallace Stevens, Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, and more join his own. At its heart and Wiman’s, however, are his family – his young children (who ask their own invaluable questions, like “Why are you a poet? I mean why?”), his wife, and those he grew up with in West Texas. Wiman is the rare thinker who takes up the mantle of our greatest mystics and does so with an honest, profound, and contemporary sensibility. Zero at the Bone is a revelation.Read more
£24.99
