Ten Poems about Childhood
Candlestick Press, 2019
Childhood must be one of poetry’s very favourite subjects. Countless poems try to capture the light and shade of being very young – moments that lodge vividly in our adult memories.
This beautiful mini-anthology ventures off the beaten track with poems that will be new to many readers. From a group of children who:
“…thought words travelled the wires
In the shiny pouches of raindrops,”from ‘The Railway Children’ by Seamus Heaney
to a baby entranced by mirrors and glass, we see the world in language that sparkles with newness.
Mimi Khalvati’s selection reflects her fascination with how we learn to talk and read, and there are poems about a first encounter with books and about children from different cultures playing ball and swapping words in a village square.
£5.95 + p&p 20pp
Buy from: Candlestick Press
Saudade; an anthology of Fardo Poetry
Published by Calouste-Gulbenkian Foundation, 2010
Saudade – so difficult to translate the yearning soul of Fado music, Portugal’s urban folk tradition. So what happens when you ask 18 of our finest poets – versed in the art of translation but mostly coming to the music for the first time – to create versions in English of the poetry on which Fado songs are based? George Szirtes, Elaine Feinstein, Don Paterson and others find themselves challenged, as Carol Rumens describes it, to perform ‘a translation double-act’, turning ‘a poetic song in one language into a song-like poem in another’. Their approaches span the range from close equivalence to loose ‘imitation’, but seek to convey some essence of the culture and music of Fado.
The music has now taken its rightful place on the world stage, but Fado poetry is still little known outside Portugal. Saudade – the first ever anthology in English – offers poems from across the repertoire: peasant songs from Fado’s earliest days, songs from the genre’s greatest poets, exuberant evocations of the low-life Fado ‘scene’, metaphysical speculation, songs of resistance, and, above all, of love.
£8.50 + p&p 192 pp
ISBN 978 1 903080 13 9 (April 2010)
Buy from: Amazon UK
I am twenty people; the third anthology from The Poetry School
(with Stephen Knight), Enitharmon, 2007
I Am Twenty People! is the third anthology of an ongoing series from Enitharmon Press that aims to bring the work of new poets to a wider readership. At the time of acceptance, none of the poets included in “I Am Twenty People!” had published a full-length volume, although some now have books forthcoming.
The majority of contributors to the first anthology went on to publish collections. Contributors to both previous anthologies number among their successes a shortlisting for the T S Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Forward Prize for Best Poem, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Jerwood/Aldeburgh Prize for Best First Collection, New Writing Ventures Awards, the Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Prize and Poetry Book Society Recommendations.
Poetry to Calm your Soul
M Q Publications, 2005
When life becomes too much to handle, and your stressed beyond belief, find a quiet place, open the pages of this beautiful book, and let the calming power of poetry pour into your soul. What you will discover in this sublime collection are 100 poems that radiate peace, calm, and serenity. They have been chosen with care and thought from the abundant resources of American and international writing. Favorite poets of the past such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Wallace Stevens stand alongside the newer voices of Robert Bly, Louise Glick, W.S. Merwin, Pablo Neruda, Galway Kinnell, James Wright, and others. Though they speak with different voices, the poets all invoke a spirit of calm,a spirit that travels through time and space, to soothe the mind and soul of the reader. – taken from GoodReads