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Admirers of the work of Sylvia Plath will welcome this new paperback edition of a study, first published by The Athlone Press in 1976, which provides coherent and persuasive readings of her poetry. Drawing upon the traditional skills of the literary critic, David Holbrook also deploys the illumination of both psychoanalysis and phenomenology in a pioneering work of literary, individual and cultural interpretation.
When Edward Thomas died in the First World War, very few of his poems had been published, but he is now recognised as one of the finest and most influential poets of the last century. Although often referred to as a poet s poet, his writing has an almost universal appeal. He wrote accessibly, on traditional themes the natural world, human relationships, transience and mortality. And yet his poetry is alive with the critical intelligence that came from years of writing non-fiction and reviewing verse. Branch-Lines captures the range of Thomas s achievement, not least by combining poetry with prose. In this unique collection, fifty-five contemporary poets reflect on Thomas s craftsmanship and ...
Presents a collection of critical essays about the works of John Donne and other metaphysical poets.
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`The conviction, pleasures and gratitude of committed reading are evident in his affirmation of the poetic contract between readers and writers.' Andrea Brady, Poetry Review --
John Lucas' study examines how the notion of Englishness is expressed in English poetry. His subject is not patriotism, but the way poets are forced to place themselves in a tradition, a relationship to the State and the Establishment, sometimes as apologists, sometimes as rebels and outsiders.
Does what is true depend on where you are? or, can we speak of a British culture which varies gradually over the 600 miles from one end of the island to the other, with currents gradually mutating and turning into their opposites as they cross such a distance? In Centre and Periphery in Modern British Poetry Andrew Duncan (a published poet himself) identifies distinctive traditions in three regions of the Britsh Isles providing a polemic tour of Scotland, Wales, and the North of England while revealing the struggle for ‘cultural assets’. The book exposes the possibility that the finest poets of the last 50 years have lived in the outlands, not networking and neglecting to acquire linguistic signs of status. Centre and Periphery in Modern British Poetry provides insightful accounts of major poets such as Sorley Maclean, Glyn Jones, Colin Simms, and Michael Haslam.
"Donald Allen's prophetic anthology had an electrifying effect on two generations, at least, of American poets and readers. More than the repetition of familiar names and ideas that most anthologies seem to be about, here was the declaration of a collective, intelligent, and thoroughly visionary work-in-progress: the primary example for its time of the anthology-as-manifesto. Its republication today--complete with poems, statements on poetics, and autobiographical projections--provides us, again, with a model of how a contemporary anthology can and should be shaped. In these essentials it remains as fresh and useful a guide as it was in 1960."--Jerome Rothenberg, editor of Poems for the Millennium "The New American Poetry is a crucial cultural document, central to defining the poetics and the broader cultural dynamics of a particular historical moment."--Alan Golding, author of From Outlaw to Classic: Canons in American Poetry
From John Bunyan's 'country rhimes' to rude chants about Manchester United, from Ted Hughes to Edward Lear, and from William Blake to the Taylor sisters, Morag Styles covers three hundred years of poetry with infectious enthusiasm and a keen critical eye. In this scholarly and fascinating book, she provides an informative account of the history of poetry written for children in Britain and America in the last three centuries. She analyses the major poets, genres and developments over this period, and traces the continuities between the past and the present. Styles asks fundamental questions which have often been left unanswered: What do we mean by children's poetry? Why did such a seemingly small number of women write poetry for children until recently? The author subscribes to the widest possible definition of poetry, and so the reader will find in this book hymns, songs, playground rhymes, raps and verse - whether trivial or profound. From the Garden to the Street will provoke, inform and entertain academics of children's literature, those who teach it in the classroom, and all of us who still take pleasure in the poetry of childhood.