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Crossing Into America: The New Literature of Immigration
By Louis Mendoza, S. Shankar. 2003
This outstanding collection captures the diverse voices of the new literature of American immigration. Bringing together beautiful writing from celebrated…
authors such as Sandra Cisneros, Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Chang-Rae Lee, Crossing into America fills the literary void in public discussion about immigration. Since the immigration reforms of 1965 removed many of the racial barriers in American immigration laws, a new wave of immigrants has visibly transformed a society that has long prided itself on being a nation of immigrants. Crossing into America includes stories and memoirs of writers born in Mexico, Kashmir, the Philippines, South Africa, and Romania, as well as poignant reflections on the immigrant experience by the children of immigrants. This book follows these newest arrivals--from their home countries through their engagement with America--and also includes an accessible history of immigration policy, cartoons, newspaper stories, and a section of conversations with activists, journalists, and scholars working on the front lines of our immigration battles.Still Life In Milford
By Thomas Lynch. 1998
In Still Life in Milford, Lynch casts the cold eye we are told to on life and death, history and…
memory, the local and the larger geographics. Examining the dynamics of faith, remembrance, and intimate conduct, these poems are informed by end times, tribulations and visions that make up the ordinary enterprise of daily life. Colloquy and narrative, soliloquy and tribute, Still Life in Milford engages the full register of the poet's voices as elegist, eulogist, obituarist, straight man and passer-by to achieve a difficult and inimitable harmony.Spirit Machines
By Robert Crawford. 1999
SPIRIT MACHINES, Robert Crawford's fourth collection, attends imaginatively to the fusion of spiritual experience and the insistently material world. In…
several of the poems, emotional and religious insights merge lyrically with modern technologies of information. The title sequence deals with bereavement and memorializes the poet's father, who died in1997, while the serio-comical catechism of 'A Life-Exam' arises from the experience of hospitalisation. The imaginative, 360-line tour de force 'Impossibility' presents a swirling underwater world imaging the heroic struggle of the nineteenth-century writer and mother, Margaret Oliphant. While some of the poems communicate a sense of hurt and loss, others are insuperably comic, giving the collection an ambitious range and vitality. Throughout the book, Robert Crawford's alert sense of Scotland provides a source and sounding-board for poems -lyrics, ballads, verse narratives and prose poems - that are finely nuanced, moving, and excitingly resourceful.Spanish Fly
By Neil Rollinson. 2011
Continuing where he left off with A Spillage of Mercury, Neil Rollinson's eagerly awaited new collection delves again into the…
dark, moist, unexpected bag of human experience. Taking the themes of love, sex, and life's unpredictable mysteries and excitements, he scrapes away at the veneer of normality to reveal a world that is instantly stranger and more compelling than before.Rollinson revisits the erotic with his usual wit and bravado, in poems that are sometimes playful and sensitive, sometimes visceral and shocking. He explores scientific subjects through bedroom eyes, introducing the idea of entropy to the lovers' lexicon; he makes sport a backdrop for loneliness - his characters playing golf on the moon, taking the final penalty in the shoot-out, or wandering aimlessly and forever through the high grass of the village-cricket boundary. Diverse and provocative, vibrant and accessible, Spanish Fly is an unusually happy combination: a successful stimulant and a wholly satisfying performance.The Space of Joy
By John Fuller. 2008
The Space of Joy is a sequence of poems that recounts the endless desire for love (and the failures and…
compromises that accompany that desire) in a number of writers and musicians who fatally prioritise their art. It begins with Petrarch, who created great lyric poetry out of an impossible infatuation, and moves through Coleridge's self-induced guilt within domestic happiness, Matthew Arnold's disbelief in mutual love, Brahm's self-delusion and the complexities of Wallace Stevens's marriage. It so happens that both Brahms and Arnold found themselves contemplating their art and their lives in the small Swiss town of Thun, and it is Thun that provides the setting for the wonderful concluding poem of this collection in which Fuller thinks back to his own boyood and his parents' marriage. If there is any resolution in this sequence of magnificently playful and thought-provoking poems, it is the conviction that while 'poetry may be the only heaven we have', it is life itself that must create the 'space of joy' which art wishes to celebrate.Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award.Sonnets
By William Shakespeare. 2009
INTRODUCTION BY GERMAINE GREERShakespeare's sonnets are lyrical, haunting, beautiful and often breath-taking, representing one of the finest bodies of poetry…
ever penned. They demonstrate the writer's skill in capturing the full range of human emotions within a carefully prescribed form and creating something unique in every one. Some are familiar - Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? - others unexpected, but together they form an extraordinary meditation on the nature of love, lust, beauty and time.The Soho Leopard
By Ruth Padel. 2004
Beautiful, disturbing and a pleasure to read, Ruth Padel's new poems are her most ambitious yet, adding animal legend and…
zoological science to her glitteringly imaginative canvas. With her gift for bringing together experiences and tones of voice that normally stay far apart, she sweeps us from Dulwich Pizza Hut to ancient Siberia, King's Cross to nineteenth-century Burma. We meet Socrates, urban foxes, Louisiana alligators and the endangered Amur leopard in poems resonating with sensuous delight in nature, but also with history and loss.Finally, a Chinese painter searches for tigers in a forest doomed to the sawmill while the minister who sold it scoffs an aphrodisiac bowl of tiger-penis soup.Hallucinatory and lyrical, passionately musical, seething with life, The Soho Leopard explores our human need for wildness- and also for stories, wherever we find them. A wonderfully ferocious new collection from one of our most exciting poets.Soft Keys
By Michael Symmons Roberts. 1993
When Corpus won the Whitbread Poetry Award, the judges described it as 'an outstanding, perfectly weighted collection that inspires meditation…
on the nature of the soul...reading it feels like making an exciting discovery and coming back to an acknowledged classic all at once.' Michael Symmons Roberts' first book, Soft Keys, was the original and most exciting discovery of all. The poems in Soft Keys engage in a search for meaning and order in the everyday and in the extraordinary - a locust officer tracking swarms in an African desert, a hobbyist building a replica of the world out of matchsticks, a chance encounter with the French mystic Simone Weil playing video games in a Torquay arcade... Richly inventive, and written in a wide diversity of poetic forms, Soft Keys looks for those places and moments where the curtain between earth and heaven is thinnest; it was a powerful, arresting debut and the beginning of a remarkable career. As Les Murray said at the time: 'Like Nijinsky, he can leap into the air and stay there. You can reach up and feel the thump of the stage finely persisting in an ankle bone. Roberts is a poet for the new, chastened, unenforcing age of faith that has just dawned.'So Much To Tell
By Valerie Grove. 2010
Kaye Webb, a journalist with no publishing experience, burst into the world of children's books in 1961 and changed the…
face of children's publishing forever. Her child-like enthusiasm and shrewd business mind led her to become Puffin's most successful editor and the genius behind the Puffin Club, which opened up the exciting world of authors and books to children across Britain. But whilst Kaye's professional life had worked out beautifully, her private life had been the reverse. Kaye had two husbands before her marriage to the artist Ronald Searle, and the torment of his sudden and shocking departure never left her.Yet to the outside world Kaye Webb remained passionate and unstoppable. This is the unknown story of the woman who brought the joy of books to children everywhere whilst battling the emotional pain that plagued her private life.A Smell Of Fish
By Matthew Sweeney. 2000
The poems in A Smell of Fish connect and radiate like the spokes of a wheel: haiku, sestinas, poems beginning…
with a line by somebody else or sparked off by foreign travel, a version of Dante, a sea sequence set on the Suffolk coast, and - long overdue - Matthew Sweeney's own version of the old Irish poem where his namesake is turned into a bird.In this, his seventh collection, we are back in a world where all explanations are withheld. 'If Beckett and Kafka come to mind', as Sean O'Brien wrote in his essay on Sweeney in The Deregulated Muse, 'they are not simply influences but kindred imaginations'. So we encounter a valley mysteriously filling with the smell of fish, second-world-war planes reappearing over London, a secret attic mural of a naked ex-lover, a cosmonaut abandoned on the moon, and a subterranean tunnel that runs the length of Ireland. Whatever the subject, we are in the confident hands of one of the most imaginatively gifted poets now writing.Sketches In Pen And Ink: A Bloomsbury Notebook
By Vanessa Bell. 1997
Vanessa Bell, artist, sister of Virginia Woolf, wife of Clive Bell and lover of Duncan Grant, is one of the…
most fascinating and modern figures of the Bloomsbury set, but unlike most of them she rarely put pen to writing paper. When she did, she was witty and illuminating about their early lives. The eldest of the Stephen family, she grew up with Virginia in Victorian gloom at Hyde Park Gate and later blossomed in bohemian style in Bloomsbury. From the twenties to the forties she lived and painted at Charleston Farmhouse like a heroine of the sixties and seventies, at the centre of a colourful world of family, friends, artists and intellectuals. Sketches in Pen and Ink is a unique collection of largely unpublished memoirs - most of them written to be read at meetings of the Memoir club, in which Vanessa writes with wit and charm about herself, her childhood, her remarkable family and friends, her moving relationship with Roger Fry, and her art. Her daughter, Angelica Garnett, has written a vivid and personal introduction which adds considerably to our understanding of this extraordinary woman and artist.The Sixteen Satires
By Juvenal. 1998
Perhaps more than any other writer, Juvenal (c. AD 55-138) captures the splendour, the squalor and the sheer energy of…
everyday Roman life. In The Sixteen Satires he evokes a fascinating world of whores, fortune-tellers, boozy politicians, slick lawyers, shameless sycophants, ageing flirts and downtrodden teachers. A member of the traditional land-owning class that was rapidly seeing power slip into the hands of outsiders, Juvenal also creates savage portraits of decadent aristocrats - male and female - seeking excitement among the lower orders of actors and gladiators, and of the jumped-up sons of newly-rich former slaves. Constantly comparing the corruption of his own generation with its stern and upright forebears, Juvenal's powers of irony and invective make his work a stunningly satirical and bitter denunciation of the degeneracy of Roman societySir Gawain and the Green Knight (Legends from the Ancient North)
By Petra Borner. 2006
'Tomorrow I must set off to receive that blow, to seek out that creature in green, God help me!'J.R.R. Tolkien…
spent much of his life studying, translating and teaching the great epic stories of northern Europe, filled with heroes, dragons, trolls, dwarves and magic. He was hugely influential for his advocacy of Beowulf as a great work of literature and, even if he had never written The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, would be recognised today as a significant figure in the rediscovery of these extraordinary tales.Legends from the Ancient North brings together from Penguin Classics five of the key works behind Tolkien's fiction.They are startling, brutal, strange pieces of writing, with an elemental power brilliantly preserved in these translations.They plunge the reader into a world of treachery, quests, chivalry, trials of strength.They are the most ancient narratives that exist from northern Europe and bring us as near as we will ever get to the origins of the magical landscape of Middle-earth (Midgard) which Tolkien remade in the 20th century.Sidney's 'The Defence of Poesy' and Selected Renaissance Literary Criticism
By Gavin Alexander. 2004
Controversy raged through England during the 1570-80s as Puritans denounced all manner of games & pastimes as a danger to…
public morals. Writers quickly turrned their attention to their own art and the first & most influential response came with Philip Sidney's Defense. Here he set out to answer contemporary critics &, with reference to Classical models of criticism, formulated a manifesto for English literature. Also includes George Puttenham's Art of English Poesy, Samuel Daniel's Defence of Rhyme, & passages by writers such as Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon & George Gascoigne.A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems: The Collected Poems of A.E. Housman
By A. E. Housman. 2010
A. E. Housman was one of the best-loved poets of his day, whose poems conjure up a potent and idyllic…
rural world imbued with a poignant sense of loss. They are expressed in simple rhythms, yet show a fine ear for the subtleties of metre and alliteration. His scope is wide - ranging from religious doubt to intense nostalgia for the countryside. This volume brings together 'A Shropshire Lad' (1896) and 'Last Poems' (1922), along with the posthumous selections 'More Poems' and 'Additional Poems', and three translations of extracts from Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides that display his mastery of Classical literature.A Shorter Life
By Alan Jenkins. 2005
In his most eloquent and formally satisfying collection to date, Alan Jenkins plays a series of powerful and haunting variations…
on love and loss. The themes that run through our lives are relatively few, for all that they sound subtly different to each of us, with their own rich freight of places and faces. In poems that pay homage to what is unique to his own past experience - a suburban fifties upbringing, a heady youth of rebellion and exploration - Jenkins reminds us vividly of what is experienced by us all. The search for love (or failing that, sex), the passing of time and the inevitability of pain and grief, the struggle for transcendence against our awareness of limitation: these are the things that can suddenly seem to compose a life - a life not so much reduced to essentials as seen in its passionate essence, a 'shorter' life. Though not in any formal sense a sequel, this poignant book recapitulates some of the motifs of The Drift (2000) and earlier volumes, to offer an extended meditation on memory and recurrence, and a statement - compelling, candid, sorrowful and subtle - of life's beauty and brevity.'A practical and positive guide to using tech to change women's lives for the better' -Caroline Criado Perez, author of…
Invisible Women: exposing data bias in a world designed for men'A powerful and inspiring call to action from one of Britain's brightest minds'- Yomi Adegoke, award-winning journalist, author of Slay in Your Lane etc.Why are women so under-represented in the tech world?Why does this matter?What can we do about it? A book that asks essential questions and provides long-overdue practical solutions. Perfect for readers of Invisible Women.Why do so many of us - particularly women - feel the tech world is beyond reach? Women are woefully under-represented in tech - they represent roughly a mere quarter of the UK STEM workforce. This means an ever-increasing series of big decisions are made by a small number of people, mainly men.So what are the challenges for all of us who want to wrest back control? How do we get past the gatekeepers? When we do, what are the opportunities that will open up - for us in our individual roles, and for the future of tech?.Dr Imafidon shows we have more agency than we think, drawing on her own experience and the stories of other pioneers and innovators to provide examples, exercises and practical guidance for how to get started and take control.There will always be problems. But, as we know, women are problem-solvers.Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Never Lived And Will Never Die
By Other. 1900
Ever since his creation, Sherlock Holmes has enthralled readers. Our perception of him and his faithful companion, Dr Watson, has…
been shaped by a long line of film, TV and theatre adaptations. This richly illustrated book, compiled by Alex Werner, Head of History Collections at the Museum of London, is an essential guide to the great fictional detective and his world. Using the museum's unrivalled collections of photographs, paintings and original artefacts, it illuminates the capital city that inspired the Sherlock Holmes stories, in particular its fogs, Hansom cabs, criminal underworld, famous landmarks and streets. Accompanying the landmark exhibition at the Museum of London, the first since 1951, this book explores how Arthur Conan Doyle's creation of Sherlock Holmes has transcended literature and continues to attract audiences to this day. Authoritatively written by leading experts, headed by Sir David Cannadine, this thought-provoking companion sheds new light on the famous sleuth and reveals the truth behind the fiction, over 125 years after the first Sherlock Holmes story was written.Shakespeare's Words: A Glossary and Language Companion (Canto Classics Ser.)
By Ben Crystal, David Crystal. 2012
A vital resource for scholars, students and actors, this book contains glosses and quotes for over 14,000 words that could…
be misunderstood by or are unknown to a modern audience. Displayed panels look at such areas of Shakespeare's language as greetings, swear-words and terms of address. Plot summaries are included for all Shakespeare's plays and on the facing page is a unique diagramatic representation of the relationships within each play.Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures On Hamlet Othello King Lear Macbeth
By A. Bradley, John Bayley. 1991
A.C. Bradley put Shakespeare on the map for generations of readers and students for whom the plays might not otherwise…
have become "real" at all' writes John Bayley in his foreword to this edition of Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.Approaching the tragedies as drama, wondering about their characters as he might have wondered about people in novels or in life, Bradley is one of the most liberating in the line of distinguished Shakespeare critics. His acute yet undogmatic and almost conversational critical method has—despite fluctuations in fashion—remained enduringly popular and influential. For, as John Bayley observes, these lectures give us a true and exhilarating sense of 'the tragedies joining up with life, with all our lives; leading us into a perspective of possibilities that stretch forward and back in time, and in our total awareness of things.