The ground-breaking work of the poet who paved the way for generations of women writers, in a new selection by her daugher and literary executor, Linda Gray SextonWhen Anne Sexton took her own life in October 1974, she left behind a body of work which had already, in less than two decades of writing, won her the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, established her as one of the foremost voices of her generation, and shocked America by breaking multiple taboos of subject matter, from insanity, depression and addiction to menstruation, adultery and the figure of the witch.
A TLS, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, GUARDIAN, OBSERVER AND WHITE REVIEW BOOK OF THE YEARFINALIST FOR THE 2021 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION From award-winning writer Claudia Rankine, the stunning follow-up to Citizen and Don't Let Me Be Lonely 'Riveting' Bernardine Evaristo, TLS (Books of the Year)'Brilliant' Gary Younge, New Statesman (Books of the Year)'Timely and powerful' Fatima Bhutto, Financial Times'One of our time's most incisive, brilliant and necessary intellectuals' Se n Hewitt, Irish Times'Ranking is a writer of genius' Jeremy Noel-Tod, Sunday TimesAt home and in government, contemporary America finds itself riven by a culture war in which aggression and defensiveness alike are on the rise.
These poems tell the story of a generation in crisis: at odds with its own ideals, precariously (or just un-) employed, and absolutely terrified of seeing itself in the planet's future.
A TELEGRAPH AND IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEARLONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE 'Impressive .
Winner of the Forward Prize for Best First CollectionLonglisted for the Dylan Thomas PrizeA Sunday Times, New Statesman and Telegraph Book of the Year 2019'Every poem in this book is a marvel.
The multi-award-winning meditation on survival, care and the place of literature in an unequal world'Around that time my daughter and I had this exchange:Anne, imagine if the world had nothing in it.
Gathering the best of her first five collections, a 'sexy, cerebral and romantic' introduction to one of the US's most charismatic and original poetsLoose-limbed, freewheeling and conversational yet musically taut, Maureen N.
A POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATIONI could not be held responsiblefor desirehe could not be held at allTracking the joys and pains of the path through addiction, and wrestling with desire, inheritance and faith, Calling a Wolf a Wolf is the darkly sumptuous debut from award-winning poet Kaveh Akbar.
'Two hours ago I fell in love and trembled, and tremble still, and haven't a clue whom I should tell'From one of the truly singular and beloved poets of contemporary Italy, these are poems of the self, the body, pasta, cats, the city and - always, and above all - love.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2018A New York Times Notable Book of 2018Even the men in black armor, the onesJangling handcuffs and keys, what elseAre they so buffered against, if not love's bladeSizing up the heart's familiar meat?
Free-wheeling and surreal yet deadly serious, and including the viral hit 'Rape Joke' ('An oblique mini-masterpiece' Guardian), this book shows one of our most original poets at her virtuosic best.
The award-winning poet's powerful exploration of an America ever more unable to process its own toxinsHere, available for the first time in the UK, is the book in which Claudia Rankine first developed the 'American Lyric' form which makes her Forward Prize-winning collection Citizen so distinctive: an original combination of poetry, lyric essay, photography and visual art, virtuosically deployed.
WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR POETRYWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR POETRYIn this moving, critical and fiercely intelligent collection of prose poems, Claudia Rankine examines the experience of race and racism in Western society through sharp vignettes of everyday discrimination and prejudice, and longer meditations on the violence - whether linguistic or physical - which has impacted the lives of Serena Williams, Zinedine Zidane, Mark Duggan and others.
'So my mind sinks in this immensity:and foundering is sweet in such a sea'Revisited and reorganized over his lifetime, this extraordinary work was described by Leopardi as a 'reliquary' for his ideas, feelings and deepest preoccupations.
'Drunk or sober, king or soldier, none will be excluded'Sensual, profound, delighted, wise, Hafez's poems have enchanted their readers for more than 600 years.
Allen Ginsberg was the bard of the beat generation, and Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems is a collection of his finest work published in Penguin Modern Classics, including 'Howl', whose vindication at an obscenity trial was a watershed moment in twentieth-century history.
As a diplomat in Renaissance Europe, and a luminary at the court of Henry VII, Sir Thomas Wyatt wrote in an incestuous world where everyone was uneasily subject to the royal whims and rages.
The essential poems of the inspirational thirteenth-century Persian philosopher, scholar and mysticThe founder of the order of the Whirling Dervishes, Rumi was also a poet of transcendental power.
The most complete of all remaining surviving fragments sections of The Canterbury Tales, the First Fragment contains some of Chaucer's most widely enjoyed work.
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is universally celebrated as one of the greatest artists of all time, yet iconic Renaissance creator was also a prolific and gifted poet.
George Herbert combined the intellectual and the spiritual, the humble and the divine, to create some of the most moving devotional poetry in the English language.
'Stallings's new translation of Hesiod's Works and Days - witty, gritty, and unsettlingly relevant - is not to be missed' TLS, Books of the YearA new verse translation of one of the foundational ancient Greek works by the award-winning poet Alicia Stallings.
Robin Kirkpatrick's masterful verse translation of The Divine Comedy, published in a single volume, is the ideal edition for students as well as the general reader coming to this great masterpiece of Italian literature for the first timeThe Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven.
One of the greatest epic poems of the Italian Renaissance, Orlando Furioso is an intricate tale of love and enchantment set at the time of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne's conflict with the Moors.
Written by a fourteenth-century cleric, this spiritual allegory explores man in relation to his ultimate destiny against the background of teeming, colorful medieval life.
The poems of Charles Baudelaire are filled with explicit and unsettling imagery, depicting with intensity every day subjects ignored by French literary conventions of his time.
Horace (65-8 bc) was one of the greatest poets of the Golden or Augustan age of Latin literature, a master of precision and irony who brilliantly transformed early Greek iambic and lyric poetry into sophisticated Latin verse of outstanding beauty.
A dazzling kaleidoscope of adventures, ogres, monsters, barbaric splendor, and romance, this epic poem stands as one of the greatest works of the Italian Renaissance.
First published in 1572, The Lusiads is one of the greatest epic poems of the Renaissance, immortalizing Portugal's voyages of discovery with an unrivalled freshness of observation.
Haunting and enigmatic, Virgil's Eclogues combined a Greek literary form with scenes from contemporary Roman life to create a work that inspired a whole European tradition of pastoral poetry.
Writer and religious rebel, William Blake ((1757-1827) sowed the seeds for Romanticism in his innovative poems concerning faith and the visions that inspired him throughout his life.
