Poetry

Written by a leading critic, this invigorating introduction to modernist American poetry conveys the excitement that can be generated by a careful reading of modernist poems. It encourages readers to confront the difficulties involved in tackling this literature and to identify with the modernists' sense of the revolutionary possibilities of their art. Altieri's account embraces four generations of American poets, tracing the ambitions, the disillusionments and the continuities of modernist poetry through to the 1980s. He describes how the sense of liberation created by early modernist formal experiments was followed by disappointment as the limitations of these discoveries emerged. He contends that, in response, poets such as Wallace Stevens and W. H. Auden reformulated modernist strategies to develop new ways for poetry to take social responsibility. Finally, he shows how these transformations were carried through by later poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Adrienne Rich and Robert Creeley, with whom the narrative ends. more...

Price: $75.95

Argues that Tennyson's war poems reflect image patterns of the Iliad and the Aeneid , and reinvigorate the heroic ethos that informs these and other ancient texts. more...

Price: $85.00

'Life is like a poem; sometimes it rhymes and sometimes it does not.'. - from the Introduction. Wendy Lawson's well-known poetry reflects the many aspects of a life lived with Asperger's Syndrome. In this illustrated collection of poems and short prose pieces, including some from her childhood and teenage years, Wendy engages with her past and present, writing frankly about childhood, self-discovery, adulthood and friendship. Her poetry also conveys the day-to-day challenges presented by divorce, bereavement, emigration, disclosing homosexuality and Asperger's Syndrome. Both reflective and life affirming, these poems offer evocative glimpses of the Asperger experience and will enrich readers' understanding of autism spectrum disorders. more...

Price: $14.95

Auguries of Innocence is the first book of poetry from Patti Smith in more than a decade. It marks a major accomplishment from a poet and performer who has inscribed her vision of our world in powerful anthems, ballads, and lyrics. In this intimate and searing collection of poems, Smith joins in that great tradition of troubadours, journeymen, wordsmiths, and artists who respond to the world around them in fresh and original language. Her influences are eclectic and striking: Blake, Rimbaud, Picasso, Arbus, and Johnny Appleseed. Smith is an American original; her poems are oracles for our times. more...

Price: $12.95

The advent of relatively cheap editions in the mid-sixteenth century produced an explosion of verse, much of which represented the first person speaker as a version of the author. This book examines ways in which writers, often seeking advancement in their careers, harnessed verse for self-promotional purposes. Texts studied include a manuscript autobiography by Thomas Whythorne, printed verse by a woman, Isabella Whitney, travel and war narratives, as well as canonical texts by Spenser, Sidney and Shakespeare. more...

Price: $100.00