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Tom Raworth Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)

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Tom Raworth Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)
Tom Raworth
Manufacturer: Carcanet Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2005 (Wesleyan Poetry)
The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan
The Age of Huts (compleat) (New California Poetry)
The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser
Way More West (Poets, Penguin)

ASIN: 1857546245

Book Description

The first collection of Tom Raworth's poetry available in one volume, this work will change the way British poetry, in particular the modernist tradition, is seen. Part tragedy, part comedy, these poems reflect Raworth's view of life's fated inevitabilities. His sense of modern urgency plays against a similar sense of readiness in the spirit of Shelley and Byron. His eager verse will both challenge and fascinate those who wish to understand the value of British poetry.

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Science fiction in Edwin Morgan

Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)
Edwin Morgan
Manufacturer: Carcanet Press,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Science fiction in Edwin Morgan.......2006-07-10

"The value probably is connected with the value of imagination. It's also part of what a poet does to keep the imagination fresh. Science fiction is maybe just a modern extension of something that has always been there, in for example, Milton and Shelley" says Edwin Morgan in one of his interviews. Edwin Morgan, who is a prominent Scottish poet, dramatist and translator, is interested in many different areas such as languages, technology, art and film. In his poems, it is possible to see a variety of style, form and content. Tom Pow suggests in his article, "The Driving Spirit of Morgan", that:
Morgan has always been an imaginative explorer of the most intrepid kind. He has described poetry `as partly an instrument of exploration like a spaceship', and he has proved it so, not only in his pursuit of subject matter, but in his broadening of the possibilities for poetry, to include sound poetry, found poetry, visual and concrete poetry.

And it is quite possible to see that his being "an imaginative explorer" leads him to explore the realms of developing technology and astronomy. Through his interest in technology, he creates a world out of machines, computers and spaceships, and changes the traditional limits of poetic imagination.
His Sonnets from Scotland (1984) is one of the significant works of post-war literature. And through these poems, it is possible to explore the life, landscape and the changing nature of Scotland. The most particular thing is that in these poems he uses science fiction elements to describe the country. "Carboniferous" is one of these poems whose science fiction elements are remarkable. Carboniferous is one of the periods of the geological timescale extending from the end of the Devonian period, to the beginning of the Permian period. The name is given for the large coal beds of that age which are found in Great Britain and Western Europe. So the poem depicts the situation of the Scottish territories in the Carboniferous period. As can be easily guessed, even the title of the poem sounds quite strange and surprising. The poet prefers to use a word from geological terminology, which refers to a period of primeval world before the coming of mankind, instead of using a word referring to a realm which human experience and knowledge can reach. Although the poem is about a primeval period during which it is impossible to see any traces of human being and, thus, human technology, the poem starts with a description of a world in a "superchitin scuba-gear":
Diving in the warm seas around Bearsden,
cased in our superchitin scuba-gear,
we found a world so wonderfully clear
it seemed a heave given there and then.

These lines are suggested by some uncertain subjects who call themselves as "we". Throughout the sonnet, it is not possible to know the nature of these subjects. The poem is definitely about a period long before the human existence. Therefore, it is possible infer that these subjects are not human beings. As they dive into the sea in a "superchitin gear", they might be assumed to be creatures from another planet that come to the world in a spaceship. They dive into "the warm seas around Bearsden", a town on the skirts of Glasgow, Scotland. The poet, most probably, refers to the fact that Bearsden, even whole Scotland, is under the water at that time. The newly arrived subjects think that they have found a "clear" and "wonderful" world which they associate with heaven. However, suddenly, a shark comes and says, "Et in Arcadia ego". This is a Latin phrase which appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin. They are depicting "idealized shepherds from classical antiquity" who have gathered around a tomb. And the phrase is interpreted as "I am also in Arcadia" spoken by death which is personified in two paintings. Thus, the tomb referring to death "casts its shadow over the usual ideal merriment that the nymphs and swains of ancient Arcadia are thought to embody".

And with the words of the shark, the tranquil impression that the coming subjects have received disappear, and the following situation takes its place:

How could bright water that hid nothing stem
our ancient shudder? They themselves were dark,
but all we saw was the unsinister
ferocious tenderness of mating shapes,
a raking love that scoured their skin to shreds.
We feared instead the force that could inter
such life and joy, in fossil clays, for apes
and men to haul into their teeming heads.

The initial tranquility of the water leaves its place to a moving liveliness and love that take its power from its paradoxical nature, just like the death which has changed the mundane lives of the shepherds in Poussin's paintings. The poet depicts "dark shapes" which are "mating" with a wild "tenderness". And their love is so powerful and cruel that the coming subjects fear from the force that will destroy them for the mankind to find their fossils. The strong love between the "mating shapes" can be associated with the primordial forces in Greek mythology which mate with each other, no matter how opposite they are, in order to create the world. And in the poem, too, the beings of the water mate with each other in order to create newer kinds which will evolve into "apes and men". And throughout this process, the new comers having "superchitin scuba-gear" observe the world while fearing the power revealed before their eyes.
His another poem which depicts the same beings visiting the world is "Travellers (1)" from Sonnets from Scotland. In this poem, the beings who are called as "travellers" describe the universe with interesting and creative similes. They use the universe as a "trampoline" to jump on it back and forth to the world and stars:
The universe is like a trampoline.
We chose a springy clump near Arrochar
and with the first jump shot past Barnard's Star.

And the poet emphasizes certain places of his country by portraying the travellers visiting Scotland by using the universe as a trampoline. Then the travellers think that "the universe is like a tambourine". The reason for this simile is that while jumping on the universe back and forth to the world and the stars, they hit the planets and this causes a sound like that of a tambourine. By jumping on the universe, they "dropped to the House of Tongue" which is a beautiful place in northern Scotland. Then, they jump back to "a satellite bank" and they "photographed a mole, a broch". This poem of Edwin Morgan depicts the universe almost from a childish perspective. Just like children who are observing the world as they are unfamiliar with it, the travellers do the same thing and come up with quite creative and unfamiliar similes. In general, the poem almost depicts an amusing scene of cartoon in which a few unfamiliar beings jump on a universe-like trampoline by making a sound like tambourine.
In "The Coin", Morgan depicts the travellers' another observation of a "coin". Quite different from the previous poem, "Travellers (1)", it addresses to some political and social views of Edwin Morgan about Scotland. The poem starts with the following lines:
We brushed the dirt off, held it to the light.
The observe showed us Scotland, and the head
of a red deer; the antler-glint had fled
but the fine cut could still be felt...

As can be seen from the starting lines of the poem, certain qualities of the coin attract the attention of the reader. First of all, it is covered with dirt which has to be cleaned so as to see its real surface. When the beings "brushed the dirt off", they see the name of Scotland and "the head of a red deer", typical of Scotland. Then, the travellers remark that the glint of the antler has faded away but it is still possible to feel the "fine cut". With this statement, the reader catches a glance of Morgan's political and social views. He implies that Scotland and its people are not as before; there are changes toward corruption and the dirt of the coin is associated with it. However, Morgan implies with its "fine cut" that Scotland has always a genuine quality which will always remain even if it undergoes great changes. The poem continues with the lines below:
We turned it over, read easily One Pound,
but then the shock of Latin, like a gloss,
Republica Scotorum, sent across
such ages as we guessed but never found
at the worn age where once the date had been
and where as many fingers had gripped hard
as hopes their silent race had lost or gained.

When they turn the coin over, a Latin phrase shines as "Republica Scotorum" meaning that "Republic of Scotland". However, it is impossible for them to see its date, which refers to the fact that Scotland isn't an independent republic yet. The poet hopes that there will actually be written the name of the Republic of Scotland, but that the symbolic Latin name is worn out shows that there is some kind of a hopelessness as on the coin it is not possible to see "where as many fingers had gripped hard as hopes their silent race had lost or gained". Thus, the poet can no longer see the same strong feelings in the people for their struggles against the British. However, in the poem, hope and hopelessness stand side by side as it is seen in last line of the poem:
The marshy scurf crept up to our machine,
sucked at our boots. Yet nothing seemed ill-starred.
And least of all the realm the coin contained.

The poem again turns to the center of travellers, and it suggests that the breath of death, implied through "marshy scurf", covers even their machine which is far from the world's mortal nature. However, the fact that there is nothing "ill-starred" proves that there is still a hope no matter how much change the country and its people have experienced.
The most striking thing in these poems is that different styles and contents intertwine each other in a very effective way. For instance, Morgan uses a very traditional poetic form, sonnet, for such a novel content, science fiction. Moreover, it is possible to see opposite natures side by side when, for example, he describes the arrival of machines, spaceships and unknown being while he is using Latin phrases and referring to real Scottish towns and cities. It is quite possible to suggest that Edwin Morgan offers a mosaic of colorful styles and forms while addressing to Scottish culture.

Elizabeth Jennings: New Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)

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Elizabeth Jennings: New Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)
Elizabeth Jennings , and Michael Schmidt
Manufacturer: Carcanet Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1857545591

Book Description

With new poems from the past 25 years as well as works from the award-winning 1986 Collected Poems, this collection demonstrates Elizabeth Jennings's enduring poetic elegance and skill. It is an abidingly popular body of poetry that uses traditional forms with experimental vigor and explores the verse-essay, the extended sequence, the epistle, and the love elegy. The poet is attuned to the changes in language that is her medium in every sense.

Burns Singer: Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)

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Burns Singer: Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)

Manufacturer: Carcanet Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

This edition reprints most of Collected Poems (1970), adding uncollected and unpublished poems. The work is arranged chronologically with an introduction and note on the text.

Elaine Feinstein: Collected Poems and Translations (Poetry Pleiade)

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The lifework of an outstanding poet

Elaine Feinstein: Collected Poems and Translations (Poetry Pleiade)
Elaine Feinstein
Manufacturer: Carcanet Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Criticism | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1857545818

Book Description

Drawn from 14 volumes of poems published over 30 years, this collection highlights the verse of Elaine Feinstein. Whether recollecting children at play or understanding her jealousy, Feinstein's work eloquently elucidates her own uncertainties, passions, and concerns. She explores the pressures of living as a poet, wife, and mother, memories of her aging father, and her Russian-Jewish heritage. Through recalling old films or examining her own temperament, her poems contain images and reflections of love and loss. Feinstein's cultural background also allows her to resuscitate the personalities of such historical Russian literary greats as Pushkin and Tsvetaeva.

Customer Reviews:

The lifework of an outstanding poet.......2004-10-31

This volume contains the lifework of a truly outstanding poet. It contains selections from the fourteen volumes of poetry she had published prior to it. Feinstein is also a well- known biographer, and translator who helped bring the work of the Russian poets Akhmatova and Tsevetayava to public notice in the West.
She writes movingly of her father , of her academic husband and of her children. She writes of the various worlds she knows .She writes of people with insight and real feeling and sympathy. She is an understandable poet and one whose richness of language does not lose itself in obscurity or hidden meanings. She also has an inquisitive questioning mind not only about the world and the people she meets but about herself and her own life. It was a great pleasure to read these poems . My sense is that they should have many many more readers than they have had to this point.

P.J. Kavanagh: Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)

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Embittered Brilliance
Shall we be thus for ever?
Of Dreams and Reality

P.J. Kavanagh: Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)
P. J. Kavanagh
Manufacturer: Carcanet Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996
Outside History: Selected Poems, 1980-1990
Poems 1968-1998
Yeats's Poetry, Drama, and Prose (Norton Critical Editions)
Wake Forest Book of Irish Women Poetry 1967-2000

ASIN: 1857542126

Customer Reviews:

Embittered Brilliance.......2002-05-10

Having read the entire collection from cover to cover, I would have to say that there is much to interest the student of poetry. "The Great Hunger" is a very powerful early work. In some ways, I think that Kavanagh the poet lived in the shadow of that one achievement. Did Kavanagh rise to his potential? He might say that he did not. Was he too caught up in the image of being a poet? I think not. Did he put too many hopes in poetry as a means of financial salvation? Perhaps. However, whatever else Kavanagh's work is, it is REAL. The world he writes about is real. The cultures of ivory tower and religion that he often rails against are not as real as life is for the average person. This is the work's strongest suit. I would say this collection is more than worth a tour, but be prepared for much bitterness--and, to be fair, some occasional light hearted frivolity--and have a pint of Guiness after.

Shall we be thus for ever?.......2001-12-01

What a pity that the greatest of the Irish poets has not yet taken his rightful place in the higher places of learning in this country. As a fellow rural Irishman I have always considered Kavanagh to be 'my reality poet' who had, nevertheless, an extraordinary insight into the drawingrooms or cesspools of the 20th century Irish Catholic mind. His poem Lough Derg is without a doubt not just a poem but a vivid painting with words. 'They come to Lough Derg to fast and pray and beg
With all the bitterness of nonentities, and the envy of the inarticulate when dealing with the artist'. In the same poem he writes in reference to Irish neutrality during the Second World War,'All Ireland that froze for want of Europe' and froze from an ice-cold vision of DeValera. Read over and over again.This poem like many others are works of extraordinary perception and cultural analysis.. For many years I myself have searched for a definition of culture, you know, that something that is supposed to make us the same or different, but alas. In 'Memory of Brother Michael' I find: 'Culture is always something that was. Something pedants can measure, Skull of bard,thigh of chief, Depth of dried up river. Shall we be thus for ever? Shall we be thus for ever? It appears vey likely.

Of Dreams and Reality.......2000-12-18

Patrick Kavanagh seemed to me something completely new when I read this collection. In a country whose poetic voice was governed by the genius of Yeats for so long, Kavanagh comes along as a genuine alternative; of the common man, or the country village and the pub and the field. Kavanagh is no mere realist though; his poems are sometimes mythic and beautiful as well.

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Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)
C. H. Sisson
Manufacturer: Carcanet Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Collected Shorter Poems, 1966-96 (Poetry Pleiade)

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Collected Shorter Poems, 1966-96 (Poetry Pleiade)
John Peck
Manufacturer: Carcanet Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Red Strawberry Leaf: Selected Poems, 1994-2001 (Phoenix Poets Series)

ASIN: 1857541618

Book Description

A selection of poems by a contemporary master

John Peck's poems draw on both modernist and traditional resources, quarrying in the large gaps among contemporary readers of poetry. This definitive collection makes available difficult-to-find works by a remarkable, thoroughly original American poet. Peck's poems continue to attract a discerning, loyal audience of readers up to the challenge of confronting his astonishing range and ambitions.

Donald Davie: Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)

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Donald Davie: Collected Poems (Poetry Pleiade)
Donald Davie
Manufacturer: Carcanet Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1857544064

Book Description

Political and protesting, these poems explore concepts of modernity, English identity, and historicity. Influenced by the Russians and Ezra Pound, Davie reinterprets Modernism for a 1940s world. Obsessed with the tonalities and vernacular of language, Davie works in the mediums of essay-poem, love lyric, satire, translation, epistle, eclogue, and other forms.

Andrew Waterman: Collected Poems: 1959-1999 (Poetry Pleiade)

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Andrew Waterman: Collected Poems: 1959-1999 (Poetry Pleiade)
Andrew Waterman
Manufacturer: Carcanet Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

In Collected Poems the poet has selected and revised all the poems he wishes to preserve from his previous books, and he has added others, formerly uncollected, as well as a wealth of recent work.

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