Though best remembered as one of the foremost Victorian realists who created classic works of fiction like Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy always considered himself to be more a poet than a novelist at heart. Over time, critics and fans alike have warmed to Hardy's verse, and his influence has been cited by several acclaimed contemporary poets, including Philip Larkin. This poetry collection brings together some of Hardy's most accomplished works.
The Guide has been written primarily for students of GCSE English Literature as specified by AQA in the post-2015 syllabus (8702). It addresses the requirement to study one cluster of poems taken from the AQA poetry anthology: Past and Present and the requirement to analyse and compare Unseen Poetry. The Guide covers all the poems in both the "Love and Relationships" and the "Power and Conflict" clusters in the Anthology.The poems are explored individually, and links and connections between them are drawn as appropriate. The format of each exploration is similar:* An explanation of key features of the poem that require contextual knowledge or illustration and the relationship between the text and its context. * A summary of the key themes of the poems, with a note on possible connections and links to other poems in the cluster* A brief summary of the metric form, rhyme scheme or other structural features* A "walk-through" (or explication) of the poem, ensuring that what is happening in the poem is understood, how the rhythm and rhyme contribute to meaning, an explanation of the meaning of words which may be unfamiliar, an exploration of language and imagery and a comment on main themes.
The definitive study of the world's bestselling poet Drawing on a vast array of sources, from writings of the poet himself to the latest scholarly literature, this new anniversary edition of the award-winning work examines the background, the legacy, and the continuing significance of Jalâl al-Din Rumi, today’s bestselling poet in the United States. With new translations of over fifty of Rumi’s poems and including never before seen prose, this landmark study celebrates the astounding appeal of Rumi, still as strong as ever, 800 years after his birth.
Poetry. African American Studies. HISTORY AND OTHER POEMS takes as its task nothing less than an examination and mapping of the never-ending evil of history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the still-palpable effects of European and American colonialism some seven centuries after the making of the New World. Making, breaking and rebuilding language and languages to suit the needs of her characters and the worlds they struggle to survive in and against, Brenda Marie Osbey has created a compelling study of human will and the determination to wrest life and liberty from destinies long ago written out of history as we know it. Aided by an extensive glossary and notes, this volume takes the reader on a series of gruesome journeys across the Americas, from Columbus's first encounter with the Guanahani Indians to the author's native New Orleans, trailing violence, destruction and oppression with every step, marking the geography of evil on the map of this New World. HISTORY AND OTHER POEMS moves from present to past and back again to reveal the trauma of hearts and lives broken even as it underscores the heroic endurance, resilience and agency of the enslaved and their descendants.
Finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry One of the New York Times Critics' Top Books of 2018 A powerful, timely, dazzling collection of sonnets from one of America's most acclaimed poets, Terrance Hayes, the National Book Award-winning author of Lighthead "Sonnets that reckon with Donald Trump's America." -The New York Times In seventy poems bearing the same title, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, these poems are haunted by the country's past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares. Inventive, compassionate, hilarious, melancholy, and bewildered--the wonders of this new collection are irreducible and stunning.
A vital, engaging, and hugely enjoyable guide to poetry, from ancient times to the present, by one of our greatest champions of literature The Times and Sunday Times, Best Books of 2020 “[A] fizzing, exhilarating book.”—Sebastian Faulks, Sunday Times What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work—over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. But this Little History is about some that have not. John Carey tells the stories behind the world’s greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world, such as Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Yeats. He also looks at more recent poets, like Derek Walcott, Marianne Moore, and Maya Angelou, who have started to question what makes a poem “great” in the first place. For readers both young and old, this little history shines a light for readers on the richness of the world’s poems—and the elusive quality that makes them all the more enticing.
"This present moment That lives on To become Long ago." For his first collection of new poems since his celebrated Danger on Peaks, published in 2004, Gary Snyder finds himself ranging over the planet. Journeys to the Dolomites, to the north shore of Lake Tahoe, from Paris and Tuscany to the shrine at Delphi, from Santa Fe to Sella Pass, Snyder lays out these poems as a map of the last decade. Placed side–by–side, they become a path and a trail of complexity and lyrical regard, a sort of riprap of the poet's eighth decade. And in the mix are some of the most beautiful domestic poems of his great career, poems about his work as a homesteader and householder, as a father and husband, as a friend and neighbor. A centerpiece in this collection is a long poem about the death of his beloved, Carole Koda, a rich poem of grief and sorrow, rare in its steady resolved focus on a dying wife, of a power unequaled in American poetry. As a friend is quoted in one of these new poems: "I met the other lately in the far back of a bar, musicians playing near the window and he sweetly told me "listen to that music. The self we hold so dear will soon be gone."" Gary Snyder is one of the greatest American poets of the last century, and This Present Moment shows his command, his broad range, and his remarkable courage.
