Giovanni Pascoli, Convivial Poems – James Ackhurst (f 01)

Giovanni Pascoli, Convivial Poems, translated by Elena Borelli & James Ackhurst (pseud. of a member of Abbeylands who left in 2001). A new Italian/English dual-language edition of Giovani Pascoli’s Poemi Conviviali, originally published in 1904. Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912) is renowned as one of the founders of modern Italian poetry. Embodying the Zeitgeist of fin-de-siècle Italy, his … Read more

Guises – Lawrence Sail (c 61)

Lawrence Sail’s poetry is noted for its scrupulous combination of close observation and broader reflections. In Guises he builds on the strengths of twelve previous collections, writing ‘in praise of perception’, which brings its own challenges and delights, embodied in the shifts and layers of language. A sense of the precious and the precarious informs poems with … Read more

Accidentals – Lawrence Sail (c 61)

Accidentals celebrates occasions and instances seen in the perspective of a whole lifetime, bringing together a disparate range of subjects – among them, capsizing a small boat in a North Sea gale; two visits to Petra, thirty-eight years apart; the paintings of Samuel Palmer; lighthouses; favourite films; seahorses; Voltaire’s Candide. Enriched by Erica Sail’s drawings … Read more

Mallarmé’s Sunset: Poetry at the End of Time – Barnaby Norman (m 97)

Barnaby Norman, Mallarmé‘s Sunset: Poetry at the End of Time. The writings of the great Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) were to become uniquely influential in twentieth century literary criticism. For critics and philosophers such as Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida, Mallarmé’s name came to represent a rupture in literary history, and an opening of … Read more

Telling Tales – Robert Hanrott (c 57)

Robert Hanrott, Martha Horsley, Martin Honeysett (Illustrator), Telling Tales. Short stories with introductory rhymed verse and illustrations. Twelve people gather in Canterbury to walk the medieval pilgrims’ route from England, across Europe, to Rome. Like the group celebrated by Geoffrey Chaucer in his 14th century Canterbury Tales, they agree that each will tell a tale … Read more

Chasing the Hoopoe – John Weston (h 56)

Philip John Weston, Chasing the Hoopoe. John Weston, whose love of poetry dates from his Sherborne days, began writing his own poems four years ago. He has won two major poetry prizes since then, and had many of his poems published in newspapers and magazines. Chasing the Hoopoe is his first collection. “A good read. … Read more