Six Poets

Author: Alan Bennett
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300215053
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
The inimitable Alan Bennett selects and comments upon six favorite poets and the pleasures of their works In this candid, thoroughly engaging book, Alan Bennett creates a unique anthology of works by six well-loved poets. Freely admitting his own youthful bafflement with poetry, Bennett reassures us that the poets and poems in this volume are not only accessible but also highly enjoyable. He then proceeds to prove irresistibly that this is so. Bennett selects more than seventy poems by Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, John Betjeman, W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, and Philip Larkin. He peppers his discussion of these writers and their verse with anecdotes, shrewd appraisal, and telling biographical detail: Hardy lyrically recalls his first wife, Emma, in his poetry, although he treated her shabbily in real life. The fabled Auden was a formidable and off-putting figure at the lectern. Larkin, hoping to subvert snooping biographers, ordered personal papers shredded upon his death. Simultaneously profound and entertaining, Bennett's book is a paean to poetry and its creators, made all the more enjoyable for being told in his own particular voice. its creators, made all the more enjoyable for being told in his own particular voice.

Six Poetshardy to L

Author: Alan Bennett
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571323630
Category : English poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
In this personal anthology, Alan Bennett has chosen over a hundred poems by six well-loved poets, discussing the writers and their verse in his customary conversational style through anecdote, shrewd appraisal and spare but telling biographical detail. Speaking with candour about his own reactions to the work, Alan Bennett creates profound and witty portraits of Thomas Hardy, A E Housman, John Betjeman, W H Auden, Louis MacNeice and Philip Larkin, all the more enjoyable for being in his own particular voice. Signed edition.

Poems That Make Grown Men Cry

Author: Anthony Holden
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476712778
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
In this unique poetry anthology, 100 grown men - bestselling authors, poets laureate, actors, producers and other prominent figures from the arts, sciences and politics, share the poems that have moved them to tears.

Birthday Letters

Author: Ted Hughes
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374525811
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
The past contemporary poet gives an account in 88 poems in letter form of hisromance and the life spent with Sylvia Plath.

The Rattle Bag

Author: Seamus Heaney
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0571225837
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
A collection of more than 400 hundred poems from all around the world.

Philip Larkin Poems

Author: Philip Larkin
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571271766
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 121

Book Description
For the first time, Faber publish a selection from the poetry of Philip Larkin. Drawing on Larkin's four collections and on his uncollected poems. Chosen by Martin Amis. 'Many poets make us smile; how many poets make us laugh - or, in that curious phrase, "laugh out loud" (as if there's another way of doing it)? Who else uses an essentially conversational idiom to achieve such a variety of emotional effects? Who else takes us, and takes us so often, from sunlit levity to mellifluous gloom?... Larkin, often, is more than memorable: he is instantly unforgettable.' - Martin Amis

Further Requirements

Author: Philip Larkin
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571294960
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
Philip Larkin's Required Writing, a selection from his miscellaneous prose from 1953-82, was highly praised and enjoyed when it appeared in 1983. Further Requirements gathers together many other interviews, broadcasts, statements and reviews. Some of them date from the period after he had chosen the contents of Required Writing; others come from obscure publications, including some early pieces. This second edition of Further Requirements includes two more essays by Larkin: 'Operation Manuscript' and his Introduction to Earth Memories by Llewelyn Powys.

The Uncommon Reader

Author: Alan Bennett
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429934530
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 126

Book Description
From one of England's most celebrated writers, a funny and superbly observed novella about the Queen of England and the subversive power of reading When her corgis stray into a mobile library parked near Buckingham Palace, the Queen feels duty-bound to borrow a book. Discovering the joy of reading widely (from J. R. Ackerley, Jean Genet, and Ivy Compton-Burnett to the classics) and intelligently, she finds that her view of the world changes dramatically. Abetted in her newfound obsession by Norman, a young man from the royal kitchens, the Queen comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with the routines of her role as monarch. Her new passion for reading initially alarms the palace staff and soon leads to surprising and very funny consequences for the country at large. With the poignant and mischievous wit of The History Boys, England's best loved author Alan Bennett revels in the power of literature to change even the most uncommon reader's life.

Six Bad Poets

Author: Christopher Reid
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571304042
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Six Bad Poets is a farce-in-verse by Christopher Reid. It follows the exploits and mishaps of a group of poets, whose destinies are more intimately connected than they themselves can know, in their attempts to navigate the hazards of London literary society. Recklessness, fecklessness, blind ambition and enthralment to dark secrets are among the forces that drive these colourful and conflicted characters - three male, three female - towards their fates. Six Bad Poets is a fast-paced romp through a world that the author has observed closely over many years, and from which he reports with merciless accuracy, zest and humour.

A Poet's Guide to Britain

Author: Owen Sheers
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141957042
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Book Description
Introduced and selected by the poet-presenter Owen Sheers, A Poet's Guide to Britain is a major poetry anthology that ties in with the BBC series of the same name. Owen Sheers passionately believes that poems, and particularly poems of place, not only affect us as individuals, but can have the power to mark and define a collective experience - our identities, our country, our land. He has chosen six powerful poems, all personal favourites, and all poems that have become part of the way we see our landscape. The anthology follows a similar format to the BBC series itself, while also offering paper chains of poems about the landscape and nature of Britain, transcripts of contemporary poet interviews, and a short introduction to each lead poem.