New British Poetry

by Paterson, Don; Simic, Charles

• ISBN13: 9781555973940
• ISBN10: 1555973949
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-04-01
• Publisher: Graywolf Press

Summary

The only definitive anthology of contemporary British poetry available in the United States, New British Poetrypresents the exciting work of thirty-five poets from England, Scotland, and Wales. In compiling this landmark anthology, T. S. Eliot Prize-winning Scottish poet Don Paterson and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic followed two rules: the poets chosen should be born after 1945 and should have at least two books published in Britain. The resulting anthology collects some of the very best work of a new generation of poets who have come of age since Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes. From established poets such as Andrew Motion and James Fenton, to mid-career poets such as Glyn Maxwell and Kathleen Jamie, to recent T. S. Eliot Prize-winner Alice Oswald, the work is fiercely intelligent, often irreverent, and engaged with traditional forms and an exhilarating range of styles. A generous sampling of each poet's work is included. As Paterson writes in his introduction, "this group of poets represents some of the most intelligent and imaginative writers working in the English language today."New British Poetryis destined to become a seminal anthology, introducing many important new voices to American readers.

Author Biography

Don Paterson is the poetry editor at Picador U.K. and author of The White Lie:
New and Selected Poetry. Charles Simic won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for his poetry
collection The World Doesn't End. He teaches writing at the University of New Hampshire.

Table of Contents

Preface	xix
Charles Simic
Introduction	xxiii
Don Paterson
Gillian Allnutt
Scheherazade	3	(1)
The Silk Light of Advent	4	(1)
Held To	5	(1)
Notes on living inside the lightbulb	6	(1)
The Road Home	6	(2)
Simon Armitage
Very Simply Topping Up the Brake Fluid	8	(1)
Poem	9	(1)
The Tyre	10	(1)
The Dead Sea Poems	11	(2)
John Ash
The Ungrateful Citizens	13	(4)
The Sky My Husband	17	(2)
Memories of Italy	19	(2)
Sujata Bhatt
Sherdi	21	(1)
Muliebrity	22	(1)
What Is Worth Knowing?	23	(1)
Fischerhude, 2001	24	(2)
John Burnside
Parousia	26	(3)
The Old Gods	29	(2)
Robert Crawford
The Saltcoats Structuralists	31	(2)
The Handshakes	33	(1)
The Result	33	(1)
Fiat Lux	34	(1)
Alba Einstein	35	(1)
Fred D'Aguiar
Airy Hall Nightmare	36	(1)
The Cow Perseverance	37	(1)
Sound Bite	38	(2)
Home	40	(2)
Peter Didsbury
The Shorter Life	42	(1)
That Old-Time Religion	42	(2)
Part of the Bridge	44	(1)
Chandlery	45	(1)
Michael Donaghy
Machines	46	(1)
Shibboleth	47	(1)
The Bacchae	47	(1)
Caliban's Books	48	(1)
A Repertoire	49	(2)
Carol Ann Duffy
Prayer	51	(1)
Warming Her Pearls	52	(1)
Little Red-Cap	53	(1)
Circe	54	(2)
Ian Duhig
Fundamentals	56	(1)
Chocolate Soldier	57	(3)
The Lammas Hireling	60	(2)
Paul Farley
Treacle	62	(1)
The Lamp	63	(1)
Diary Moon	64	(1)
An Interior	65	(1)
Peter and the Dyke	65	(1)
James Fenton
Wind	66	(1)
A Staffordshire Murderer	67	(3)
In a Notebook	70	(2)
Mark Ford
Looping the Loop	72	(2)
The Long Man	74	(1)
Early to Bed, Early to Rise	75	(2)
John Glenday
Concerning the Atoms of the Soul	77	(1)
A Day at the Seaside	78	(1)
The Garden	78	(1)
The Empire of Lights	79	(1)
Hydrodamalis Gigas	80	(2)
Lavinia Greenlaw
Reading Akhmatova in Midwinter	82	(1)
Three	83	(1)
The Spirit of the Staircase	84	(1)
Zombies	84	(1)
Electricity	85	(2)
W. N. Herbert
Slow Animals Crossing	87	(1)
Cabaret McGonagall	88	(3)
Smirr	91	(1)
The King and Queen of Dumfriesshire	92	(2)
Selima Hill
I Will Be Arriving Next Thursday in My Wedding-Dress	94	(1)
I Know I Ought to Love You	95	(1)
My Sister's Jeans	95	(1)
A Small Hotel	96	(1)
Please Can I Have a Man	96	(2)
Michael Hofmann
Ancient Evenings	98	(1)
The Machine That Cried	99	(2)
The Late Richard Dadd, 1817--1886	101	(1)
Lament for Crassus	102	(1)
Kathleen Jamie
The Way We Live	103	(1)
The Bogey-Wife	104	(1)
Skeins o Geese	105	(1)
Pipistrelles	106	(1)
The Hill-track	107	(1)
Alan Jenkins
Visiting	108	(1)
Portrait of a Lady	109	(1)
Barcelona	110	(1)
Inheritance	111	(2)
Jackie Kay
Even the Trees	113	(1)
In my country	114	(1)
Finger	114	(1)
The Shoes of Dead Comrades	115	(1)
[from] Other Lovers	116	(2)
Gwyneth Lewis
Pentecost	118	(1)
`One day, feeling hungry'	119	(1)
Woods	120	(1)
The Flaggy Shore	120	(1)
[from] Welsh Espionage: ix Advice on Adultery	121	(2)
Roddy Lumsden
Always	123	(1)
An Older Woman	124	(1)
Piquant	125	(1)
The Man I Could Have Been	125	(3)
Glyn Maxwell
My Turn	128	(1)
The Poem Recalls the Poet	129	(1)
Helene and Heloise	129	(4)
Jamie McKendrick
Ancient History	133	(1)
Sky Nails	134	(1)
Six Characters in Search of Something	134	(1)
The One-Star	135	(3)
Andrew Motion
The Lines	138	(1)
A Wall	139	(1)
A Glass of Wine	140	(1)
The Letter	141	(1)
Mythology	142	(1)
Sean O'Brien
Cousin Coat	143	(1)
After Laforgue	144	(3)
The Amateur God	147	(1)
Alice Oswald
April	148	(1)
Bike Ride on a Roman Road	149	(1)
Sea Sonnet	150	(1)
Wedding	150	(1)
Prayer	151	(1)
Ruth Padel
Tinderbox	152	(1)
Skin	153	(1)
Angel	153	(2)
The Starling	155	(1)
On the Line	156	(1)
Don Paterson
The White Lie	157	(2)
St Brides: Sea-Mail	159	(2)
Imperial	161	(1)
Peter Reading
[from] Stet	162	(2)
Salopian	164	(1)
Christopher Reid
A Whole School of Bourgeois Primitives	165	(1)
What the Uneducated Old Woman Told Me	166	(1)
In the Echoey Tunnel	167	(1)
Mermaids Explained	168	(1)
Fetish	169	(1)
Robin Robertson
Fall	170	(1)
Fugue for Phantoms	170	(1)
Artichoke	171	(1)
Wedding the Locksmith's Daughter	172	(1)
The Immoralist	172	(2)
Anne Rouse
Testament	174	(1)
Faith Healers	175	(1)
Memo to Auden	175	(3)
The Anaesthetist	178	(2)
Jo Shapcott
Muse	180	(1)
My Life Asleep	181	(1)
Motherland	181	(1)
The Mad Cow in Love	182	(1)
Phrase Book	183	(2)
Index of Authors and Titles	185	(3)
Index of First Lines	188