Poetry

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The crown of literature is poetry. William Somerset Maugham

Selected Titles:

Stanyan Street & Other Sorrows  Rod McKuen Michael Joseph 5th imp 1972 These poems were all written by Rod McKuen, one of the finest chansonniers and song writers in America today. Or, to quote Gene Lees of HI FI Stereo Review, 'the best contemporary song writer around" An opinion shared by The Times, The New Tork Times and Paris Match. In addition, this book previously published privately by Rod McKuen, has helped to make him one of the best-selling authors of poetry in the world today. The words within these pages are for music. They sing of love lost and found and lost again. They are hymns to the dying, sonnets to the summer and verses of the joy of being wanted - even for a night. Love words gentle, direct, beautifully lasting. 8vo. Slight dulling to board edges, slight wear to the dustwrapper edges, slight spotting/staining to dustwrapper foldovers + prelims, otherwise VG+ in a VG wrapper. 245 gms £3.00

The Song of Hiawatha  H W Longfellow Illustrations by Kiddell-Monroe J M Dent 1st thus 1960 Hiawatha was the first product of Longfellow's leisured middle age, after he had resigned his Harvard professorship. Its tripping unrhymed measure, based on a Finnish verse-form, came easily from his pen, and the whole 5,000 lines were written in less than a year. Hiawatha, a legendary Red Indian hero, personifies the progress of civilization among the natives of North America. Son of the West Wind, Mudjekeewis, he has magic powers, learns the language of animals, marries Minnehaha, one of the Dakotahs, and teaches his peoples the arts of peace. The romantic beauty of the legends, with their melodious native names, has made this simple Indian epic the most popular of Longfellow's longer poems. 8vo. Printed decorative bds; very, very minor bumps to corners, tiny stain to dustwrapper spine, minor wear + small tear to spine of dustwrapper, otherwise VG++ in a VG+ wrapper. 565 gms £55.00

The Coloured Counties - poems of place in England and Wales  John Arlott (selected and introduced by) J M Dent 1st 1988 The aim of The Coloured Counties is to present a picture of England and Walesin the particular town, village, landscape - seen through the eyes of over 200 writers of English verse. John Arlott was co-editor of Landmarks in 1943, one of the very first popular collections of English topographical verse, and it is that book which reappears in this new guise, but with many revisions and additions. Today's audience therefore has another delightful chance to travel all over England and Wales in splendid poetic company. From odd out-of-the-way spots to grimy, beloved towns, the reader can visit landmarks throughout the length and breadth of the country - encompassing the rich and varied, urban and rural, rustic and sophisticated places which make up our many 'coloured counties'. Some of the poets represented here are famous, some less well known, some are dead and now themselves part of the landscape, and others are very much alive. Some are cultured, some simple, some rhapsodizing and some humorous - but all are inspired by the places, names, legends and landscapes which they have loved so well. Chaucer, Byron, Clare, Hardy, Wordsworth, Housman, Hopkins, Thomas, Betieman, Abse, Stevie Smith and many others are to be found within these pages, reflecting the changes in, and the changing attitudes to, our landscape. Everyone will find something here which will strike a special personal note. Above all, John Arlott's collection is a fmely balanced and highly entertaining voyage into our land and heritage. Very, very minor creasing to the dustwrapper, otherwise Fine in a VG++ wrapper. 1090 gms £15.00

Passionate Renewal - Jewish Poetry in Britain since 1945  Peter Lawson (ed) Five Leaves/European Jewish Publication Society 1st 2001 Passionate Renewal celebrates poetry written by British Jews since 1945. Twenty poets have been selected from among the most significant voices. Many of the writers are key figures in British poetry. The subjects covered include family and home, love and friendship, Judaism and secularism, the Holocaust and resistance to oppression...but each poet considers these themes in widely divergent ways. This is the first anthology of Jewish poetry in Britain. 8vo paperback 354 pages. VG++ 455 gms £20.00

Country Verse Samuel Carr (ed) Chancellor Press 1st 1979 The verse which more than any other is characteristic of English poetry is country verse. The painting which is the most representative of the English pictorial genius is landscape painting. In this collection the poetry and the painting of the countryside are combined in such a way that each illuminates the other. ThusJohn Clare's 'Summer Evening' is complemented by the Lucas/Constable mezzotint of the same theme; Wordsworth's 'To the Skylark' is juxtaposed with a Samuel Palmer print; Philip Larkin's and John Crorne's Trees appear alongside one another; the Woodland poems of Bloomfield, Meredith and Yeats have their echo in the pictures ofCrome, Gainsborough and Middleton. The span covered by the book is from the sixteenth century to the present day. At one end are Milton, Shakespeare, Herrick and Henry King, at the other Ted Hughes, Norman Nicholson,John Betjeman and George Barker. Similarly with the artists, the range is from Richard Wilson,]. M. W. Turner, Francis Towne and]. S. Cotman to Spencer Gore, Stanley Spencer, Robert Bevan and Graham Sutherland. In between these limits the familiar and the little known alternate in the shape, for example, of Cowper and Dyer, Coleridge and Bernard Barton, George Crabbe and Henry Ellison; and, pictorially, in terms of De Wint, Birket Foster and Ford Maddox Brown on the one hand, and John William Inchbold, Alfred Priest and George William Mote on the other. An anthology which is delightful for its own sake has also a certain importance for the way in which it emphasises an affinity for the countryside shared by English poets and English painters. 8vo. Very minor bumps to boards, otherwise VG++ in a VG++ wrapper. 510 gms £8.00

W B Yeats - Selected Poems W B Yeats Gramercy Books 2nd impression 1992 William Butler Yeats is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century and also one of the most widely read. The language of his poems has a unique musical quality and his verse embodies the distinctive lilt and rhythm of Ireland. Ireland lies at the heart of Yeats's imagination. Its landscape, its myths, legends, and folklore are all part of the richness of his verse. But his poetry has a universal appeal that goes beyond its enticing Gaelic charm. When he became the first Irishman to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1923 he was already an internationally famous poet. His best work has a powerful emotional impact and is informed by the timeless themes of human life: the conflict between life and death, love and hate, and the meaning of man's existence in an imperfect world. This volume is a selection of Yeats's poems from his earliest published work through Responsibilities, published in 1914, and covers roughly the first half of his career. Included are such favorites as "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "The Sorrow of Love," and "When You Are Old," as well as two of his longer narrative works, "The Old Age of Queen Maeve" and "Baile and Aillinn." It is an indispensible collection which traces Yeats's artistry from his earliest days as a dreamy, late-romantic poet into one of the most individual and visionary voices of twentieth-century verse. 8vo. Small closed tear to the rear of the dustwrapper, otherwise Fine in a VG++ wrapper. 405 gms £4.00

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