New British Poetry - Edited by Don Paterson and Charles Simic; With a Preface by Charles Simic and an Introduction by Don Paterson

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New British Poetry

Edited by Don Paterson and Charles Simic; With a Preface by Charles Simic and an Introduction by Don Paterson

Graywolf Press Paper, April 2004
ISBN: 978-1-55597-394-0, ISBN10: 1-55597-394-9,
6 x 9 inches, 288 pages,
Trade Paperback, $16.00

Praise
Table of Contents
Biography

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See All Categories Poetry Poetry Anthologies

The only definitive anthology of contemporary British poetry available in the United States, New British Poetry presents exciting recent work by 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 the recent T. S. Eliot Prize-winner Alice Oswald, these poems are fiercely intelligent, often irreverent, artfully made, and variously engaged with traditional forms as well as an exhilarating range of styles.

A generous sampling of each poet's work is included here. 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 Poetry is destined to become a seminal anthology, introducing many important new voices to American readers.

Praise

"Paterson's introductory essay [is] a tour-de-force defense of 'mainstream' poetry [that] deserves to be read by all poets . . . What these poets possess in spades is skill and daring, a way of engaging the world and poetic tradition that brings alive both the language and the history it embodies."—The Toronto Globe and Mail

"One hopes that, with the introduction of this keen, carefully selected group of poets and poems, American readers will become as familiar with British poetry as British readers are with American poetry. Mr. Paterson and Mr. Simic seem to have had a successful collaboration, for readers will find in their anthology writers—such as Alice Oswald, Glyn Maxwell, and Andrew Motion—of varied accomplishment but certain talent."—American Poet

"[New British Poetry] seeks to bridge the miles between two cultures and bring poetry back to the populace. Editors Don Paterson and Charles Simic compiled work from 36 poets into a robust sampling of established and emerging voices from across the Atlantic. Despite the volume and diversity of verse, the collection is accessible and engaging."—The Fargo Forum

"New British Poetry, with its forthright title, is nothing less than a single-volume solution to the plight of North American and British poets and poetry readers who find themselves divided not only by a common language, but by culture and ocean. Simic and Paterson, working from opposite sides, have built a splendid poetic bridge across the Pond."—Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate

"Readers in the UK are far more conversant with contemporary North American poetry than we are with what's being written on the other side of the Atlantic. The depth and richness of Simic and Paterson's selection s26will go a long way toward redressing this imbalance, and offer readers pleasure, surprise, and an open window on the vitality of British poetry now."—Mark Doty

"New British Poetry has given me the chance to encounter a number of poets new to me, also to re-appreciate some others. I should think most North American readers interested in contemporary British poetry would feel the same."—William Pritchard

About the Author(s)

By Don Paterson and Charles Simic

Don Paterson is the poetry editor at Picador UK and the author of The White Lie: New and Selected Poetry.

Charles Simic has published several books of poetry, essays, and criticism. He won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection The World Doesn't End. Simic teaches writing at the University of New Hampshire.

Preface by Charles Simic
Introduction by Don Paterson

Gillian Allnutt
Scheherazade
The Silk Light of Advent
Held To
Notes on living inside the lightbulb
The Road Home

Simon Armitage
Very Simply Topping Up the Brake Fluid
Poem
The Tyre
The Dead Sea Poems

John Ash
The Ungrateful Citizens
The Sky My Husband
Memories of Italy

Sujata Bhatt
(Shérdi)
Muliebrity
What Is Worth Knowing?
Fischerhude, 2001

John Burnside
Parousia
The Old Gods

Robert Crawford
The Saltcoats Structuralists
The Handshakes
The Result
Fiat Lux
Alba Einstein

Fred D'Aguiar
Airy Hall Nightmare
The Cow Perseverance
Sound Bite
Home

Peter Didsbury
The Shorter Life
That Old-Time Religion
Part of the Bridge
0Chandlery

Michael Donaghy
Machines
Shibboleth
The Bacchae
Caliban's Books
A Repertoire

Carol Ann Duffy
Prayer
Warming Her Pearls
Little Red-Cap
Circe

Ian Duhig
Fundamentals
Chocolate Soldier
The Lammas Hireling

Paul Farley
Treacle
The Lamp
Diary Moon
An Interior
Peter and the Dyke

James Fenton
Wind
A Staffordshire Murderer
In a Notebook

Mark Ford
Looping the Loop
The Long Man
Early to Bed, Early to Rise

John Glenday
Concerning the Atoms of the Soul
A Day at the Seaside
The Garden
The Empire of Lights
Hydrodamalis Gigas

Lavinia Greenlaw
Reading Akhmatova in Midwinter
Three
The Spirit of the Staircase
Zombies
Electricity

W. N. Herbert
Slow Animals Crossing
Cabaret McGonagall
Smirr
The King and Queen of Dumfriesshire

Selima Hill
I Will Be Arriving Next Thursday in My Wedding-Dress
I Know I Ought to Love You
My Sister's Jeans
A Small Hotel
Please Can I Have a Man

Michael Hofmann
Ancient Evenings
The Machine That Cried
The Late Richard Dadd, 1817-1886
Lament for Crassus

Kathleen Jamie
The Way We Live
The Bogey-Wife
Skeins o Geese
Pipistrelles
The Hill-track

Alan Jenkins
Visiting
Portrait of a Lady
Barcelona
Inheritance

Jackie Kay
Even the Trees
In my country
Finger
The Shoes of Dead Comrades
[from] Other Lovers

Gwyneth Lewis
Pentecost
'One day, feeling hungry'
Woods
The Flaggy Shore
[from] Welsh Espionage: ix Advice on Adultery

Roddy Lumsden
Always
An Older Woman
Piquant
The Man I Could Have Been

Glyn Maxwell
My Turn
The Poem Recalls the Poet
Helene and Heloise

Jamie McKendrick
Ancient History
Sky Nails
Six Characters in Search of Something
The One-Star

Andrew Motion
The Lines
A Wall
A Glass of Wine
The Letter
Mythology

Sean O'Brien
Cousin Coat
After Laforgue
The Amateur God

Alice Oswald
April
Bike Ride on a Roman Road
Sea Sonnet
Wedding
Prayer

Ruth Padel
Tinderbox
Skin
Angel
The Starling
On the Line

Don Paterson
The White Lie
St Brides: Sea-Mail
Imperial

Peter Reading
[from] Stet
Salopian

Christopher Reid
A Whole School of Bourgeois Primitives
What the Uneducated Old Woman Told Me
In the Echoey Tunnel
Mermaids Explained
Fetish

Robin Robertson
Fall
Fugue for Phantoms
Artichoke
Wedding the Locksmith's Daughter
The Immoralist

Anne Rouse
Testament
Faith Healers
Memo to Auden
The Anaesthetist

Jo Shapcott
Muse
My Life Asleep
Motherland
The Mad Cow in Love
Phrase Book

Index of Authors and Titles
Index of First Lines

New British Poetry

Praise

About the Author(s)

Table of Contents