In these poems infused with a scent of unrequited love, the great Bengali poet Jibanananda Das captured his country's soul through evocations of village life and natural beauty. Written in 1934, the sixty-two sonnets – discovered in an exercise-book...

"Yesterday I lost a country", Dunya Mikhail writes in "The War Works" Hard, a subversive, sobering work by an exiled Iraqi poet, and her first collection to appear in English. Compassionate, engaged and direct, Mikhail's is a voice that transcends bo...

A "New Selected Poems" of Vernon Watkins – major, neglected poet – 100 years after his birth. Vernon Watkins (1906-1967) was called by Kathleen Raine: "the greatest lyric poet of my generation". Dylan Thomas referred to him as: "the most profound an...

In the great Bengali poet's autobiographical writings we discover what his translators describe as "a heart of love, a mind at its service that can cut like a knife, and in some sense the spirit of a child". The six prose pieces, centering on the poe...

Anthony Hecht described Donald Justice as "among other things, the supreme heir of Wallace Stevens". This memorial volume of his complete poetry testifies to his subtle and enduring brilliance. With painterly vividness and plainspoken elegance he end...

Mervyn Morris is one of the most distinctive West Indian poets, his work characterised by economy, wit and humane seriousness. He makes elegant use of Jamaica's linguistic range, with poems in international standard English, Jamaican Creole and mixtu...

"...this 'Almanack'", which all ladies should carry about with them, as the Priest his Breviary, as the Cook his Recipes, as the Doctor his Physic, as the Bride her Fears, and as the Lion his Roar!" Djuna Barnes wrote her "Ladies Almanack" for fun,...

"Extended Family" is a sensual celebration of the varied relationships that make up lives richly lived: from the subtle, intimate interactions of close family members and lovers, to the mutual rewards and stresses of relationships with friends, thera...

The poems in Mary O'Malley's new collection focus on legal separation: of Northern from Southern Ireland, of written Irish from its original script, of husband from wife. The book explores a season in hell when the verities vanish, the love we live b...

"The Day and Other Poems" develops and expands the explorations of Robert Wells's previous collections, demonstrating a mature poet at the height of his craft. Meditating upon erotic and rural themes, it culminates in a poetic affirmation of the unen...