Ten Poems about London
Various Authors, Introduction by George Szirtes
London is heady, exciting, romantic – rich with tradition and with dissent, forever renewing and re-positioning itself, part real, part myth. Above all, London has inspired some truly great poems. Introduced by George Szirtes, this pamphlet pays homage to the great metropolis and explores its public and private spaces. Royal weddings come and go, Olympians fly in and fly out, but London keeps on transforming itself, feeding the imagination of writers and defying definition. This pamphlet is good news for anyone who is curious to read poems London has inspired – and also for visitors to, residents and fans of London who want something other than a toy London taxi to remember it by and send to friends.
The selection in this pamphlet ranges between William Wordsworth’s sonnet of 1802, ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ , to ‘Trojan Horse’, a new poem by George Szirtes specifically commissioned for Ten Poems about London and published here for the first time. The poems tune in to the sounds, sights, history of London – they roam its pavements, sit out under its street lamps in the dark almost-silence of the city asleep.
“Midnight. I hear the moon
Light chiming on St Paul’s.
The City is empty. Night
Watchmen are drinking their tea.”
from ‘The Night City’ by W S Graham
Contents
Anon, Two Rhymes for Children
Elizabeth Bartlett, ‘Underground’
William Blake, ‘London’
Elaine Feinstein, ‘Homecoming’
W S Graham, ‘The Night City’
A N Stencl, ‘A Linden Tree in a Whitechapel Street’
George Szirtes, ‘Trojan Horse’
Sarah Wardle, ‘The Capital’
William Wordsworth, ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802′
ISBN 978 1 907598 04 3
Available February 2011
All pamphlets £4.95 + p & p
To order this pamphlet from overseas, please contact info@candlestickpress.co.uk
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"The pamphlet is a particularly democratic form of publication because… it relies on time and skill and care, but it doesn’t rely on a great publishing house behind it." Robyn Marsack, Radio 4
"The poetry pamphlet is to the poetry book what the wee dram is to the pint. I’m delighted that there’s been a resurgence in them." Jackie Kay, Radio 4
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