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Shall We Meet Again by Heinz Winfried Sabais

Sat, 4 May 2013 -1:00:00 GMT

Heinz Winfried Sabais

Shall We Meet Again

Shall we meet again
in the wordless wastes beyond us
where caravans of the dead are travelling
uncertainly towards the Oasis
Nowhere or God?

Shall I still know your name
when the body's memory
flakes cruelly away and your image
is extinguished as my
last thoughts break apart?

Shall I still keep your love
where the edge of the great shadow
strikes me and numbs the sweet unrest
What will remain once eternity's
hate melts the foolish flesh?

Who will lend us eyes for each other
in the laconic solemnity of nothing
when the wave of earthly time freezes
glassy before our feet
and no desire moves it?

Shall we meet again
in the wordless wastes beyond us
in the swaying shadows of uncertain caravans
in the Oasis Nowhere or God
deep in untimely snow?

Translated by Ruth & Matthew Mead

From The People and the Stones by Heinz Winfried Sabais

Ruth Mead 1921-2013

Sat, 4 May 2013 -1:00:00 GMT

Ruth Eastaff (born in 1921, née Adrian) died on 12 April 2013 in Bonn. She and her husband Matthew Mead – Mead was a pen-name – had lived in Bad Godesberg for many years. She worked as a librarian. Together they translated many German poets, including Nelly Sachs and perhaps most notably Johannes Bobrowski. A favourite was the SDP politician and later mayor of Darmstadt, Heinz Winfried Sabais. They captured vividly the pace and movement of his poems, whether lyric, political or personal.

At the Doctor's

Mon, 1 Apr 2013 -1:00:00 GMT

Nachoem M. Wijnberg

At the Doctor’s

Tell it to your doctor, if he’s an old man he’ll roll around on the floor at your feet laughing.
A squashed cat with outstretched legs, like it’s been kicked to the side of the road, where would you like me to lie down?
If he’s old enough, he’s heard it before, otherwise I’ll go away and come back when he’s older.
I walk until I find a wall to climb over and end up in a garden.
It’s not a big garden, a man standing in it wouldn’t think he was far away from everyone else, he can tell where he is from the stars above his head.
The stars disappear one by one, as if only one can be left.
Something goes wrong and none are left.
Someone somewhere lies laughing on the ground.
You write on the palm of my hand what I need to say to spend a day alone with you.

Translated by David Colmer

From Advance Payment by Nachoem M. Wijnberg

Dennis O'Driscoll 1954-2012

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Dennis O’Driscoll died on Christmas Eve. He was much loved and cherished not only in Ireland but worldwide, as the tributes to be found online show – from writers, critics and others in the wider literary world, and at home from the Irish President.

At Anvil we will miss him as a friend and supporter as well as a poet of increasing stature. We will miss his wise counsel and his steady encouragement and appreciation of our work. We will miss the generosity of his dedication to poetry and poets.

Not the Dead by Dennis O'Driscoll

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Dennis O’Driscoll

Not the Dead

It is not the dead who haunt us.
There is no further damage they can do.
We have seen them to death’s door.

Made sure they had expired.
Double-checked their pulse.
Tested them for livor mortis, breath.

Turned them over to embalmers
who stitched their lips.
Left them deaf and dumb.

Burned them to a cinder.
Buried them up
to their oxters in muck.

It is the not-yet-born
we are up against.
They will be the first to forget us.

Strike down our judgements
as null and void.
Rewrite our history.

Consign us to the past.
Find solutions to what baffled us.
Put us down to experience.

Outlast us.

From Dear Life (2012) by Dennis O’Driscoll

Horace Odes II.8 translated by Bill Shepherd

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Bill Shepherd

Horace Odes II.8

Aequam memento rebus in arduis

Dellius, all must die: be sure to retain
an equable mind in vexation
avoiding also intemperate joy
at advantages gained,

whether you lead a life of gloom
or relax stretched out on some sequestered
lawn (your password ‘Falernian’)
throughout the holy days.

With whom do pines and silvery poplars
share their hospitable shade?
Why does runaway water
tremble in winding streams?

With us, for us. Command all scents and wines
and the too brief spell of the rose
while affairs and times
and the Fates’ black thread allow –

then goodbye mortgaged woodlands, home
and the manor the yellow Tiber washed
and the spoils piled up to the heights,
which your heir shall get.

Rich man born from ancient Inachus
or poor man – it makes no odds – from the lowest
race under sky you shall die
Orcus’s victim, who pities none.

All are thus compelled;
solemn and swift the urn
is shaken; fate will out; a little boat
will take us to eternal exile.

from Evidences (1980) by Bill Shepherd

W.G. ('Bill') Shepherd

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

We are sad to announce the death of W.G. (‘Bill’) Shepherd, a poet with an early background in industry who produced remarkable versions of the works of Sextus Propertius and of Horace’s Odes and Epodes – both published as Penguin Classics, the Horace introduced by the redoubtable editor of the series, Betty Radice, an enthusiast for poets’ translations of poets and a Horace aficionado. Bill was born in 1935 and published three collections with Anvil, as well as a shared selection of the Roman poet Statius with Anthony Howell, while Menard Press published his sequence Mother’s Milk in 2006.

Summer's End by Anne Pennington

Tue, 4 Sep 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Anne Pennington

Summer’s End

Lock up this summer in a casket of hay
In a tower of sand in the wind’s embrace
In a poppy’s chalice lock it lightly
Lock it that it may reappear
Sometime you’re alone sometime in winter
Reappear like a scent like a name forgotten
Like a healing sign.

Anne Pennington Memorial Appeal

Tue, 4 Sep 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Those who love Anne Pennington’s wonderful translations from Serbo-Croat, notably of Vasko Popa’s poetry, will not be too surprised that she wrote poetry herself. Or, at least, this one poem, found among her papers; no others have emerged. Her college Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford has launched an appeal to fund support for undergraduates attending courses in South Slavonic languages in the relevant country. Anne would have heartily approved. Full details are available in PDF form from:

http://www.lmh.ox.ac.uk/getmedia/dc299f70-293c-47af-9067-29537d9da8c7/The-Anne-Pennington-Memorial-Appeal-flyer.pdf.aspx

Angels and Harvesters

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

James Harpur

Angels and Harvesters

As thoughts arrive
From god knows where,
Or sun breaks through
A fraying cloud
Emboldening a patch
Of trees, or grass,
They just appeared
From nowhere
Among the harvesters
The field a world
Of cutting, gathering,
Cutting, gathering.
Their outlines sometimes
Flickering brighter,
They walked between
The bending figures
Curious
Pausing to watch,
Like ancestors
Almost remembering
The world they’d left,
Or foreigners
Amused to see
The same things done.
They moved around
Unseen by all –
Unless one glimpsed,
Perhaps, light thicken,
A glassy movement,
As air can wobble
On summer days.
And then they went
Walked into nothing
Just left the world
Without ceremony
Unless it was
The swish of scythes
The swish of scythes

From Angels and Harvesters by James Harpur

Admissions by Dennis O'Driscoll

Thu, 24 May 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Dennis O’Driscoll

Admissions

Before you do down life again,
badmouth a world that never lives up
to its billing, recall how glorious it seemed,
your unwillingness to let go, that evening
you were driven to Admissions.

Every shabby sight you passed
gleamed with some ameliorating
feature, mustering enough initiative
to demonstrate its best case scenario.
Your own scrawny excuse for a lawn –

one part weed to two parts moss –
glowed with previously unsuspected
zest; the day’s remaining light was fraying
at the edges as the sun signed off on
the horizon’s dotted line: a virtuosic chef,

concocting dishes from leftovers,
drizzling pigment, tossing in whatever
mix of clashing tinctures lay unused.
How carefree everyone appeared as
they flashed momentarily into view

along your painful route: tourists perusing
the early-bird menu, a buggy-wheeling
mother cutting through church grounds,
hoodies ganging up against the counter
in the steamy comfort of the takeaway.

That you fell for the world’s seductive looks
that evening in the psychedelic dusk
is not to be denied; how some confidence –
insider information you had withheld until then –
was let slip: and he saw that it was good.

From Dear Life by Dennis O’Driscoll

Two new books for the summer

Thu, 24 May 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Our summer books feature Dennis O’Driscoll’s ninth collection, Dear Life, and James Harpur’s fifth, Angels and Harvesters, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. In their different ways these two Irish (Anglo-Irish in James Harpur’s case) poets embody the best qualities in modern poetry: thoughtful clarity and seriousness combined with wry humour and the technique to match their concerns.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price.

The Lost Hare by Nina Bogin

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Nina Bogin

The Lost Hare

Every day a different weather,
weeks without seeing moon or sun,
and a hare I’ve been trying to track down
these twelve years gone, ever since

I glimpsed it, deep in thought,
in the high grass of the marsh;
I saw the ash-grey tips of its ears.
Seeing me, it disappeared

into blackthorn and wild rose,
leaving its burrows unattended,
the entryways clogging with cobwebs.
In the meantime

my hair has gone grey,
my hands thick-veined, and the lines
of my thwarted quest cross my face
from every direction.

My long-haired daughters have grown,
left for other cities. We tend the fire,
keep the rooms clean, lay the table for two.
And beyond the black door

the sky fills up with stars
shedding their slow light
on the innumerable paths
through the marsh-grass

to the hollow
where the lost hare sleeps
bedded down in the thoughts
and dreams I hoarded there.

From The Lost Hare by Nina Bogin

Four new books for the spring

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

The four books we feature are just published and make a strong and varied set. The American poet Nina Bogin has previously published only two – but very distinctive – collections; her third will not disappoint. There are sparkling collections from our two Jerusalem-based poets, Jennie Feldman and Gabriel Levin. Finally, the very English Peter Dale gives us the best part of a long and distinguished life’s work, including new poems and epigrams which show that his imagination is still as fertile as ever.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price.

New readings on CD by Oliver Bernard

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Oliver Bernard has produced a new CD of his readings from Whitman (‘Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking’), his own sequence ‘Moons and Tides’, seven poems from Rimbaud's Les Illuminations and his own stage-performance version of A Season in Hell. It is available for £10 inclusive of postage and packing direct from:

Oliver Bernard
1 East Church Street
Kenninghall
Norfolk
NR16 2EP

Tel: 01953 887768

www.oliverbernard.com

Eternity by Arthur Rimbaud

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Arthur Rimbaud

L’Éternité

Elle est retrouvée.
Quoi? – L’Éternité.
C’est la mer allée
Avec le soleil.

Âme sentinelle,
Murmurons l’aveu
De la nuit si nulle
Et du jour en feu.

Des humains suffrages,
Des communs élans
Là tu te dégages
Et voles selon.

Puisque de vous seules,
Braises de satin,
Le Devoir s’exhale
Sans qu’on dise: en fin.

Là pas d’espérance,
Nul orietur.
Science avec patience,
Le supplice est sûr.

Elle est retrouvée.
Quoi? – l’Éternité.
C’est la mer allée
Avec le soleil.

Mai 1872

Eternity

It has been found again. What? – Eternity. It is the sea¹ gone with the sun.
     Sentinel soul, let us murmur our avowal that the night is full of nothingness, and the day on fire.
     From human approbation, from common urges, you detach yourself here and take flight as you may.
     Since from you alone, satiny embers, Duty breathes without anyone saying: there it is.
     There is no hope here, no orietur.² Knowledge and fortitude, the [final] suffering is certain.
     It has been found again.What? – Eternity. It is the sea gone with the sun.

1 . Cf. ‘ Mémoire’, 3 – la mère is hinted at here, in la mer.
2. = it (the sun) will rise (again).

Translated by Oliver Bernard

From Rimbaud: The Poems

February's featured books

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 -1:00:00 GMT

Every so often a short period in a country’s history gives rise to an extraordinary burst of creativity. So it was in France from the 1840s to about 1870, when an abundance of poets emerged. Perhaps they have had little profound influence on English-language poetry, but they remain among the readable poets of any time.

Our new editions of Baudelaire and Rimbaud testify to their enduring strength, with their inventive presentations by Oliver Bernard (Rimbaud) and the late Francis Scarfe (Baudelaire). Nor should an older poet, Victor Hugo, be overlooked: Harry Guest's versions are a surprise and a delight.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price.

A Christmas Poem by Dick Davis

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Dick Davis

A Christmas Poem

      One of the oxen said
‘I know him, he is me – a beast
      Of burden, used, abused,
      Excluded from the feast –
      A toiler, one by whom
      No task will be refused:
I wish him strength, I give him room.’

      One of the shepherds said
‘I know him, he is me – a man
      Who wakes when others sleep,
      Whose watchful eyes will scan
      The drifted snow at night
      Alert for the lost sheep:
I give this lamb, I wish him sight.’

      One of the wise men said
‘I know him, he is me – a king
      On wisdom’s pilgrimage,
      One Plato claimed would bring
      – The world back to its old
      Unclouded golden age:
I wish him truth, I give him gold.’

      Mary his mother said
‘I know his heart’s need, it is mine –
      The chosen child who lives
      Lost in his Lord’s design,
      The self and symbol of
      The selfless life he gives:
I give him life, I wish him love.’

Written for the 1982 Carol Service
of Nene College, Northampton

From The Covenant (1984) by Dick Davis

December's featured books

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The Christmas holiday is the perfect time to tackle those longer masterpieces one always meant to read. Dante’s The Divine Comedy might – be honest! – be one of them. Peter Dale’s version is as clear and fluent a version as you could wish.

Rilke has been everybody’s favourite German-language poet for a long time; Michael Hamburger’s selection from the miscellaneous poems written between 1912 and 1926 show a less familiar side to him than The Duino Elegies or Sonnets to Orpheus.

The poet and songwriter Nikos Gatsos’s Amorgos is a masterpiece of Greek surrealism, though that is probably the wrong term; in any case it is wonderful, mysterious and resonant poetry.

Finally, Gavin Bantock’s Just Think of It is a collection of thought-provoking and often provocative poems by a poet whose long sojourn in Japan gives him an unusual perspective, though many of his poems deal with his English childhood and youth.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price.

Vayenas chosen as Book of the Year

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Nasos Vayenas’s The Perfect Order (edited by Richard Berengarten and Paschalis Nikolaou) was chosen as a Book of the Year by Josephine Balmer in The Times (3 December 2011). She wrote that it ‘looks set to become a modern translation classic ... it brings Vayenas’s elegant, cultured work to English readers for the first time.’

November's featured books

Sun, 6 Nov 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

November's featured books are all from our backlist: Bei Dao's Unlock, the Chinese poet at his most enigmatic and intriguing; Peter Dale's moving story of interweaving relationships, Local Habitation; the Collected Poems of the great American poet Donald Justice, whose work is still too little appreciated and enjoyed; and Julian Turner's powerful recent third collection Planet-Struck.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price. Into the Deep Street, Jennie Feldman and Stephen Romer's anthology of seven modern French poets, is also offered at a special 20% discount during November.

RIP David Holbrook, J�nos Csokits, Ewald Osers

Sat, 5 Nov 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

With sadness we record the recent deaths of three notable poets and translators: David Holbrook, János Csokits and Ewald Osers.

Anvil published two collections of David Holbrook's poetry: Selected Poems 1961–1978 (1980), from which our Poem of the Month is taken, and Chance of a Lifetime (1978). Both are now out of print.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8832550/David-Holbrook.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/sep/01/david-holbrook-obituary

János Csokits memorably collaborated with Ted Hughes on the translation of János Pilinszky's selected poems, The Desert of Love. He also unstintingly helped Peter Jay with the versions of Pilinszky's later poems in Crater (1978), though he cared for them a great deal less than Pilinszky's earlier work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/22/janos-csokits-obituary

Ewald Osers's record as a translator from several languages is phenomenal, with some 150 books to his credit. The Aztec Calendar (1975) by the late Antonín Bartušek was his only publication with Anvil.

http://www.praguepost.com/blogs/books/2011/10/14/ewald-osers-1917-2011/

Rimbaud: The Poems - a new edition

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

A sneak preview of Oliver Bernard’s newly revised, bilingual edition of Rimbaud: The Poems was featured in The Independent on 18 September 2011:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/revealed-rimbaud-libertine-linguist-2356586.html

The book will be published by Anvil in December 2011 at £14.95 paperback, 978-0-85646-440-9.

RTE broadcasts The Last Geraldine Officer

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Thomas McCarthy’s The Last Geraldine Officer is scheduled for broadcast as the RTE Book on One from Monday 7 November to Friday 11 November. His evocation of an Anglo-Irish country house between the wars should make for fascinating listening.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/thebookonone/

Dennis O'Driscoll reads in New York

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Dennis O’Driscoll reads at the Irish Arts Center, New York

There is just time to catch Dennis O’Driscoll reading in New York on Saturday 5 November 2011 at the IAC’s PoetryFest2011. Admission is free. Full details from:

http://irishartscenter.org/literary.html

Irish Arts Center Poetry Fest2011
553 West 51 Street
New York 10019
USA

Fingers in the Door by David Holbrook

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

David Holbrook

Fingers in the Door

for Kate

Careless for an instant I closed my child’s fingers in the jamb. She
Held her breath, contorted the whole of her being, foetus-wise,
      against the
Burning fact of the pain. And for a moment
I wished myself dispersed in a hundred thousand pieces
Among the dead bright stars. The child’s cry broke,
She clung to me, and it crowded in to me how she and I were
Light-years from any mutual help or comfort. For her I cast seed
Into her mother’s womb; cells grew and launched itself as a being:
Nothing restores her to my being, or ours, even to the mother
      who within her
Carried and quickened, bore, and sobbed at her separation, despite
      all my envy,
Nothing can restore. She, I, mother, sister, dwell dispersed among
      dead bright stars:
We are there in our hundred thousand pieces!

From Selected Poems 1961–1978 by David Holbrook

October's featured books

Mon, 3 Oct 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

October features the new title Songs and Sonnets, Nicholas Kilmer's versions of the neglected poet Petrarch. This edition, now bilingual, adds seventeen poems written after the death of his muse, Laura, to the 1980 collection which focused on poems written in her lifetime.

Our other recommendations are Into the Deep Street, Jennie Feldman and Stephen Romer's anthology of seven modern French poets, shortlisted for the Poetry Society's Popescu Prize for translations of European poetry, and two recent reprints: James Harpur's The Dark Age (2007) and Carol Ann Duffy's breakthrough collection, Mean Time (1993).

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price. Into the Deep Street is offered at a special 20% discount during October and November.

A girl under a green laurel

Sat, 1 Oct 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Petrarch

Songs and Sonnets: 30

A girl under a green laurel
I saw, whiter and more cold than snow
Untouched by the sun numberless years.
Her speaking, the grace of her look, her hair
So moved my pleasure, that I have them before my eyes,
Standing now on this shore.

When my thought of her reaches its last shore
Black leaves will hang on the laurel;
When my heart quiets, joy covers my eyes,
And frozen fire lives in burning snow.
I could not yet number my hair;
Nor could I count the days I would wait for such a year.

The time runs out. You see years
Vanish. Death rides against this shore,
My vigorous brown, white hair
In an instant. And I trace the shadow of the laurel
Through the sun’s heat as it rides on snow,
Until the last day will close my eyes.

I never saw such gentle eyes,
In any year,
That draw me into water as the sun melts snow;
And I follow the sad shore
As love leads me to the foot of the cruel laurel,
Whose diamond branches carry golden hair.

You will not recognize my face. My hair
Will change, before pity lives in those eyes.
I have carved an idol of the green laurel.
Today is the marking of the seventh year
My walk takes me along this shore
In the bright nights, in this hot mist of snow.

Fire the core, surrounded with white snow,
Alone in these thoughts, my hair
Whitened also – I will weep on this shore,
Will make pity come to the eyes
Of some gentle person to be born a thousand years
Hence. It will be standing here still, the great laurel.

Gold topaz in sun and snow,
This bright hair conquered my eyes.
My years stand at their final shore.

Translated by Nicholas Kilmer

From Songs and Sonnets by Petrarch

Into the Deep Street

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Jennie Feldman and Stephen Romer's anthology of seven modern French poets is on the shortlist of six books for the 2011 Corneliu M. Popescu Prize. The prize is for poetry translated into English from another European language. The judges, Sasha Dugdale and Jane Draycott, chose the shortlist from 73 submissions. It represents six publishers and the work of poets translated from five languages (Dutch, French, Romanian, Swedish and Turkish).

Organised by the Poetry Society and sponsored by The Ratiu Foundation, the £1,500 prize is awarded biennially to the translator of a collection of poetry translated into English from another European language.

Into the Deep Street is available on this website until the end of November for £11.95, a 20% discount on its normal price of £14.95.

Martina Evans

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Martina Evans has been awarded the Ciampi International Poetry Prize 2011. The prize – awarded to an Italian and a non-Italian poet – recognises the work of an author in mid-career. The prize was founded by artists and literary critics in Livorno, Italy in 2010.

Thomas McCarthy writes of Martina Evans:

‘Martina Evans’s poetry collections are a unique Irish aviary, a poet’s birdlife that sings above the obvious political drama. Her imagination is unique, darting, flitting, resonating with personal and poetic voices. Alone among her generation, she has tried to recover a lost psychological atmosphere; she has tried to restore Ireland as a remembered Arcady of mothers and daughters, of aunts and alcoholics. She is at once emotional and shrewd: her modern outlook is well camouflaged from the conservative and provincial vigilantes who roam the Irish poetic territory. Hidden behind the rich lace-curtain of her personal charm, her existentialism sings.’

September 2011

Fri, 9 Sep 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Ten years ago the unthinkable happened to America, to New York City, and by implication to the western world. Reactions took many forms: this publisher's was to re-read Walt Whitman, and to prepare I Hear America Singing as a tribute to the dead and to honour the spirit of America. Whitman loved Manhattan, had profound faith in a democratic future for his country, and took delight in humanity at large. He is both a consoling and an inspiriting poet.

Our other books for this month are the American Nina Bogin's The Winter Orchards; Tony Connor's collected poems Things Unsaid; and the Greek poet and songwriter Nikos Gatsos's unique poem Amorgos, translated by Sally Purcell and introduced by the late Peter Levi.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price.

Walt Whitman: I Dream'd in a Dream

Fri, 9 Sep 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Walt Whitman

I Dream’d in a Dream

I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the
whole of the rest of the earth,
I dream’d that was the new city of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led
the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.

Life

Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man;
(Have former armies fail’d? then we send fresh armies – and
fresh again;)
Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new;
Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands,
the loud applause;
Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last;
Struggling to-day the same – battling the same.

The United States to Old World Critics

Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete,
Wealth, order, travel, shelter, products, plenty;
As of the building of some varied, vast, perpetual edifice,
Whence to arise inevitable in time, the towering roofs, the lamps,
The solid-planted spires tall shooting to the stars.

The first Poetry Book Fair in London

Fri, 9 Sep 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The first Poetry Book Fair in London takes place on Saturday 24 September from 10 am to 5 pm, at Exmouth Market Centre, 24 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QE. Publishers displaying include Anvil, Arc, Carcanet, CBe, Donut, Enitharmon, Poetry Book Society, Reality Street, Salt, Shearsman, Waywiser and others. Free entry; readings throughout the day.

James Harpur

Fri, 9 Sep 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

James Harpur has won the 2011 Manchester Cathedral Poetry Competition judged by Jeffrey Wainwright. His poem, 'Finbarr and the Serpent of Gougane Barra', based on an Irish legend, won the £450 first prize and earned Harpur the title of Manchester Cathedral Poet of the Year. He will receive his prize at a presentation in the cathedral on 18 October 2011, an event which is part of the Manchester Literature Festival.

A previous winner of the British National Poetry Competition, James Harpur is known for writing poetry with spiritual or religious themes. His latest book, The Dark Age, won the 2009 Michael Hartnett Award, and his fifth collection of poetry, Angels and Harvesters, is due from Anvil in 2012. For more information about Harpur visit www.jamesharpur.com

The holiday season's books

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The holiday season's books, which will run through August, start with the new edition of Vasko Popa’s Complete Poems (1953–1987), surely one of the great life's works of any twentieth-century poet. Francis Jones has added the remaining uncollected, occasional poems and written new editorial material.

Jones’s brilliant translations also make Ivan V. Lali�’s A Rusty Needle a compelling collection of earlier work by another great Serbian poet. Dennis O'Driscoll’s Reality Check is his eighth collection and as entertaining and thought-provoking as ever. Finally, we go back to the source of western lyric poetry with Sappho Through English Poetry, which traces the Greek poet’s reception in English translations and adaptations.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price.

The Poplar and the Passer-By, by Vasko Popa

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Vasko Popa

The Poplar and the Passer-By

They’re widening the street
Clogged with traffic
They’re felling the poplars

The bulldozers take a run-up
And with a single blow
Knock down the trees

One poplar just trembled
Withstood the iron

The bulldozer pulls back
From her noisily
Prepares for the final charge

In the huddle of passers-by
There’s an elderly man

He takes his hat off to the poplar
Waves his umbrella at her
And shouts at the top of his voice

Don’t give in love

Translated by Anne Pennington and Francis R. Jones

From Complete Poems by Vasko Popa

Dennis O'Driscoll featured on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Garrison Keillor’s highly enjoyable public radio programme The Writer's Almanac has been broadcasting a poem a day for nearly 20 years. On Thursday 16 June the poem he will read is ‘Middle-Class Blues’ by Dennis O’Driscoll. It is accessible via the internet at:
www.writersalmanac.publicradio.org

June's featured books

Mon, 6 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

June's featured books are the paperback edition of Norman Cameron's Collected Poems and Selected Translations, to which one recently discovered poem is added; Thomas McCarthy’s bold evocation of the Anglo-Irish world between the two world wars in The Last Geraldine Officer, serialized in June on RTE’s Book on One; and new editions of Adam Czerniawski’s translations of two great Polish poets, Cyprian Norwid from the nineteenth century and Tadeusz Rózewicz from the present day.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price.

Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize

Sun, 5 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Jean Follain: 130 Poems chosen and translated by Christopher Middleton has been shortlisted for the 2011 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. The winner of the £2,000 prize will be announced at St Anne's College, Oxford, on Wednesday 8 June 2011.

http://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/about/oxford-weidenfeld-translation-prize.html

Thomas McCarthy's The Last Geraldine Officer

Sun, 5 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Thomas McCarthy's The Last Geraldine Officer is the Irish broadcaster RTE's Book on One from 6-10 June:

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/thebookonone/

Green, Green is El Aghir by Norman Cameron

Sun, 5 Jun 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Norman Cameron

Green, Green is El Aghir

Sprawled on the crates and sacks in the rear of the truck,
I was gummy-mouthed from the sun and the dust of the track,
And the two Arab soldiers I’d taken on as hitch-hikers
At a torrid petrol-dump, had been there on their hunkers
Since early morning. I said, in a kind of French
‘On m’a dit, qu’il y a une belle source d’eau fraîche,
Plus loin, à El Aghir’ . . .

It was eighty more kilometres
Until round a corner we heard a splashing of waters,
And there, in a green, dark street, was a fountain with two faces
Discharging both ways, from full-throated faucets
Into basins, thence into troughs and thence into brooks.
Our negro corporal driver slammed his brakes,
And we yelped and leapt from the truck and went at the double
To ?ll our bidons and bottles and drink and dabble.
Then, swollen with water, we went to an inn for wine.
The Arabs came, too, though their faith might have stood between.
‘After all,’ they said, ‘it’s a boisson,’ without contrition.

Green, green is El Aghir. It has a railway-station,
And the wealth of its soil has borne many another fruit,
A mairie, a school and an elegant Salle de Fêtes.
Such blessings, as I remarked, in effect, to the waiter,
Are added unto them that have plenty of water.

From Collected Poems and Selected Translations by Norman Cameron

Rabindranath Tagore: Song Offerings, 17

Sun, 1 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Rabindranath Tagore

Song Offerings: 17

Where is the light? Where, where is the light?
With separation’s torch set it alight.
A lamp with no flame ’s crest – is this
the fate set down I shall not miss?
Even to die is better than that, more bright.
With separation’s torch give my lamp light.

The messenger of grief sings, ‘For your sake
O Life, on your account God is awake.
When pitch-black dark of night is falling
to a love-tryst he is calling,
rich-honouring you by way of sorrow’s ache.
O Life, on your account God is awake.’

Clouds in layer on layer have massed and deepened.
Rain is pouring down, the heavens have opened.
And that my heart is suddenly
awake this awful night – O tell me,
can you tell me why this should have happened?
Rain is pouring down, the heavens have opened.

The lustre is soon lost of lightning’s spark.
It leaves the eyes cloaked in a deeper dark.
I don’t know where it is, the song
of deep note that draws me along,
or how far off, that still is my life ’s mark.
It leaves the eyes cloaked in a deeper dark.

Where is the light? Where, where is the light?
With separation’s torch set it alight.
Clouds are thundering, a storm-wind blowing,
the passage of time will stop my going
in this dense dark, this deepest dead of night.
With my life set the lamp of love alight.

Translated by Joe Winter

From Song Offerings by Rabindranath Tagore

May's featured books

Sun, 1 May 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

May’s featured books celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth on 7 May of the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore was a true Renaissance man – poet, novelist, composer, playwright, painter, educationalist (he founded the Visva Bharati university). His influence on Bengali literature and music is felt to this day. Joe Winter began translating Tagore’s work in Calcutta, the poet’s home town, starting with Song Offerings – the first complete English verse translation of Gitanjali. With Devadatta Joardar he translated Tagore’s essays Atmaparichay, titled Of Myself in English. The Golden Boat is his personal choice of Tagore’s most memorable poems.

Joe Winter's Guest and Host is his ‘Sonnets from Calcutta’, composed while living there between 1994 and 2000.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price.

The Fruit, the Tree by E.A. Markham

Wed, 6 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

E.A. Markham

The Fruit, the Tree

And what do you say to the child
To calm her and stop the tears:
She can't understand why the fruit

She'd watched grow to perfection
Is now in a bowl inside.
The thought to separate fruit

From tree seemed a good idea
Before putting it back
Where it belonged. Why can't you

Who must know everything
Put these things right? No one told her
It had to be like this.

Explanations are hateful; everything
Is hateful: she won't believe it.
And must the tree die?

Years later you agree:
No use hanging on to things
That flatter you. The man

With the blade is your friend,
The best pruner in town.
So let's pretend you're the tree

Ripe where you don't need to be.
This fruit cannot be good
For you. Trust me. Trust me.

From Looking Out, Looking In by E.A. Markham

April's featured books

Wed, 6 Apr 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

April's featured books begin with the late E.A. Markham, who died at Easter three years ago. We remember him fondly and with admiration for all he accomplished in prose and verse.

Jennie Feldman's The Lost Notebook displays both sharpness of image and musical subtlety in a distinctive first collection. David Hinton, surely the finest living translator of Chinese poetry, shows why Li Po is regarded as one of the great lyric poets. Margitt Lehbert's scrupulous and effective renditions of Georg Trakl do justice to the imagination of a brilliant but tortured soul.

These books have a 10% discount built into their displayed price.

Arts Council England decisions on 2012-2015 funding

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Arts Council England (ACE) has announced its decisions on 'national portfolio' funding for April 2012 to March 2015, after a lengthy process brought about by the government's decision last year to cut ACE's funds by 30%. We are grateful that ACE has decided to continue funding Anvil, although the level of future funding represents a cut of 36.4% in cash terms, or 42.1% when adjusted for expected inflation (Arts Council figures).

Sestina at the End of Socialism by Matthew Mead

Tue, 1 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Matthew Mead

Sestina at the End of Socialism

We watch the workers walk away,
We hear a time-clock punched in time.
The whole account is in the red
But not much in the shops today.
Ruin is coming like a rhyme.
The party is as good as dead.

The leadership as bad as dead,
Frightened and too old anyway.
A gut that rumbles makes a rhyme
For something being sick in time.
Old men wake up to dread the day,
The mockery of dawn is red.

‘The People’s Flag is crimson-red,
It flutters o’er our martyred dead’
We shall not sing that song today.
Massed choirs no longer voice the way
Men massed might make a sense of time
Surpassing reason with a rhyme.

A dogma ruthless as a rhyme;
The sodding tundra sodden red,
Kulak and gulag, slime and time,
Purge/urge, the duty to be dead.
Ten million roubles bet each way.
The lads are eating horse today.

It could be my last day today –
Young Rubashov will know the rhyme
Eternity might shrug away.
The girls were young, the wine was red,
And hardly anybody dead.
Perhaps there’ll be another time.

At some small rotting point in time
This is the end of yesterday;
A future waiting for the dead.
The rhyme is only there to rhyme.
The autumn comes, the leaves turn red.
Ungood the leaves are blown away.

Tick-tock, Ingsoc, a load of rhyme.
Expletive day, deleted red.
Dead end. Dada. Go out this way.

From The Autumn-Born in Autumn by Matthew Mead

March's featured books

Tue, 1 Mar 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

March's featured books remember Matthew Mead, who died on 14 March 2009. The Autumn-Born in Autumn is his own selection from his life's work in poetry. With his wife Ruth he translated from a number of German poets, notably Johannes Bobrowski and Heinz Winfried Sabais. Word for Word is his personal selection of their German poets.

Contrasting poetic traditions are represented in J.L. Gili's Selected Poems of Federico García Lorca and David Hinton's The Selected Poems of Wang Wei. Hinton is the finest living translator of Chinese poetry and his Wang Wei completes his selections from the major T'ang Dynasty poets. Gili's Lorca is the book that introduced Lorca to many non-Spanish readers, including poets like Ted Hughes.

These books have a 10% discount built into their advertised price.

Poem of the Month: February 2011

Tue, 1 Feb 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Julian Turner

At the Pagan Sites

My father showed me how to haunt such sites:
he disappeared as I walked after him,
returned to me as one small speck within

the larger field, wearing the clothes of sky,
his wet shirt flapping scarecrow-like, a kind
of corposant appearing to illume

the flake-white of his cheeks as if he came
back from a lonely lake on the far shores;
and in between the time he disappeared

and he returned, beside some nameless mound
I’d wait and watch the dark grow in the east,
a high wind fill the distant copse or pick

among the scraps and fents left in the ditch
for old time’s cloth of gold and muddy gems.
Rustlings would follow him like after-steps.

They followed us when he would take a hold
of my hand, as silently he walked me back
to the thoughtless world of ordinary things.

We all spend some time there. I get away
as much as possible. I drive at dusk
and wait alone where lane-ends swing the lead.

From Planet-Struck by Julian Turner

February's featured books

Tue, 1 Feb 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

February's featured books start with Julian Turner's Planet-Struck, his powerful third collection, just published and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Salvation Jane, Greta Stoddart's dazzling second collection, was shortlisted for the Costa Prize for poetry in 2009. Guillaume Apollinaire's Selected Poems, a bilingual edition with Oliver Bernard's translations, reminds us of the joie de vivre and heady experimentation of nearly 100 years ago, while Mak Dizdar's sombre poems in Stone Sleeper, beautifully recreated by Francis Jones, speak of a different and older European tradition.

The launch of The Perfect Order, selected poems by Nasos Vayenas

Sat, 1 Jan 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

The launch of Nasos Vayenas’s selected poems The Perfect Order will be held on Wednesday 19 January from 6.30–8.30 pm at the Hellenic Centre, 16–18 Paddington Street, London W1U 5AS (nearest tube: Baker Street). This event is sponsored by the Embassy of Greece. There will be readings by the poet and the editors, Richard Berengarten and Paschalis Nikolaou, at 7.00. All are welcome and entry is free.

A Happy New Year to you all!

Poem of the Month: January 2011

Sat, 1 Jan 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

Nasos Vayenas

The Perfect Order

The poppy’s quiet bombast enthrals me.

So does the rope-ladder of the preacher’s voice
on Sunday.

And also: the sound of evening rain on the inky
membranes of November.

As in a dream I watch the fans going crazy. At the
precise moment when the PAOK–Panathinaikos
match is drawn. (A corking header from
Terzanides in the 90th minute.)

The brilliant birds. The slippery slope in Veria. The
armchair near the radiator. Carnations ...

Warm curve of the moon: you are irreplaceable.

Death: you are light’s silken lining.

Translated by Margaret Kofod and Richard Berengarten

From The Perfect Order by Nasos Vayenas

January's featured books are the editor's pick

Sat, 1 Jan 2011 -1:00:00 GMT

January’s featured books are the editor’s pick of his holiday reading, starting with the just-published The Perfect Order, the selected poems of a leading Greek poet, Nasos Vayenas. From 2010 there is Anthony Howell’s unpredictable and entertaining collection The Ogre’s Wife, reviewed in the TLS of 17 December. Rejoicing is the great and under-celebrated American poet Stanley Moss’s new and collected poems. Finally the late Sally Purcell’s Collected Poems, introduced by Marina Warner, the extraordinary and haunting work of a life cut sadly short.

These books have a 10% discount built into their advertised price.

Our featured books for December

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Our featured books for December are two newly published titles, Harry Guest’s Some Times and Dubliner Alan Moore’s How Now!. Our recent new edition of Vasko Popa’s The Golden Apple, his selection of Serbian folk tales, poems, riddles and more, and the irrepressible Nina Cassian’s most recent collection Continuum make up the quartet. As always with our featured books, 10% has been deducted from the price of these four books.

Inventory: Homage to Jacques Pr�vert

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Harry Guest

Inventory: Homage to Jacques Prévert

Two Elizabethan miniatures, one Jacobean tragedy, one
Caroline succession, one Regency terrace, one Victorian
horror, one Edwardian afternoon.

Five ﬁnger exercises, four quartets, three blind mice,
two lilywhite boys, one pair of hands.

One gaudy night.

Twelve honest men and true, three months without the
option, twenty-two yards.

One chain.

First light, second sight, third time lucky, fourth
dimension, ﬁfth avenue, sixth sense, seventh seal, eighth
army, forty-ninth parallel, eleventh hour, twelfth man.

Four Bills, eight Hals, one Steve, eight Teds, two Jims,
two Charlies.

Two Lizzies, two Maries, one Anne.

Three guineas. Two gentlemen of Verona. One tale of
two cities. Seven samurai. Three men in a boat. One way
pendulum.

To say nothing of the dog.

Two years before the mast. Four feathers. Nine pins.
Three card tricks. Six of the best. Four corners of the earth.
One wonder. Two Tudors. Four forgers. Ten tenders. One
book of revelation. Half a dozen of the other.

Six of one.

Nine tailors. Ten green bottles. Thirty-nine articles.
Six proud walkers. Seven maids (with seven mops). One
partridge (in a pear-tree).

No fear. No name. No bed for Bacon. No room at the
inn. No time to argue.

Two for the price of one.

Three legged races. Three cornered hats. Three bags
full.

Forty winks. Four posters. Forty pianos. Fourscore
years and ten. One rod, pole or perch. Sixteen ounces.

One pound. Fourteen pounds.

One stone.

From Some Times by Harry Guest

Our featured books

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Each month our featured books are offered at a 10% discount from their published price. This is included in the price shown on the book’s page. Take advantage of this offer before these prices revert to the standard prices at midnight on the last day of the month!

Welcome to the News section

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Welcome to the News section. In introducing it, I should say that the term ‘News’ will sometimes be a misnomer. We’ll keep you up to date with details of forthcoming Anvil events open to the public and news about our poets and books. But we will also use this spot for a variety of occasional material – interviews, contributions from our poets, articles, a brief history of Anvil, and even competitions.

For a poetry publisher, the real news has to be poetry. In Pound’s words, ‘poetry is news that stays news’. We’ll choose Poems of the Month which will bear repeated reading.

For the moment, this website is our main news. We would especially like to draw your attention to the Featured Books in the right-hand side-panel, highlighting a mixture of new, recent and older books. What’s new for you can as well be an old book you’ve missed as a book straight off the press.

We hope you enjoy our website. It’s a work in progress and there will be regular updating of information about books and authors and frequent addition of new material.

The launch of Harry Guest's new book Some Times

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

The launch of Harry Guest’s new book Some Times takes place on Wednesday 10 November from 7.30 to 8.45 pm at Exeter Central Library, Castle Street, Exeter (tel. 01392 384201). Harry Guest will introduce and read from the book and there will be a Q&A session. Entry £4 includes a glass of wine.

The Inventor of the Printing Press, by Jean Follain

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 -1:00:00 GMT

Jean Follain

The Inventor of the Printing Press

for Pierre-Albert Birot

He held between two irritable fingers
close to the white window glass
the very first
movable character.
It was one of those icy days
when the grasses stiffen
no longer to bend on the islands,
a wild duck was flying at the zenith
and close to the snuffed candles
the fathomless new press,
its composition shaky still,
was going for the first time
to be sweetly seized
by the wild shadows of an evening.
The little people knew nothing yet,
nor did the mothers, nor the Emperor,
nor the miser
and just like now
in broad day before nightfall
everyone was searching
for a part to play.

From 130 Poems by Jean Follain
Translated by Christopher Middleton