Other books that might interest you

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  The Holy Sonnets - Incredible...

  John Donne

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  John Donne was born on the 22nd January 1572 in London, into a Roman Catholic family when Catholicism was illegal in England, and there was turbulence and unrest with both state and church throughout much of Europe.  
   
  His father, also named John, died when he was four, and his mother, Elizabeth Haywood, married a wealthy widower, ensuring the family were looked after.  He received a good education at both Oxford and Cambridge but was unable to obtain a degree without taking the oath of supremacy, which as a Catholic he refused to do.  
   
  During the 1590s, Donne wrote a wide range of verses, including both erotic and sacred poems, creating two major volumes of work.  His strong vivacious and sensual style fusing intellect and passion, as well as inventive use of subtle argument and syntax, provided a new radical perspective that reached beyond his contemporaries, and continued to chime and charm poetry lovers throughout the ages.  
   
  Difficult to believe that with this enormous talent, Donne lived in poverty for many years, exacerbated by his secret marriage to Anne Moore, which meant no dowry, and they having twelve children.  Later he served in Parliament and became Dean of St Paul's in 1621, noted for his learned and charismatic sermons.  
   
  John Donne died in London on the 31st March 1631, but leaves an enormous legacy of many splendid influential poems.  He was known as the founder of the Metaphysical Movement and is widely regarded as one of Britain's best-loved poets.

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  The Taming of the Shrew

  William Shakespeare

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  Shakespeare’s controversial comedy about a man’s quest to break the will of his headstrong wife.Whether this tale is motivated by misogyny, or is simply a satirical critique of men’s treatment of women is a matter up for much debate. Regardless of its potentially polarizing intentions, The Taming of the Shrew is one of William Shakespeare’s most intriguing comedies. Framed as a play within a play, it tells the story of the assertive Katherina’s marriage to Petruchio, who resorts to all sorts of psychological abuse in order to force her to be a traditional obedient wife. The inspiration for the Broadway play Kiss Me, Kate, The Taming of the Shrew is a fascinating glimpse into the sexual politics of the Elizabethan era.

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  The Bees

  Professor Carol Ann Duffy DBE

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  ‘Swooningly glorious’ The Times‘Indisputably her best volume’ Sunday TimesThe Bees is Carol Ann Duffy’s first collection of poems as Poet Laureate. In it she uses her full poetic range: there are drinking songs, love poems, poems of political anger; there are elegies, too, for beloved friends, and – most movingly – the poet’s own mother. Woven and weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is Duffy’s subject, sometimes it strays into the poem, or hovers at its edge. In the end, Duffy’s point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world, and what is most precious and necessary for us to protect. The Bees, at once intimate and public, is a work of great power from one of our most cherished poets.

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  Neighbour Procedure

  Syd Zolf

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  Zolf’s powerful follow-up to the Trillium Award-winning Human Resources is a virtuoso polyvocal correspondence with the daily news, ancient scripture and contemporary theory that puts the ongoing conï¬?ict in Israel/Palestine firmly in the crosshairs. Plucked from a minefield of competing knowledges, media and public texts, Neighbour Procedure sees Zolf assemble an arsenal of poetic procedures and words borrowed froma cast of unlikely neighbours, including Mark Twain, Dadaist Marcel Janco, blogger-poet Ron Silliman and two women at the gym. The result is a dynamic constellation where humour and horror sit poised at the threshold of ethics and politics. 
  'Neighbour Procedure … pack[s] an intellectual punch that reminds us, once again, of the powerhouse generations of innovative feminist poets that continually challenge and transform our understanding of what poetic texts can do.' 
  – Matrix Magazine 
  ‘This is an extraordinary collection of poems, and yet I hesitate in saying this, since something happens to poetry in these pages, so I no longer know what precisely poetry is or can be. In fact, Rachel Zolf brings an incredible range of readings to bear on the poetic line. If there is a mixing of media within these lines, there is also a proliferation of tongues, an effort to let language collide to produce a more acute and anguished experience of war. Israel and Palestine recur in the fits and starts of meditation offered here where language follows unpredictable sequences and finds itself suddenly stuttering in its vowels. There is mourning, rage and some brave and difficult effort to speak across traditions, languages, to avow loss, to expose the colder rationalities of occupation and war, and a linguistic fathoming of the ethics of proximity. This is courageous and moving work that feels like the struggle of a lifetime condensed into potent lines.’ – Judith Butler 
  ‘Politics and poetry are a volatile mix. Yes, except that the voices of war and terrorism are themselves defiantly both. Zolf shows us this truth, and so her lyrics s(t)ing, acidly.’ – George Elliott Clarke, author of George and Rue 
  ‘Neighbour Procedure is the most realized conceptual-modular book of political poetry I’ve read to date; Zolf’s language-motion escapes several nation-states’ culture capture zones while re-threading the very notion of self-representational purposivity.’ – Rodrigo Toscano 
  ‘This book is a sharp, painful cry against the tyranny of the monologic.’ – Charles Bernstein 
  ‘There is a madness in thinking the problem of Israel and Palestine can be thought through or sorted out, a philosophical conundrum or puzzle of language; and there's a despair in thinking that reason has lost its right, leaving all to violence. In Neighbour Procedure, Zolf chooses madness, but yields to despair her suspicion that reason never had a right – only a discourse of ruins, monuments and counter-monuments to hope.’ – Benjamin Friedlander

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  Holloway Jones (NHB Modern Plays)

  Evan Placey

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  Holloway dreams of being a world-class BMXer, but she is held back by the tough reality of a parent in prison.
  Evan Placey's play Holloway Jones was commissioned by Synergy Theatre Project, toured schools and the Unicorn Theatre in 2011, and won the 2012 Brian Way Award for Best Play for Young People.

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  A Lion Was Learning to Ski - And...

  Ranjit Bolt

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  A Lion Was Learning to Ski. Humour, Limericks, Whimsical.

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