Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy

Name: Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy
Brand: Unknown
SKU: 9781852249427
Price: 39.99 NZD
Availability: InStock

By Neil Astley

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Summary

Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy is a curated selection of 100 stirring poems drawn from the acclaimed Staying Alive series by Neil Astley. This pocket-sized anthology offers a compelling journey through human experience, featuring themes of love, loss, fear, hope, memory, and mortality. The poems, sourced from global voices, blend emotional depth, intellectual sharpness, and wit. Editor Neil Astley enriches the collection with insightful background notes, making it an ideal companion for readers discovering contemporary poetry or seeking profound reflections on life.
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Format: Paperback / softback

$39⁹⁹

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Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy

$39⁹⁹

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Perfect for poetry lovers, gift-givers, and anyone intrigued by modern poetry’s capacity to explore human emotions and experiences. This concise edition suits readers new to contemporary verse as well as seasoned enthusiasts seeking a meaningful collection for bedside or travel reading.

This new pocketbook selection of 100 essential poems from the trilogy is a Staying Alive travel companion (also available as an e-book). As well as selecting favourite poems from the trilogy readers' and writers' choices as well as his own favourites editor Neil Astley provides background notes on the poets and poems.

Description

Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human have introduced many thousands of new readers to contemporary poetry and have helped poetry lovers to discover the little-known riches of world poetry. Each anthology in the Staying Alive series contains 500 poems to touch the heart, stir the mind, and fire the spirit.

These books have been enormously popular with readers, especially as gift books and bedside companions. The poems by writers from many parts of the world possess emotional power, intellectual edge, and playful wit. This pocketbook selection of 100 essential poems from the first three anthologies is a Staying Alive travel companion (also available as an e-book).

As well as selecting favourite poems from what was originally a trilogy—readers' and writers' choices as well as his own favourites—editor Neil Astley provides background notes on the poets and poems. A fourth volume in the series, Staying Human: new poems for Staying Alive, was published in 2020.

This format makes it even more suitable as a gift book for all those people you're sure would love modern poetry if only they were familiar with these kinds of poems. These essential poems are all about being human, being alive, and staying alive: encompassing themes of love and loss; fear and longing; hurt and wonder; war and death; grief and suffering; birth, growing up, and family; time, ageing, and mortality; memory, self, and identity; faith, hope, and belief; and acceptance of inadequacy and making do... all of human life in a hundred highly individual, universal poems.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Praised by noted figures, this anthology is described as distilling the human heart like nothing else (Jane Campion) and showcasing truly startling and powerful poems (Mia Farrow). John Berger remarks it leaves readers feeling less alone and more alive, while Philip Pullman calls it a magnificent anthology. Celebrated actors like Meryl Streep highlight its vibrant and living heartbeat.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781852249427

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 24 May 2012

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Bloodaxe Books Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 160

Collections

Arts & Culture Neil Astley Non-Fiction Poetry

About the Author

Neil Astley is editor of Bloodaxe Books, which he founded in 1978. His books include novels, poetry collections and anthologies, most notably those in Bloodaxe's Staying Alive anthology series: Staying Alive (2002), Being Alive (2004), Being Human (2011), and Staying Human (2020), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation; and three collaborations with Pamela Robertson-Pearce, Soul Food: nourishing poems for starved minds (2008), and the DVD-books In Person: 30 Poets (2008) and In Person: World Poets (2017). He has published two novels, The End of My Tether (2002), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and The Sheep Who Changed the World (2005). He received an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry, was given a D.Litt from Newcastle University for his work with Bloodaxe Books, and in 2018 was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He also guest-edited a transatlantic all-poetry issue of the American literary journal Ploughshares, the first such issue in its 43-year history. He lives in the Tarset Valley of Northumberland, England.

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