Staying Human

Staying Human is the latest addition to Bloodaxe's bestselling Staying Alive series of world poetry anthologies.

The first title in the series, Staying Alive (2002), has sold 253,000 copies worldwide, including 50,000 copies of an American edition (2003) licensed to Miramax (9781401359263). It was launched in New York by Meryl Streep and others at a gala event at the Cooper Union in New York and became a set text at many US colleges.

The second and third titles in the series, Being Alive (2004) and Being Human (2011), have sold 55,000 and 25,000 copies respectively, mainly in the UK and Europe.

Staying Human is the first title in the series to be published in the US since Miramax's US edition of Staying Alive ('real poems for unreal times') in 2003.

Anthologies in the Staying Alive series have been endorsed by leading writers and other cultural figures, including Meryl Streep, Van Morrison, John Berger, Edmund White, Helen Dunmore, Mia Farrow, Jane Campion, Anne Michaels, Ellie Goulding, Philip Pullman, Kamila Shamsie, and Beth Orton.

This fourth Bloodaxe world poetry anthology offers poetry lovers an even broader, international selection of 500 more 'real poems for unreal times'.

There's a strong focus on the human side of living in the 21st century in poems from the past two decades relating to migration, oppression, alienation, and the individual's struggle to hold on. Staying Human also draws on poems suggested by readers because they've been so important in their own lives, as well as many poems which have gone viral after being shared on social media because they speak to our times with such great immediacy.

Late additions have brought it right up to date with the inclusion of some amazing poems written in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The poems are by writers from around the world but principally from the UK, US, Ireland, Europe, and the Middle East.

'This is the one poetry book you need to buy this year.' - O The Oprah Magazine on the Miramax edition of Staying Alive

'I love Staying Alive and keep going back to it. Being Alive is just as vivid, strongly present and equally beautifully organised. But this new book feels even more alive. I think it has a heartbeat, or maybe that's my own thrum humming along with the music of these poets. Sitting alone in a room with these poems is to be assured that you are not alone, you are not crazy (or if you are, you're not the only one who thinks this way!) I run home to this book to argue with it, find solace in it, to locate myself in the world again.' - Meryl Streep