Carcanet Twelve Days of Christmas Sale

Carcanet Twelve Days of Christmas Sale:

Illustration by
Carry Akroyd,
from John Clare's
The Shepherd's Calendar

The Carcanet Twelve Days of Christmas Sale is still on! To celebrate the festive season Carcanet are offering a 25% discount on chosen books, including poetry, fiction, photography and essays. This is a varied selection of a dozen highlights from 2010 as well as some older favourites. We will also be giving away a free copy of Five American Poets, an anthology edited by Michael Schmidt (RRP £14.95), to anyone who spends over £30 on their order from www.carcanet.co.uk. Delivery within the UK is free as usual. Click here for more information.

Our Twelve Books of Christmas are:

Likenesses by Judith AronsonCollected Poems 1956- 1987 by John Ashbery
A Field of Large Desires by Anthony AstburySelected Poems by James K. BaxterSome Do Not. . . Parade's End Volume I by Ford Madox FordHeart's Wings and other stories by Gabriel Josipovici
Collected Poems by Edwin MorganTaller When Prone by Les Murray
Close to the Next Moment by Jody Allen RandolphMornings in the Dark: The Graham Greene Film Reader edited by David ParkinsonModern Canadian Poets: An Anthology edited by Todd Swift and Evan Jones
A Human Pattern by Judith Wright

This offer is available exclusively from www.carcanet.co.uk.

Click here to order 12 Days of Christmas Special Offer books with 25% discount and free UK p&p.

Comments

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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