Actions and travels
Auckland University Press, 2022
Through illuminating readings of one hundred poems – from Catullus to Alice Oswald, Shakespeare to Hera Lindsay Bird – Actions & Travels is an engaging introduction to how poetry works. Ten chapters look at simplicity and resonance, imagery and form, letters and odes, and much more.
The reading list is here.
Buy Actions and Travels
Through illuminating readings of one hundred poems – from Catullus to Alice Oswald, Shakespeare to Hera Lindsay Bird – Actions & Travels is an engaging introduction to how poetry works. Ten chapters look at simplicity and resonance, imagery and form, letters and odes, and much more.
The reading list is here.
Buy Actions and Travels
‘From a thoughtful and zestful poet, Actions & Travels is an open-minded look at one of humanity’s dazzling arts. Every sentence brims over with Anna Jackson’s informed love of poetry, its fun and its gravity, its wildness and its variety. Ranging from the ancient to the tweeted, she helps novices without sounding like a primer, and tosses the experts bones to quarrel over. If you read just one book about poetry this year, this should be the one.’ — Michael Hulse
‘If you’ve ever questioned what poems are up to when they “wax poetical”, or wondered what Keats and Hera Lindsay Bird would say to each other if they actually met, or what would happen if Patricia Lockwood and Tayi Tibble traded jokes on Twitter, this book is for you. But really, anyone who reads poems or wants to write them will benefit from eavesdropping on the lively and engaging dialogues in Actions & Travels, and trying out the writing prompts that follow.’ — Chris Price 'It is accessible, yet superbly researched; straightforward, yet deeply based in emotional connectivity. As a reader of poetry, this is only going to serve to enhance the experience, and for those who do not currently know the idyllic state that one can be transported to through the reading of poetry (as with the appreciation of any art form), they can find an entry point through the explanations this book.' — Chris Reed for NZ Booklovers |
“This book is about the uncanny pleasure of reading poetry by writers who are now long-dead, poetry which I find just as alive, just as intimate and just as compelling as if it were written yesterday. The pleasure of reading work that actually was written yesterday, however, is equally the subject of this book. Sometimes it can feel even more uncanny to be given access to the inner world of someone you have stood beside at a bookshop or a party, or to know someone intimately only through words you have read on-line. " |
