Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times

Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

'This is a book to make you fall in love with poetry - Go out and buy it for everyone you love' - Christina Patterson, Independent. 'A revelation - An anthology like this should make poetry reviewers feel not just enthusiastic but evangelical. Buy it. Leave it around the house. Give it to friends. It could keep them alive' - John Carey, Sunday Times. 'Anyone who has the faintest glimmer of interest in modern poetry must buy it. If I were master of the universe or held the lottery's purse strings, there would be a copy of it in every school, public library and hotel bedroom in the land. On page after page I found myself laughing, crying, wondering, rejoicing, reliving, wishing, envying. It is a book full of hope and high art which restores your faith in poetry' - Alan Taylor, Sunday Herald. 'The book is without equal as a handbook for students and readers' - Sian Hughes, Times Educational Supplement. 'The best anthology I've read or am likely to read - devastating' - Michael Colgan, Irish Times (Books of the Year). 'I don't often read poetry, so Staying Alive was a revelation' - Ian Rankin, Sunday Telegraph (Books of the Year). 'A book that travels everywhere with me - It is full of beautiful writing that can blow your mind' - Beth Orton, The Times.

UK Kirkus review

This eye-catching and well-presented anthology of 20th-century poetry bears cover plaudits by distinguished literary figures from Jane Campion to Philip Pullman. The faintly apocalyptic title gives the book a sense of urgency and importance that is fully justified by the outstanding contents. Divided into 12 sections with titles such as 'Body and Soul', 'Growing Up' and 'Disappearing Acts', the poems included cover every area of physical and emotional life and are thoughtfully and subtly arranged. They range from old favourites like Robert Frost's 'Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening' and Jenny Joseph's 'Warning' through works made famous through films and songs - Auden's 'Funeral Blues', recited in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', is the most famous example - to less well known but equally appealing pieces such as Sujata Bhatt's 'White Asparagus'. Many have been brilliantly translated from other languages, such as Wislawa Szymbroska's clear-eyed and moving 'The End and the Beginning', about rebuilding after war, and Janos Pilinszky's touching snapshot of life, 'On the Back of a Photograph'. All are accessible, by turns merry, sorrowful and thought-provoking, and always full of truth and life. This is an anthology for everyone, and a glorious celebration of the vitality of modern poetry. (Kirkus UK)

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