Bloodaxe Books of the Year 2018
Jinx by Abigail Parry Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection
‘Monsters, masquerades and B-movie stars are all serenaded in infectious rhythm and rhyme in the year’s most exciting poetry debut.’ – The Telegraph (2018’s Top 50 Books - all genres)
‘Abigail Parry’s seductive Jinx deserves every horror award going. Monsters, masquerades and B-movie stars are all serenaded in infectious rhythm and rhyme. It’s the most exciting debut of the year, only matched for delirious energy by Kaveh Akbar’s Calling a Wolf a Wolf…’ – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
'Abigail Parry’s Jinx is pure magic — dangerous, soulful and splendidly virtuosic.’ – Kate Wakeling, Morning Star (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
‘I’m never really sure what’s meant by “best.” Those that take reality to task or those that provide us with a much-needed escape from it? Poets who do both include... Amy Key (Isn’t Forever), Abigail Parry (Jinx)... and Peter Raynard with his electrifying The Combination.’ - Fran Locke, Morning Star (Poetry Books of 2018)
Isn't Forever by Amy Key Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice
‘As for poetry, I fell hard for Amy Key’s Isn’t Forever, a gorgeous, sad box of delights about intimacy, bad bodies, sorrow… Key is adept at linguistic surprises, charting women’s lives with a savage delicacy.’ – Olivia Laing, The Guardian (Best Books of 2018)
‘New poetry collection highlights: Hannah Sullivan, Colm Keegan, Amy Key, Leanne O’Sullivan and Doireann Ni Ghríofa.’ - Sinéad Gleeson, The Irish Times (Books of the Year)
Amy Key’s second collection Isn’t Forever was one of the 'wonderful collections published this year' chosen by Jeremy Noel-Tod for his Best Poetry Books of 2018 in The Sunday Times.
‘I’m never really sure what’s meant by “best.” Those that take reality to task or those that provide us with a much-needed escape from it? Poets who do both include... Amy Key (Isn’t Forever), Abigail Parry (Jinx)... and Peter Raynard with his electrifying The Combination.’ - Fran Locke, Morning Star (Poetry Books of 2018)
A Quarter of an Hour by Leanne O’Sullivan
‘It’s been a wonderful year for poetry, and if I had to pick one book, I’d pick Leanne O’Sullivan’s A Quarter of an Hour. It follows her husband Andrew, who had a terrible brain infection… and she’s made a most marvelous book of love poems out of the conversation with Andrew.’ – Theo Dorgan, speaking to Joe Duffy on Liveline, RTE Radio 1 (Books of the Year)
‘New poetry collection highlights: Hannah Sullivan, Colm Keegan, Amy Key, Leanne O’Sullivan and Doireann Ni Ghríofa.’ - Sinéad Gleeson, The Irish Times (Books of the Year)
'I loved... Leanne O'Sullivan's beautifully imagined and well-made account of her husband's recovery from illness, A Quarter of an Hour.' - John McAuliffe, The Irish Times (Poetry Books of the Year)
Mama Amazonica by Pascale Petit Poetry Book Society Choice Winner of the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2018
‘Pascale Petit’s Mama Amazonica powerfully twists together fantasy and experience. Over a sustained sequence of poems, Petit transfigures her mother’s desperate and disturbed life through fabulous imagery of the rainforest and its flora and fauna, moving towards a kind of extreme, Ovidian release into metamorphosis. It won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize this year, a first for a book of poetry.’ – Marina Warner, The Tablet (Books of the Year 2018)
'Pascale Petit’s haunting collection of poems that deal with her mother’s illness, Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe), imagines a psychiatric ward in the rainforest, and does what all poetry dreams of doing - turn the wound into a feast, the trauma into a blossoming' - Tishani Doshi, Open Magazine (Best of Books 2018)
'Pascale Petit's Mama Amazonica offers vibrant, strange, violent and original poems, evoking grief, represseed anger and love - a compelling read.' - Christopher North, Poetry News (Christmas Books)
States of Happiness by Suzanne Batty
‘Suzanne Batty’s States of Happiness is an extraordinary collection that explores mental anguish. It begins with a complex sequence of poems in memory of her twin sister, who died of a rare degenerative disease. Though the book is dark and disturbing, it is also filled with chinks of light. The poems are as compelling as any thriller and full of insight and empathy.’ – Jackie Kay, The Guardian (Books of the Year 2018)
‘Suzanne Batty’s States of Happiness (Bloodaxe) and Zaffar Kunial’s Us (Faber) were both tender and remarkable reads.’ – Jane Commane, Morning Star (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods by Tishani Doshi Poetry Book Society Recommendation
‘Tishani Doshi’s third collection, Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, chillingly conjures an uprising of dead women who refuse to be silent victims of male violence... Elsewhere, there are frank and moving poems about the experience of ageing and pressures on women to reproduce, as well as a playful imagined meeting with a young Elizabeth Bishop in Madras and an ode to Patrick Swayze.’ – Sandeep Parmar, The Guardian (Poetry Books of the Year)
‘Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods is one of the rare poetry collections that wholly captivates its reader from page to page. It absorbs its reader through tides of rage, defiance and peace; line by line it swells with Doshi as she experiences the every day, the violent, the unjust.’ – Beth Cochrane, The Skinny (Best Books of 2018)
Pretend You Don't Know Me: New & Selected Poems by Finuala Dowling
‘Pretend You Don’t Know Me, by South African Finuala Dowling, is a witty and wise collection of new and selected poems. Her sequence about her mother’s dementia is very touching. Elsewhere, these vital works will have you crying with laughter.’ – Jackie Kay, The Guardian (Books of the Year 2018)
The Coming of the Little Green Man by John Agard, winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2012 Poetry Book Society Special Commendation
‘In the year when we learnt of the damage and cruelty that the UK’s hostile-environment policies inflicted on the Windrush generation, John Agard strikes back with these cleverly crafted parables of an outsider. The little green man’s encounters and observations, his mix of wonder and wise caution, are given a voice that manages to be both naïve and incisive.’ – Maria Crawford, Financial Times (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
Supernatural Love: Poems 1976-2000 by Gjertrud Schnackenberg, winner of the Griffin International Poetry Prize
‘Is there another woman poet so good at the historical stuff [as U A Fanthorpe]? There is, and her name is Gjertrud Schnackenberg, whose Bloodaxe collection Supernatural Love (Poems 1976–2000) teems with thought-packed things, and thing-packed thoughts, that even Fanthorpe would have had to bless for their richness.’ – Clive James, Times Literary Supplement (Books of the Year, 2018)
Clive James also recommended Gjertrud Schnackenberg's work on Front Row Late, BBC Two, broadcast on Friday 21 December 2018.
'I've just discovered a wonderful American poet called Gjertrud Schnackenberg - she really is called that - and I wish I had the time to catch up with everything she's done. I think she's brilliant.' - Clive James, speaking on BBC Two's Front Row Late: When Mary Beard met Clive James
'Books that stick in my head are two from Bloodaxe, Ken Smith's Collected Poems and Helen Dunmore's Inside the Wave, published last year but which I've just got around to reading.' -
Paul Summers, Morning Star (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
‘My book of the year arrived late and with a resounding thud. It was the Collected Poems of Ken Smith, published by Bloodaxe (he was its first poet over thirty [40] years ago) and a veritable door-stopper at almost 650 pages… He was always writing and lived to write. There are 632 poems in this lovingly edited and constructed volume. As a solid testament and memorial it is almost lapidary. But nothing for Kenneth John Smith was set in stone: it was modern, fluid, on the move, and he was always chasing it.’ – Nigel Jarret, The Lonely Crowd (Books of the Year 2018)
Insistence by Ailbhe Darcy Shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize 2018
'It was a good year for individual collections too: there was outstanding work in TS Eliot-shortlisted books by Ailbhe Darcy (Insistence, Bloodaxe) and Nick Laird (Feel Free, Faber). - John McAuliffe, The Irish Times (Poetry Books of the Year)
Luck is the Hook by Imitaz Dharker, winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2014
‘My 2018 began with Imtiaz Dharker’s Luck is the Hook. Subtle and rewarding, it's a gem of a book.' – Jane Commane, Morning Star (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
Assembly Lines by Jane Commane
‘Coventry poet Jane Commane’s Assembly Lines (Bloodaxe) captures the desolation haunting Midland towns and indeed the whole state as Brexit looms.’ – John Gohorry, Morning Star (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
Assembly Lines was also chosen by Peter Raynard as one of his recommended poetry collections in the Morning Star.
Feral by Kate Potts Poetry Book Society Recommendation
Kate Potts’s Feral is a revelation of beauty, precision and force’ – Kate Wakeling, Morning Star (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
Inside the Wave by Helen Dummore Costa Book of the Year 2017
'Books that stick in my head are two from Bloodaxe, Ken Smith's Collected Poems and Helen Dunmore's Inside the Wave, published last year but which I've just got around to reading.' -
Paul Summers, Morning Star (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
What Love Comes To: New & Selected Poems by Ruth Stone
'Stone defies categories: feminist, yes but not only that; deep ecologist, yes and then some; poet of nature, yes, but also poet of science.' - Helen May Williams, Poetry News (Christmas Books 2018)
Collected Poems by C K Williams
'I'd recommend C K Williams's Collected Poems. Williams is often compared to Whitman because of the daringly long line that became his trademark. However, he deploys it in ways that differ from Whitman's 19th-century prosody - from seemingly casual prosaic observations, to stunning feats of understated formalism.' - Helen May Williams, Poetry News (Christmas Books)
Choices for three Bloodaxe titles (Thirst no longer available)
'Three books that come immediately to mind as gifts are the Soul Food anthology, edited by Neil Astley and Pamela Robertson[-Pearce], beacause it contains such a diversity of works for an exploring mind to consider; A S J Tessimond's Collected Poems - poetry that wants to fly, strains upward hopefully, but always is anchored in dark reality; and Mary Oliver's Thirst.' - Ruth Baxendale, Poetry News (Christmas Books 2018)
'I saw Patricia Smith read in 1998 and I've been showing her poetry to students for the thick end of twenty years. A pre-order of her Incendiary Art would be a good Christmas present for anyone, including me.' - Tim Turnbull, Poetry News (Christmas Books 2018)
[21 December 2018]
