Long admired as a compassionate churchman and as a scholar of the highest order, Rowan Williams, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, is also a poet of resounding voice and feeling whose verse, called "visionary yet earth-rooted," displays a genius for embodying abstract ideas in vivid, sensual images. "The Poems of Rowan Williams" gathers together the best pieces from the Archbishop's two previous collections, "After Silent Centuries" (1994) and "Remembering Jerusalem" (2001), together with several new works. These powerful, moving meditations are for everyone, religious and nonreligious alike. Archbishop Williams speaks from the crucible of faith, yet his words emerge from the universal experience of life. As Williams himself says: "I dislike the idea of being a religious poet. I would prefer to be a poet for whom religious things mattered intensely." The subject matter of these sixty-five poems ranges broadly -- the natural world, works of art, recollections of a visit to the Holy Land at Easter, thoughts arising from fragments of the ancient Celtic world, a modern Welsh scene, a group of thin girls awaiting at a bus stop. A particularly poignant group of poems captures Williams's reflections on death, arising first from his feelings of grief at the loss of loved ones (including his father and mother) and widening to include the last days of Tolstoy, Nietzsche in his madness, Rilke, Simone Weil, and Thomas Merton. There are also some free translations -- three well-known poems by Rilke and nine works by Welsh poets -- in which Williams succeeds marvelously in conveying the imagery and energy of the originals. Williams's pen is lean and lyrical. His vision is penetrating andwise. More, his treatment of his subjects never fails to render them in suggestive, very often redemptive, ways. Readers from all walks of life with come to cherish this lovely collection of verse.

How does one record an extraordinary time? Confined to his Delhi apartment, Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee unravels the intimate paradoxes of life he encounters in the first weeks of a global pandemic. His stories about local fish sellers, gardeners, barbers and lovers merge with his concerns for the exodus of migrant labourers, the challenges faced by health workers, and a mother braving checkposts to bring her son home. Drawing inspiration from contemporary literature and cinema, The Town Slowly Empties is a unique window on a world desperate for love, care and hope. Manash is our Everyman, urging us to slow down and mend our broken ties with nature. Written with rare candour and elegance, this meditative book is a compelling account of the human condition that soars high above the empty streets.

This is a collection of twenty-seven poems that run through varying themes of loss through death and the enjoyment of life. It offers a brooding philosophical engagement with the reader in some pieces; while in others, it elevates the imagination and moves beyond a purely physical experience. This transcendental quality is intricately woven into most of the poems. There is a delightful use of metaphor in many instances, like in the depiction of a bleeding sun and a frequent animation of nature. One will find a lot of somberness and sadness in some of the poems, but it also tells a story of renewal and hope.

In the age of autofiction and its attendant narcissism, the young, Berlin-based Yevgenia Belorusets is a point of relief. Her work, grounded in years as a photo-journalist, is exuberant rather than premeditated. It brings together the stories of many to form its identity.MODERN ANIMAL knots together humans and animals, retelling interviews, folktales, memories, and visions of the people--bourgeois, urban, rural, Roma, working class--encountered on a five-year journey through Ukraine. A lecture format, following the Soviet style, disintegrates; as, at times, do logic and language. The product is a revolutionary approach to anthropology, what it means to become and behave like something else.Without judgement or simplification, Belorusets provides intimate revelations of human-animal relationships: how we shape each other, use each other, and, at times, cross the lines that distinguish us from one another. In conversation, she finds the lost and forgotten remains of something pagan, but still irrepressibly modern.

Poetry Collection

A passionate meditation on the consolations and disappointments of religion and poetry