Hold Your Own: Poems - Softcover

Kate Tempest

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1632862050 ISBN 13: 9781632862051

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2015

Synopsis

My heart throws its head against my ribs, / it's denting every bone it's venting something it has known since I arrived and felt it beat.

Kate Tempest, winner of the Ted Hughes Award for Brand New Ancients and widely regarded as the UK's leading spoken word poet, has produced a new poem-sequence of electrifying power. Based on the myth of the blind prophet Tiresias, Hold Your Own is a riveting tale of youth and experience, sex and love, wealth and poverty, community and alienation. Walking in the forest one morning, a young man disturbs two copulating snakes--and is punished by the goddess Hera, who turns him into a woman. This is only the beginning of his journey . . . Weaving elements of classical myth, autobiography and social commentary, Tempest uses the story of the gender-switching, clairvoyant Tiresias to create four sequences of poems, addressing childhood, manhood, womanhood, and late life. The result is a rhythmically hypnotic tour de force--and a hugely ambitious leap forward for one of the most broadly talented and compelling young writers today.

About this title

Review:

"One of the brightest British talents around. Her spoken-word performances have the metre and craft of traditional poetry, the kinetic agitation of hip-hop and the intimacy of a whispered heart-to-heart . . . drawing on ancient mythology and sermonic cadence to tell stories of the everyday." --The Guardian"

"Gorgeous streams of words . . . Image after image that sears itself into your consciousness . . . Ms. Tempest stitches together words with such animate grace that language acquires an almost tactile quality, and the drama she unfolds . . . soars to operatic dimensions." --Christopher Isherwood, "New York Times"

Book Description:

New poetry from a fiercely talented, Ted Hughes Award-winning poet.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1632862050
• ISBN 13: 9781632862051
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128