This Is Not Your Final Form: Poems About Birmingham (The Emma Press Anthologies): 11 (The Emma Press Poetry Anthologies) - Softcover

Hannah Silva; Rachel Piercey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1910139602 ISBN 13: 9781910139608

Publisher: Emma Press, 2017

Synopsis

Second City showcases the best of Birmingham: a rich, varied and vibrant city capable of inspiring a range of contemporary poetic responses. This anthology, bringing together entries from the inaugural Verve Poetry Festival Competition, depicts a second city which is no longer content to play second fiddle. Poets take on the area s musical past, its complex industrial history, its unique blend of architectural styles and the experiences of its many immigrant communities. Writers celebrate the lives of significant figures, from Matthew Boulton to Benjamin Zephaniah, and ordinary Brummies alike. Ranging from spoken word-inspired pieces to more traditional styles, much of the work collected here channels the energy and the political anger that runs like a seam through centuries of Birmingham history.

Taken together, Second City is a tough, unsentimental love letter to the Midlands metropolis, which finds beauty in concrete and unity in contradiction.

About this title

About the Author:

Hannah Silva is a poet, playwright and performer known for her innovative explorations of form, voice and language in performance. Her debut poetry collection Forms of Protest (Penned in the Margins, 2013) has been widely praised and was Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes. She is currently Associate Lecturer in Poetry and Playwriting at Birkbeck, University of London, and Associate Artist of Penned in the Margins.
Rachel Piercey is a former editor at The Cadaverine magazine and a current editor at the Emma Press. She studied English Literature at St Hugh s College, Oxford, where she won the Newdigate Prize in 2008. Her illustrated pamphlet of love poems, The Flower and the Plough, was published by the Emma Press in 2013 and her second pamphlet, Rivers Wanted, in 2014.

About this edition

• Publisher: Emma Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1910139602
• ISBN 13: 9781910139608
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80
• Editor: Hannah Silva, Rachel Piercey