- Softcover
- Used
Seller: Better World Books Ltd, Dunfermline, United KingdomBetter World Books Ltd
AbeBooks seller since October 13, 2008
Condition: Used - Good
£ 10.56
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.
Seller Inventory # 69076181-20
- Title
- The Commons
- Author
- Collis, Stephen
- Publisher
- Talonbooks, Limited
- Publication year
- 2014
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Soft cover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0889229155
- ISBN 13
- 9780889229150
- Edition
- 2nd Edition
- Item weight
- 0.509 pounds
- Dimensions
- N/A
Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, most of the English common lands were enclosed―taken, by force, out of the hands of local collective use and privatized. The resistance to capitalism’s “primitive accumulation,” registered in recurring peasant revolts, failed to stem this tide of what we now call “privatization”―but it spilt over into Romanticism’s own advocacy of a kind of literary commons. Underground in “the literary” since the nineteenth century, the fight against enclosure resurfaces today amidst continuing capitalist accumulations and a renascent sense of the commons under globalization.
In The Commons we wander the English countryside with the so-called mad peasant poet John Clare, just escaped from an Essex asylum and walking the more than eighty miles to his home in Helpston; we pick wild fruit with anarchist Henry David Thoreau, also newly escaped from jail (for not paying his poll tax); and we comb the English Lake District, undermining William Wordsworth’s proprietary claim upon it, with a host of authors of Romantic Guides and Tours.
Resisting enclosure with each word, tearing down (intellectual) property’s fencing, wandering in search of new commons, new spaces outside property’s exclusive and excluding domain―The Commons veers in and out of history to find spaces of linguistic hope. What we have named, in less inspired moments, “allusion,” “borrowing,” or even (pretentiously) “intertextuality” is just this fact that poetry proves again and again: our languages are common. Shared. Un-enclosable.
The Commons is another installment of what Collis has called (half in jest) “The Barricades Project”―a broadly based, historically ranging test of the old adage that “poetry is the revolutionary act par excellence.” It includes Anarchive (2005) and will eventually continue in The Red Album. The Commons includes an introduction to “The Barricades Project,” written by Collis’ collaborators Alfred Noyes and Ramon Fernandez.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Stephen Collis is the author of fifteen books of poetry and prose, including The Commons (2008), the BC Book Prize–winning On the Material (2010), and Almost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten (2018) – all published by Talonbooks. A History of the Theories of Rain (2021) was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for poetry, and in 2019 Collis was the recipient of the Writers’ Trust of Canada Latner Poetry Prize. The Middle (2024), the second volume in a trilogy, was published in October 2024, and Knock Down House, an experimental memoir, was published by Pamenar Press in 2025. He lives on Burnaby Mountain, unceded Coast Salish Territory, and teaches poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Better World Books Ltd
Dunfermline, United Kingdom
AbeBooks seller since October 13, 2008
Shipping rates from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
| Item | 11 to 28 business days | 11 to 28 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | £ 5.00 | £ 5.00 |
Payment methods
Store description
Better World Books is the world’s leading socially conscious online bookseller and has sold over 100 million books. Each sale generates funds for global literacy. We offer low prices, fast shipping, and have a 100% money back guarantee.
Seller's business information
Better World Books LTD.
THIRD FLOOR, ONE LONDON SQUARE, CROSS LANES
GUILDFORD, United Kingdom GU1 1UN
Terms of sale
Better World Books (BWB) values your satisfaction and offers you returns within thirty (30) days after the estimated delivery date on most items. All returned items must be in the original condition; used items should include the SKU sticker located on the spine or back of the product.
If you have an incomplete, incorrect, or damaged shipment, please contact our Customer Care team via Abebooks contact seller options before proceeding with the return.Please keep in mind that because we deal mostly in used books, any extra components, such as CDs, DVDs, figurines, or access codes are not included.
Right of withdrawal
If you are a consumer you can withdraw from the contract in accordance with the following. Consumer means any natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession.
Information regarding the right of withdrawal
Statutory right to withdraw
You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.
The withdrawal period will expire after 14 days from the day on which you acquire, or a third party other than the carrier and indicated by you acquires, physical possession of the last good or the last lot or piece.
To exercise the right of withdrawal, electronically fill in and submit a clear statement on our website, under "My Purchases" in "My Account". We will communicate to you an acknowledgement of receipt of such a withdrawal on a durable medium (e.g. by e-mail) without delay.
To meet the withdrawal deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right of withdrawal before the withdrawal period has expired.
Effects of withdrawal
If you withdraw from this contract, we will reimburse to you all payments received from you, including the costs of delivery (except for the supplementary costs arising if you chose a type of delivery other than the least expensive type of standard delivery offered by us).
We may make a deduction from the reimbursement for loss in value of any goods supplied, if the loss is the result of unnecessary handling by you.
We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to withdraw from this contract.
We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of such reimbursement.
We may withhold reimbursement until we have received the goods back, or you have supplied evidence of having sent back the goods, whichever is the earliest.
You shall send back the goods or hand them over to Better World Books Ltd, Dunfermline, United Kingdom, without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days from the day on which you communicate your withdrawal from this contract to us. The deadline is met if you send back the goods before the period of 14 days has expired. You will have to bear the direct cost of returning the goods. You are only liable for any diminished value of the goods resulting from the handling other than what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods.
Exceptions to the right of withdrawal
The right of withdrawal does not apply to:
- The delivery of newspapers, journals or magazines with the exception of subscription contracts; and
- The supply of digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium (e.g. on a CD or DVD) if you accepted when you placed your order that we could start to deliver it, and that you could not withdraw once delivery had started.
Shipping terms
Please allow 1-2 business days for order fulfillment.