Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times. This item is unavailable.Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times

Emergency Kit is an anthology with many differences. It is, to begin with, a book which gives prominence to poems rather than to poets who wrote them. It is truly international, bringing together poems not just from these islands but from many parts of the English-speaking world. It is the first book to identify a strain in the poetry of the last half-century which is characteristic of the 'strange times' we live in. It values imagination, surprise, vivid expression, the outlandish and the playful above ideology and sententiousness. An unashamedly exuberant collection, containing work by internationally respected poets as well as others who will be new to most readers, it is, in short, living proof that poetry in the English language continues to thrive and to matter.

Jo Shapcott was born in London. Poems from her three award-winning collections, Electroplating the Baby (1988), Phrase Book (1992) and My Life Asleep (1998) are gathered in a selected poems, Her Book (2000). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Collection, the Forward Prize for Best Collection and the National Poetry Competition (twice). Tender Taxes, her versions of Rilke, was published in 2001; Of Mutability in 2010.