SOUL FEAST

Soul Feast is a companion anthology to Soul Food, offering up a further feast of thoughtful poems to stir the mind and feed the spirit, bringing hope and light in dark, uncertain times.

This book’s inspiration – Soul Food – achieved its wide popularity by word of mouth. For many thousands of readers feeling adrift in the early years of the 21st century, the poems in that book offered support and sustenance. What followed has been even more destructive and disorientating: wars, pandemic, oppression, persecution of peoples and minorities, mass migration, dishonest government, financial meltdown, and looming environmental catastrophe.

There are even more voices of hope and healing, of love and tolerance, kindness and compassion, sanity and solace, to be heard and felt in the poems of Soul Feast. This new compilation shows how poetry can help sustain our search for meaning in times of spiritual starvation. All these poems are universal illuminations of the meaning of life, speaking to readers of all faiths as well as to seekers and non-believers.

Drawn from many traditions, Soul Feast includes work by poets ranging from Lal Ded and Tukaram to Pessoa, Borges, Cummings and Langston Hughes, as well as poems by celebrated contemporary poets such as Ellen Bass, Imtiaz Dharker, Jane Hirshfield and Naomi Shihab Nye. This is a book to keep by the bedside or to keep with you when travelling.

‘Editors Neil Astley (Bloodaxe founder and editor) and Robertson Pearce gracefully bring together different cultures, religions and poetry styles through a glorious mix of both contemporary voices, such as Imtiaz Dharker, Jane Clarke and Jane Hirshfield, and the likes of 14th century Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded, Jorge Luis Borges and Langston Hughes. […] Poems, then, to heal, rejoice in and share.’ – Dawn Gorman, Caduceus, on Soul Feast

‘Consolation is a rare quality in our tragic times, but sometimes poetry can provide a sanctuary. Bloodaxe Books, which often sets a creative pace in poetry publishing, offers “nourishing poems of hope and light” in its anthology Soul Feast. This gathers roughly 100 poets from many countries into an ambitious collection, edited by the Bloodaxe founder Neil Astley, and the artist, filmmaker, and translator Pamela Robertson-Pearce. Each poem feels chosen with intelligence and care: accessibility matches profundity. […] a searching anthology that is both elegy, and celebration.’ – Martyn Halsall, Church Times

‘In the end, the proof of a Soul Feast has to be in the eating, and I’ve got to admit that, even for an old cynic like me, the whole experience of sitting down and partaking was actually, well… ‘nourishing’.' – Stuart Henson, London Grip

‘It would certainly make a perfect Christmas present for someone you’re fond of.’ – Greg Freeman, Write Out Loud, on Soul Feast

'As a long-time fan of Soul Food, I’m looking forward to reading the newly released companion anthology, Soul Feast, edited by Neil Astley and Pamela Robertson-Pearce. These anthologies set out to nourish the reader’s mind through thought-provoking and insightful poems that bring clarity and light in dark times.' – Will Mackie, New & Recent Poetry from the North, Spring 2024

Reviews of Soul Food:

'These poems illuminate the path of life.' – Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times

'These are poems for the human race at all times, be they celebratory or reflective.' – Margaret Speak, Yorkshire Post

'These poems will reconnect you with happiness, kindness, beauty and joy. They will teach you how to be here, now, fully aware and alive... Buy this book! You will be investing in happiness for days - and even dark lonely nights - to come.' – Anne Ashworth, Universalist: The Journal of the Quaker Universalist Group

'A friend gave me a copy of Soul Food as a gift... I thought it was so good that I gave it away to another friend within a matter of days, and bought myself a new copy, which I also gave away... I continue to buy copies for friends... I have read this book through from beginning to end a number of times now, and each time I am left with my spirit uplifted and a wondrous sense of warm joy in my soul. Not only is each poem fine, but reading the whole collection reads feels like the privilege of sharing another human's spiritual journey for a while.' – Henry Morgan, The Merton Journal

'Soul Food is an extremely attractive book. Of all the books lying about my house, more visitors have been drawn to wanting to borrow this than any other... It contains work by many of my favourite poets, but more importantly it whets my appetite with new discoveries... I recommend buying copies to keep and give away.' – Chris Kinsey, Envoi

Neil Astley and Pamela Robertson-Pearce are co-editors of the Bloodaxe anthologies Soul Food (2007) and Soul Feast (2024), and also collaborated on the DVD-books In Person: 30 Poets (2008) and In Person: World Poets (2017). Neil Astley is editor of Bloodaxe Books which he founded in 1978. His books include many anthologies, most notably those in the Staying Alive series: Staying Alive (2002), Being Alive (2004), Being Human (2011) and Staying Human (2020). He received an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry, and has published two poetry collections, Darwin Survivor and Biting My Tongue, as well as two novels, The End of My Tether (shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award), and The Sheep Who Changed the World. He was honoured with a D.Litt by Newcastle University for his work with Bloodaxe Books, and in 2018 was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Northumberland. Pamela Robertson-Pearce is an artist, filmmaker and translator. Her films include Imago: Meret Oppenheim (1996), on the artist who made the fur-lined teacup, and Gifted Beauty (2000), about Surrealist women artists including Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. Imago: Meret Oppenheim won several awards, including the Swiss Film Board’s Prize for Outstanding Quality and the Gold Apple Award at the National Educational Film and Video Festival in America. She has shown her work in solo exhibitions in New York and Provincetown (Cape Cod), and in various group shows in the US and Europe. Born in Stockholm, she grew up in Sweden, Spain and England, and then for over 20 years lived mostly in America – also working in Switzerland, Norway and Albania – before moving to Northumberland.