Old, New, Borrowed, Blue: Four Recommendations

Old

Everybody should have at least a passing acquaintance with Ovid. Ever since I was a small child, reading Enid Blyton's Tales of Long Ago, I have been fascinated by these tales of transformation, and even went on to study Metamorphoses in the original Latin at university. This new(ish) verse translation by David Raeburn is very good. Of course, Ted Hughes's Tales from Ovid is just fabulous, but it only contains a selection from the original. I say, read both!

Ovid, Metamorphoses, tr. David Raeburn, Penguin, 2004
Tales from Ovid, Ted Hughes, Faber, 1997

New

Jos Smith's pamphlet from Maquette Press draws on eyewitness accounts of the 1967 Torrey Canyon oil spill to create a collection of poems that celebrate and mourn, witness and remember. You can read my review of it here, at Canto Poetry.

A Plume of Smoke, Jos Smith, Maquette Press, 2015

Borrowed

I came across this anthology while doing an excellent Poetry School course on ekphrastic poetry tutored by Sally Flint. Unfortunately the book is no longer in print, but it is available second hand and very cheaply at a certain online bookseller. It is a collection of C20th poetry from the UK, North America and Europe, and the pieces of art to which these poets are responding. Poetry borrowing from art - and, I think, repaying with interest.

Voices in the Gallery, ed. Dannie and Joan Abse, The Tate Gallery, 1986

Blue

Blue because the cover illustration is mostly blue, and there is a lot of water in the book! 

As Bill Greenwell says on the back of this stunning collection: 'A Handful of Water is... composed, meditative, inquisitive, tender... The verbal invention is exceptional... Every poem turns up sudden surprises, wonderful delights'. Rebecca Gethin's subject matter ranges over landscape, World War I soldiers, prisoners and their visitors, animals and people, all delicately observed and richly realised.

A Handful of Water, Rebecca Gethin, Cinnamon Press, 2013