Off The Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse

by Carol Ann Duffy

Overview

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and her friends across the country offer poems in praise of the magic of reading.

In Off the Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has commissioned a selection of the UK's most loved and lauded poets to each write a poem in celebration of books and bookshops - the worlds they hold, the freedoms they promise, and the memories they evoke. From a basement of forgotten books to the shelves of a cramped Welsh arcade, from the poetry corner of the local bookstore to the last bookshop standing in a post-apocalyptic world, these are poems that pay tribute to all the places that house the stories we treasure.

With poems from Carol Ann Duffy, Scottish Makar Jackie Kay, National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke, as well as Clive James, Michael Longley, Don Paterson, Patience Agbabi and many more, this beautiful anthology is a heart-warming reminder of how books nourish us, save us, and inspire us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509841967
Publisher:	Pan Macmillan
Publication date:	09/08/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	80
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children's Verse, the Whitbread, Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. She was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 2009. Her collections include Mean Time, Love Poems and The Bees, which won the Costa Poetry Award. Her writing for children includes Queen Munch and Queen Nibble, The Skipping-Rope Snake and The Tear Thief. She was made a DBE in the 2015 New Year Honours list.
Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children's Verse, the Whitbread, Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. She was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 2009 to 2019. Her many collections include Mean Time, Love Poems and The Bees, which won the Costa Poetry Award. Her writing for children includes Queen Munch and Queen Nibble, The Skipping-Rope Snake and The Tear Thief. She was made a DBE in the 2015 New Year Honours list. In 2021, she was awarded the international lifetime achievement award the Golden Wreath for her achievements in poetry.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Last Bookshop in Britain - Patience Agbabi
Book Learning - Jo Bell
Open Book - Rachael Boast
Notes on Bookbarn International after a Visit; with a Questionnaire Answered by O and L - Sean Borodale
In Defence of Old Men Dozing in Bookshops - Colette Bryce
In a Cardiff Arcade, 1952 - Gillian Clarke
Contemporary Americans - Billy Collins
MacNaughton's Bookshop - Peter Davidson
Beware the Books - Imtiaz Dharker
Without Prejudice - Edward Doegar
At the Minister Gate Bookshop - Maura Dooley
In the Drowned Bookshop - Carol Ann Duffy
The Secondhand Bookshop - Ella Duffy
Gathering - Ian Duhig
River Tigris, River Euphrates - Paul Farley
The Bookshop at the End of the World - Vicki Feaver
For My Wife, Reading in Bed - John Glenday
Lockyer's - Paul Henry
The Argument of his Book - Robert Herrick
Apotheosis at the Signing Table - Clive James
G. & A. Bowden - Alan Jenkins
Silver Moon - Jackie Kay
Goodbye, Bargain Basement - Neetha Kunaratnam
The Wardrobe - Zaffar Kunial
We Lay Down a Story - Liz Lefroy
Note Taking - Liz Lochhead
Bookshops - Michael Longley
Blank Page of First Old Book He Read - Glyn Maxwell
What Happens Nest - Helen Mort
Booked - Daljit Nagra
The Tilt - Mark Pajak
Bookshop - Don Paterson
The Girl Who Ate Books - Jean Sprackland
The Elements of Riding - James Sutherland-Smith
The Future of Books - Michael Symmons Roberts
Notes on the Art of Poetry - Dylan Thomas
Books - Katharine Towers
Bookseries - Kit Wright
Biographical Notes