Hold Your Own Poems
Author(s): Kate Tempest
My heart throws its head against my ribs, / it's denting every bone it's venting something it has known since I arrived and felt it beat.
Kate Tempest, winner of the Ted Hughes Award for Brand New Ancients and widely regarded as the UK's leading spoken word poet, has produced a new poem-sequence of electrifying power. Based on the myth of the blind prophet Tiresias, Hold Your Own is a riveting tale of youth and experience, sex and love, wealth and poverty, community and alienation. Walking in the forest one morning, a young man disturbs two copulating snakes-and is punished by the goddess Hera, who turns him into a woman. This is only the beginning of his journey . . . Weaving elements of classical myth, autobiography and social commentary, Tempest uses the story of the gender-switching, clairvoyant Tiresias to create four sequences of poems, addressing childhood, manhood, womanhood, and late life. The result is a rhythmically hypnotic tour de force-and a hugely ambitious leap forward for one of the most broadly talented and compelling young writers today.
Product Information
One of the brightest British talents around. Her spoken-word performances have the metre and craft of traditional poetry, the kinetic agitation of hip-hop and the intimacy of a whispered heart-to-heart . . . drawing on ancient mythology and sermonic cadence to tell stories of the everyday. "The Guardian" Gorgeous streams of words . . . Image after image that sears itself into your consciousness . . . Ms. Tempest stitches together words with such animate grace that language acquires an almost tactile quality, and the drama she unfolds . . . soars to operatic dimensions. Christopher Isherwood, " New York Times" on" Brand New Ancients""
General Fields
- :
- : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
- : Bloomsbury Academic USA
- : 0.091
- : 01 February 2015
- : 19.70 cmmm X 12.90 cmmm
- : United States
- : books
Special Fields
- : 128
- : 1
- : Paperback / softback
- : Kate Tempest
