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A Field of Large Desires

A Greville Press Anthology 1975-2010

Edited by Anthony Astbury

Foreword by Grey Gowrie

A Field of Large Desires
Categories: 21st Century, Anthologies
Imprint: Carcanet Poetry
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (240 pages)
(Pub. Jul 2010)
9781847770509
Out of Stock
  • Description
  • Excerpt
  • Editor
  • Contents
  • Launched in 1979 by Anthony Astbury, with the support of Harold Pinter, the Greville Press has quietly established itself as indispensable to those who love poetry. Its pamphlets have built a reputation for discoveries of the new and recoveries of the neglected; for championing translations of great world poets and delighting in the classics of English literature – above all, for their manifest enthusiasm for the enriching pleasures of poetry in all its variety. A Field of Large Desires offers a sampler of poems that have been published by the Greville Press: it is both a treasure trove and a celebration of a remarkable venture.


    That the Greville Press should simultaneously publish a first collection by Kate Ellis, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl from Derby, and the first translations of the poems of Arseny Tarkovsky, father of the filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky, is typical of the small firm's exhilarating eclecticism. - The Independent

    Cover image: Figure from the ceiling of Empress Maria Anna's Room (detail), fresco, 18th century, Italian school. Villa Nazionale Pisani, Stra, Veneto, Italy / The Bridgeman Art Library. Cover design: StephenRaw.com

    Contents

    Preface by Grey Gowrie    xiii

    ALEX ALLISON (1920–1968)
    Olive Tree    
    GILLIAN ALLNUTT (1949– )
    from Lizzie Siddall: Her Journal (1862)
        ‘Laudanum’    
        ‘I, Lizzie, once a girl’    
    ANYTE (3 BC) translated by Carol Whiteside and John Heath-Stubbs
    On a Dolphin    
    ‘Many times lamenting, Cleina, the mother’
    ‘In life this man was Manes, a slave’    
    GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE (1880–1918) translated by Oliver Bernard
    Zone    
    ALISON APPLEBE (1948– )
    Woman    
    Gargoyle    
    Sex Objects    
    ANTHONY ASTBURY (1940– )
    Letter    
    Warwick    
    Loss     
    English Lesson    
    GEORGE BARKER (1913–1991)
    Roman Poem III
    Morning in Norfolk    
    CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821–1867) translated by Arthur Osborne
    Le Voyage    
    WILLIAM BELL (1924–1948)
    ‘All summer long in dreams I would remember’    
    ‘Perhaps the unbroken colt beside the river’    
    GIACONDA BELLI (1948– ) translated by John Lyons
    New York     
    THOMAS BLACKBURN (1916–1977)
    The Unpredictable    
    An Epitaph    
    ROBERT BRIDGES (1844–1930)
    Triolet    
    EMILY BRONTË (1818–1848)
    ‘I am the only being whose doom’    
    NORMAN CAMERON (1905–1953)
    A Visit to the Dead    
    THOMAS CAMPION (1567–1620)
    ‘Never weather-beaten Saile more willing bent to shore’    
    THOMAS CAREW (1594–1640)
    Persuasions to Love    
    CATULLUS (c. 84–54 BC) translated by Peter Whigham
    ‘Lesbia’    
    THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752–1770)
    ‘Walpole! I thought not I should ever see’    
    JOHN CLARE (1793–1864)
    The Gipsy Camp    
    HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1796–1849)
    Song (‘The earliest wish I ever knew’)    
    ABRAHAM COWLEY (1618–1667)
    The Innocent Ill    
    HART CRANE (1899–1932)
    Episode of Hands    
    Repose of Rivers    
    Eternity    
    ELIZABETH DARYUSH (1887–1977)
    ‘Autumn, dark wanderer halted here once more’    
    ‘Anger lay by me all night long’    
    Still-Life    
    SIR JOHN DAVIES (1567–1626)
    from Orchestra
        ‘Thus they who first did found a commonweal’    
    GAIL DENDY (1957– )
    The Coin of Africa    
    Assault    
    Goodbye and All That    
    EMILY DICKINSON ((1830–1886)
    ‘To lose one’s faith – surpass’    
    ERNEST DOWSON (1867–1900)
    Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam    
    NESSIE DUNSMUIR (1908–1999)
    ‘I would have chosen children’    
    ‘He for whose sake’    
    LAWRENCE DURRELL (1912–1990)
    Nobody    
    A Patch of Dust    
    KATE ELLIS (1976– )
    festivals of mouthpieces    
    MARTIN FARREN (1942– )
    from The Name of This Poem Is Always the Same
        ‘– all that concrete, steel’    
    JAMES ELROY FLECKER (1884–1915)
    The Translator and the Children    
    Oxford Canal    
    B.H. FRASER (1961– )
    Business Centre    
    GEORGE GASCOIGNE (1539–1577)
    The Green Knight’s Farewell to Fancy    
    DAVID GASCOYNE (1916–2001)
    The cold renunciatory beauty    
    A Tough Generation    
    GEOFFREY GODBERT (1938– )
    Of course you are beautiful    
    GREY GOWRIE (1939– )
    From Primrose Hill    
    W.S. GRAHAM (1918–1986)
    Letter VI    
    The Beast in the Space    
    Greenock at Night I Find You    
    ROBERT GRAVES (1895–1986)
    Despite and Still    
    What We Did Next    
    Ouzo Unclouded    
    FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE (1554–1628)
    ‘Man, dream no more of curious mysteries’    
    ANGELA HALL (1941– )
    She Always Sang    
    IAN HAMILTON (1938–2001)
    Almost Nothing    
    Biography    
    Rose    
    JOHN HEATH-STUBBS (1918–2006)
    Prayer to Saint Lucy    
    The Green Man’s Last Will and Testament    
    Quatrains    
    EDWARD, LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY (1583–1648)
    A Description    
    GEORGE HERBERT (1593–1633)
    Sin    
    ROBERT HERRICK (1591–1674)
    The Vine    
    NAZIM HIKMET (1902–1963) translated by Richard McKane
    Advice for Someone Going into Prison    
    LIBBY HOUSTON (1941– )
    The Story of Arachne    
    LIONEL JOHNSON (1867–1902)
    To Morfydd    
    The Dark Angel    
    JULIE KANE (1952– )
    Kissing the Bartender    
    JUDITH KAZANTZIS (1940– )
    The Dump    
    MARIUS KOCIEJOWSKI (1949– )
    The Water Clock    
    Babel    
    WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (1775–1864)
    Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher    
    EUGENE LEE-HAMILTON (1845–1907)
    La Balue to Louis XI    
    Chastelard to Mary Stuart    
    GIACOMO LEOPARDI (1798–1837) translated by John Heath-Stubbs
    The Infinite    
    RICHARD LOVELACE (1618–1657)
    To Chloris: Love Made in the First Age    
    ANTONIO MACHADO (1875–1939) translated by Charles Tomlinson
    Poem of a Day    
    JOHN MASEFIELD (1878–1967)
    from Reynard the Fox
        ‘The lurcher dogs soon shot their bolt’    
    DANNY MILNE (1938– )
    Abandonment    
    ROBERT NYE (1939– )
    Eurynome    
    Not Looking    
    EDNA O’ BRIEN (1932– )
    from On the Bone
        ‘Forget the fine phrases’    
    JULIAN ORDE (1917–1974)
    Conjurors    
    CLERE PARSONS (1908–1931
    Suburban Nature Piece    
    BORIS PASTERNAK (1890–1960) translated by Michael Harari
    Unique Days    
    Bread    
    FERNANDO PESSOA (1888–1935) translated by Jonathan Griffin
    Tobacconist’s    
    HAROLD PINTER (1930–2008)
    The Irish Shape
    I know the place    
    Cancer Cells    
    PO CHÜ-I (AD 772–846) translated by Arthur Waley
    Song and Dance    
    The Chrysanthemums in the Eastern Garden    
    ROBERT M. POLLET (1945–1985)
    Egyptian Child    
    JOHN PRESS (1920–2007)
    Womanisers    
    The Shadows    
    ROGER PRINGLE (1944– )
    Neighbours    
    SALLY PURCELL (1944–1998)
    Guenever and the looking-glass    
    March 1603    
    HENRY REED (1914–1978)
    The Auction Sale    
    JAMES REEVES (1909–1978)
    The Little Brother    
    The Prisoners    
    ANNE RIDLER (1912–2001)
    A Matter of Life and Death    
    ALAN ROSS (1922–2001)
    Angel of Harwich    
    Clothes on a Chair    
    Leave Train    
    MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH (1928–1998)
    On the Beach
    Learning to Fall Out of Love    
    C.H. SISSON (1914–2003)
    ‘If love and death are one and the same thing’
    For the Queen’s Jubilee    
    Ellick Farm    
    ELIZABETH SMART (1913–1986)
    Slightly Rhyming Verses for Jeff Bernard’s Fiftieth Birthday    
    A.C.H. SMITH (1935– )
    Structures of Cancer    
    STEVIE SMITH (1902–1971)
    To Carry the Child    
    BERNARD SPENCER (1909–1963)
    On the ‘Sievering’ Tram    
    Part of Plenty    
    JON STALLWORTHY (1935– )
    War Poet    
    GASPARA STAMPA (c. 1523–1554) translated by Sally Purcell
    ‘Love, standing by my side’
    ‘All the planets in heaven, all the stars’    
    SIR JOHN SUCKLING (1609–1642)
    Song (‘Honest lover whatsoever’)    
    A.C. SWINBURNE (1837–1909)
    A Leave-Taking    
    ARSENY TARKOVSKY (1907–1989) translated by Richard McKane
    ‘I dreamed this dream and I still dream of it’    
    FRANCIS THOMPSON (1859–1907)
    Nightmare of the Witch Babies    
    THOMAS TRAHERNE (1637–1674)
    Shadows in the Water
    HENRY VAUGHAN (1622–1695)
    The Old Man of Verona out of Claudian    
    Peace    
    ANNA WICKHAM (1884–1947)
    The Fired Pot
    HUGO WILLIAMS (1942– )
    Some R&B and Black Pop    
    Legend    
    Balcony Scene    
    JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER (1647–1680)
    Upon Nothing    
    HENRY WOOLF (1930– )
    ‘Who taught you’    
    Parents    
    DAVID WRIGHT (1920–1994)
    Encounter in a Glass    
    Winter Verses for Tambimuttu    

    List of Greville Press Publications, 1975–2010
    Index of Titles    
    Acknowledgements    

    Anthony Astbury is the director of the Greville Press, which he founded in 1975. He has published four collections of his own verse, edited selections and anthologies, including The Tenth Muse (Carcanet 2005), and written memoirs of his friends George Barker, W.S. Graham, John Heath-Stubbs, Harold Pinter and David Wright. ... read more
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