Best british & irish poetry books according to redditors
We found 121 Reddit comments discussing the best british & irish poetry books. We ranked the 49 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 121 Reddit comments discussing the best british & irish poetry books. We ranked the 49 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
You could always read The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, but honestly, it's a long poem that has little to do with the character in LOTR. There isn't much information about him; Tolkien himself was (purposely or not) extremely vague on the topic. There are any number of internet fora where you can find discussion and Wild Mass Guessing, but here's what the man himself had to say about the matter:
"Frodo has asked not 'what is Tom Bombadil' but 'Who is he'. We and he no doubt often laxly confuse the questions. Goldberry gives what I think is the correct answer. We need not go into the sublimities of 'I am that am' - which is quite different from he is. She adds as a concession a statement of part of the 'what'. He is master in a peculiar way: he has no fear, and no desire of possession or domination at all. He merely knows and understands about such things as concern him in his natural little realm. He hardly even judges, and as far as can be seen makes no effort to reform or remove even the Willow. I don't think Tom needs philosophizing about, and is not improved by it. But many have found him an odd or indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already 'invented' him independently (he first appeared in the Oxford Magazine) and wanted an 'adventure' on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out. I do not mean him to be an allegory - or I should not have given him so particular, individual, and ridiculous a name - but 'allegory' is the only mode of exhibiting certain functions: he is then an 'allegory', or an exemplar, a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are 'other' and wholly independent of the enquiring mind, a spirit coeval with the rational mind, and entirely unconcerned with 'doing' anything with the knowledge: Zoology and Botany not Cattle-breeding or Agriculture . Even the Elves hardly show this: they are primarily artists. Also T.B. exhibits another point in his attitude to the Ring, and its failure to affect him. You must concentrate on some part, probably relatively small, of the World (Universe), whether to tell a tale, however long, or to learn anything however fundamental - and therefore much will from that 'point of view' be left out, distorted on the circumference, or seem a discordant oddity. The power of the Ring over all concerned, even the Wizards or Emissaries, is not a delusion - but it is not the whole picture, even of the then state and content of that part of the Universe."
-- J. R. R. Tolkien, draft of a letter to Peter Hastings, from The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter, 2000, Houghton Mifflin, pg 192.
That probably doesn't help much. It isn't supposed to. One is obviously not intended to inquire too deeply into exactly what Bombadil is -- and it doesn't matter anyway. The Silmarillion and most of the rest of the Middle-earth corpus is intended as a history of the Elves, and anything else that enters it is generally coincidental and of only passing interest to Tolkien himself. The fact that LOTR involves hobbits and men is only to show that the world of the Eldar is ending; it closes the history begun in The Silmarillion. In that history, Bombadil plays little part, and anything said of him must be regarded as speculation. Here's a 1986 essay on Tom by Gene Hargrove that may be interesting.
...and it's available for pre-order on Amazon UK, at least. Thank you for reminding me of that! It will have a bunch of otherwise very hard-to-find poems that were early versions of much of the work in the book as well as, apparently, an unfinished prose story about Tom.
In response to this comment, Egan's one example of someone who wrote near-future stories in the '90s that remain non-ridiculous.
Evan Currie's Odyssey One series is more military than pure space opera, but it is awesome.
The Golden Oecumene series by John C Wright is a Transhuman Space Opera of epic proportions. I highly recommend it.
Rachel Bach has a great series called Fortunes Pawn. Also a lil closer to military sci-fi but it has some nice Space Opera themes.
Joshua Dalzelle has a great series called the Black Fleet, again more military sci-fi than true space opera, but very good none the less.
The Reality Dysfunction series though, if you are looking for a meaty Space opera to lose yourself in is a must read series.
____
I almost forgot about the Manifold Series by Stephen Baxter and the Darwin's Radio series by Greg Bear. Both are phenomenal reads, and while technically they are set in the near future and aren't space opera per say, they are must reads for anyone into Sci-Fi.
The Golden Age by John C. Wright, and its two sequels, The Phoenix Exultant: and The Golden Transcendence.
It's not quite what I think you mean by transhumanism, but it's a great posthuman novel. The publisher says:
> The end of the Millennium is imminent, when all minds, human, posthuman, cybernetic, sophotechnic, will be temporarily merged into one solar-system-spanning supermind called the Transcendence. This is not only the fulfillment of a thousand years of dreams, it is a day of doom, when the universal mind will pass judgment on all the races of humanity and transhumanity.
The trilogy is written with style and humor, with a strong dash of the classics, and with an eye toward limits and implications of communication across different levels of computational capacity, mind architecture, and processing speed.
In fact I think I just talked myself into re-reading it :-)
I sometimes feel like it's good to read poetry aloud, because hearing the rimes and the musicality of it helps you get into it. The poem that first got me into it was Coleridge's classic The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
I don't read so much fantasy (the closest involves dragons in The Napoleonic Wars… alt history instead of fantasy), but for sci-fi I have one suggestion I frequently mention here. The Golden Age by John C Wright is the most densely compacted sci-fi epic I have ever read in a 300 page book. There is only one main character instead of an ensemble, but every other page introduces another element of the universe to wrap you melting noggin around that, for some, the pace of reading will be slow. I myself slammed through it for fear of forgetting or never finishing it. The second and third book of the series (the author intended it to be one doorstopper, but the publisher wanted to cut it up) ease up a lot compared to the first. READ SOME REVIEWS FIRST. Also the third book has an appendix that should have been included in the first book. If you see it on a bookstore, flip through it.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Golden-Age-John-Wright/dp/0765336693
The Golden Age trilogy has a lot of future-law in it. The main character is essentially caught up in a legal battle which he can't remember due to his memories being erased. One of my favorites of the last 10 years or so.
Yeah, Tolkien's poetry is usually overlooked but there's a lot of great stuff he wrote. "Cat" was from a collection called "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" and it's definitely worth a look if you want to get into some of his easier poetry...
Mine:
Somewhere a Raven is Dreaming, $10
free version
 
A Soul in Baker's Dozen Pieces, $5
free version
 
Kick and the Cheese Warehouse, $5
free version
 
Mine and others:
The Best of OCPoetry, Years 1-3
free version
 
I believe the role of the modern poet to be much the same as the modern comedian or comic artist, albeit in a different format - which is to say or write in a way that is societally relevant and/or essentially forces someone to use their brain.
Starting out, I imitated Robert Frost, Robert Browning, and William Blake.
I want to be more like James Elroy Flecker (when it comes to use of meter), Brenden Norwood (the guy keeps coming up with these brilliant images that I wish I thought of first), and LF Call (an unending wellspring of creativity. I mean those birdsong poems, mein Gott...). There's plenty more, including the rest of the team here, but those are who come to mind at the moment.
The most recent thing to inspire one of my poems was playing Taps at a military funeral - not just hearing it over a loudspeaker at night, or even hearing a bugler play it as I watch the casket get loaded on the plane, but being the one to play it - the cold metal, the shifting light, the family and me both trying to keep it together, the whole experience.
Check out Longfellow and Wordsworth. For something more complicated but still similar to Whitman, look at Browning.
For a modern twist, see Mary Oliver. Her descriptions of the natural world are, I think, just as powerful as Whitman's. You won't go wrong there.
Some of their Selected poetry:
Wordsworth Book: http://www.amazon.com/Collected-William-Wordsworth-Poetry-Library/dp/1853264016
http://www.amazon.com/Longfellow-Selected-Poems-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140390642
http://www.amazon.com/New-Selected-Poems-Volume-One/dp/0807068772
Other works of fiction that contain the concept of a metaverse;
Books
Anime and Manga
Film
----
I know I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the genre, because if there's one thing humans are good at, it's writing fucktons on what we like.
So feel free to comment additions to this list, or opinions on what I've currently included. I have by no means read/watched all of these, so having someone with actual experience with each of these weigh in would be nice.
Looks like Alexander Pope was onto something.
Buy Ross Sutherland's book, it's good.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emergency-Window-Ross-Sutherland/dp/1908058021/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1450200619&sr=8-2&keywords=ross+sutherland
Zangief:
Arriving on the black isle’s shores alone,
the Russian picks his partner from the trees,
fur stinking of shit, its idle drone
a waltz, the final dance of amputees.
His thumb pushes back its narrow skull,
the claw lacerations masked by ginseng,
the thin air, leaving his sense so dull
that the snap of its neck is unconvincing.
It makes a map of Russia with its death:
the ice cracking beneath it, slick with red.
Perhaps this is why the wrestler hefts
the beast a mile back to the boat instead
of cleaning wounds or bandaging his veins:
he bleeds until he sees those stars again.
© Ross Sutherland
Consider Philip Larkin. He's super down-to-earth, the language is no-frills but still beautiful, and he tackles some of the biggest subjects out there. Take for example the infamous "This Be the Verse."
I have this edition and really like it.
Awesome! Here is the Amazon page!
Also, I haven't mentioned this, but the book is also a great read! The author doesn't deign to explain his complex ideas to the reader, instead you are left to work it out on your own, which makes the reading that much more enjoyable, especially the second read through when you can truly appreciate the intricacies of the writing.
You forgot the book of poems! The Adventures of Tom Bombadil were published during his lifetime and therefore are canon!
My favorite post-singularity fiction is the Golden Age trilogy by John C. Wright. Superintelligent AI, virtual reality, and mind uploading, and he still manages a deeply human tale of epic heroism. It's a little hard to get into for the first three or four chapters, but then it really takes off. I've read it three times.
Greg Egan's work is pretty interesting, eg. Permutation City, which is mainly about uploading etc.
For more of the near-future speculation side of Accelerando, Cory Doctorow writes a lot of good stuff. And there's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom which is post-singularity.
Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age is pretty much a classic, covering nanotech, AI-based education, and all sorts of craziness. One of my favorites.
Many poems by Robert Calvert might be up your alley. Check out Centigrade 232. I also recommend the audio version which just consists of the poems read aloud by the poet in a quiet way.
Here's one of the ones that matches your description well (they're not all like this) called First Landing on Medusa
> Full waking took us days to realize.
Adjusting to the newness of our eyes
We stayed inside, performing simple tasks.
Hardly speaking, faces set like masks.
Until the time came round for us to set
The first feet on this world, to get
Our samples and erect all the instruments.
A barren planet, but to all intents
Another Eden opening its gates
For this chosen few who'd outslept their fates.
Anonymous, identical, in our suits
We entered the air-lock. My weighted boots
Would be the first to touch this unknown stone.
I led some distance, then I felt alone.
So I turned. And saw that the others were
Standing still. I radioed to make them stir.
But got no answer. So I waved my arm.
But they still stood as though a stoning charm
Had taken hold. I made my slow way back
And found each man had frozen in his track.
I hammered my gloved fist on visor-plate.
And pulled at pressure-padded arms. A state
Of utter trance had overtaken all my men.
> My mouth felt dry. My fingers stiff. And then....
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yay! a truly random contest, a chance to own the complete works of Robert Burns!
I'm not familiar with Coghill's version. There's also an $8.00 version at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006X2AZHC, I can't tell the difference in the preview.
The version I really like is worth getting even at $10, if you have any long-term interest in Chaucer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B13DK7K -- it has the original with stresses indicated (often not obvious) and great easy to use glosses. An exemplary ebook.
I recommend Wendy Cope and Billy Collins.
Wendy Cope is a UK poet. Her first collection Maiking Cocoa for Kingsley Amis is perhaps her most famous.
Billy Collins was the US Poet Laurette. He has a wonderful way with words. Highly recommended.
I would recommend reading the book, it’s dope! here you can buy it on amazon I think. if I did it right
>The Poets of Reddit: The Best of OCPoetry Years 1-3 $5.14, 186 pgs, softcover
Do you take poems that users post in this subreddit and sell them in a book?
Ghosts in the Cosmos - A collection of poems inspired by dreams and nightmares, by friends and family, by fleeting moments and half-formed thoughts, by passing strangers and those who permanently tattoo themselves onto our lives whether we want them to or not.
Available on Amazon for $1.24 / £0.99 or for free via Kindle Unlimited.
I’m currently preparing to self-publish my first ‘real’ book and put this together to learn how Kindle Create and the whole
Amazon self-publishing system works.
Would appreciate your feeeback :)
https://i.imgur.com/5mKcZdz.jpg
Wilderness Party https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014J5EL9C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_.14bAbQGMPXKN
Poetry Book Society Recommended
I've read most of those and LOVED them. I'll just say you're looking for fictional "good books" and go from there. I recommend:
I love Wendy Cope and she has some good collections - Family Values and Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis ae two of my favourites
The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin.