The Invisible Mender

The eagarly awaited second collection by one of the finest young woman poets in Britain.

There is wit and lyricism, precision and suggestiveness. Observant of local detail... Sarah Maguire's poems attend to wider issues...without losing their primary sense of physical presence.

Born in 1957, Sarah Maguire has published three collections of poetry, Spilt Milk, The Invisible Mender and The Florist's at Midnight, as well as the anthology Flora Poetica: The Chatto Book of Botanical Verse. Her fourth collection, The Pomegranates of Kandahar, will be published in June 2007. She is the founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre at SOAS, and she has lived all her life in west London.

Lucid, complex, sensual and richly textured, the poems in The Invisible Mender are notable for the breadth of their subject matter and the precision of their detail. We travel on journeys through landscapes dense with historical and political meanings, from the post-industrial decline of frozen North America to the stymied fecundity of a London garden paralysed in a heatwave: each emotional and physical climate explored and illuminated by the writer's astonishing images and searching intelligence. 
 
This is the work of unusual power and frankness, unflinching in its steady examination of grief and love, as in the heartbreaking title poem about the poet's loss of her first mother. But here, and in the magnificent long poem 'The Hearing Cure' this explicit engagement with what is difficult also reveals the redemptive, healing force of language. 
 
Sarah Maguire's outstanding first collection of poems, Spilt Milk, was published to considerable critical acclaim and led to her being chosen as one of the New Generation Poets. The Invisible Mender, her eagerly awaited second volume, will confirm her reputation as one of the most exciting young poets in Britain.

The Pomegranates of Kandahar

A Poetry Book Society Choice and a brave, intelligent collection from the highly praised Sarah Maguire.

She offers precise glimpses of the English countryside, with cool observations of war-torn landscapes and political unrest

There is so much to love in the wonderful poetry of Sarah Maguire

Her poems are both voluptuous and concise, maintaining a perfect balance between scientifically exact observation and a world of marvels

[Maguire] writes dark, erotic, complex and lyrical poems which are so richly layered you can almost taste them

Maura Dooley, editor of Making for Planet Alice: New Women Poets

Born in 1957, Sarah Maguire has published three previous collections of poetry, Spilt Milk, The Invisible Mender and The Florist's at Midnight, as well as the anthology Flora Poetica: the Chatto Book of Botanical Verse. She is the founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre at SOAS, and was co-translator with Yama Yari of Afghan writer Atiq Rahimi's A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear (Chatto, 2006). She is also Founder of the Poetry Translation Centre, responsible for introducing a wide range of international poets into English. Sarah Maguire has lived all her life in west London.

Sarah Maguire's rich and lyrical poems have been highly praised for the ease with which they ground precise, sensual detail within the wider context of world events. In this remarkable new collection, her poems travel greater distances than ever before. 
 
The title poem laments the devastation visited upon Afghanistan following decades of war. Other poems consider the casualties of political unrest: would-be migrants in Tangiers gazing northwards at the longed-for phantasmagoria of 'Europe'; and packs of wolves on the loose in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. But there are intimate poems too, often using scientific vocabularies to offset a personal moment, as in 'Landscape, with Dead Sea' where the erosion of the poet's skin is connected to geological transformations at the earth's core.

The Chatto Book of Botanical Verse

Flora Poetica

This unique and beautiful anthology of flower poems is the perfect gift for gardeners.

As entrancing as the lost gardens of Heligan... This sumptuous book is a historical revelation too, and shows how the history of flowers goes hand in hand with the history of English poetry... I cannot imagine an anthology anyone would enjoy more

One of the most rewarding anthologies of recent years

Sarah Maguire (Author, Edited by, Introducer) Born in west London, where she lived all her life, Sarah Maguire left school early to train as a gardener. The author of four highly praised poetry collections, she was the editor of Flora Poetica: The Chatto Book of Botanical Verse. The first writer to be sent to Palestine and Yemen by the British Council, she was the founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre, an organisation that aims to enhance English poetry by engaging with the rich poetic traditions of the UK’s recent immigrant communities. Sarah Maguire died in 2017.

This beautiful anthology brings together over 250 poems about flowers, plants and trees from eight centuries of writing in English, creating a rich bouquet of intriguing juxtapositions. Fourteenth-century lyrics sit next to poems of the twenty-first century; celebrations of plants native to the English soil share the volume with more exotic plant poetry. 
 
There are thirty poems about roses, by poets as diverse as Shakespeare, Dorothy Parker and the South African, Seitlhamo Motsapi; but there are also sections devoted to more unusual plants such as the mandrake, the starapple and the tamarind. 
 
An ex-gardener, the celebrated poet Sarah Maguire brings her extensive horticultural knowledge to bear on all the poems, arranging them into botanical families, identifying the plants being written about and writing a fascinating introduction. Whether you are a poetry lover, a gardener, a botanist, or simply the purchaser of the occasional bunch of flowers, this unique anthology allows you to luxuriate amidst the world's flora.

Sarah Maguire

Almost the Equinox is a bouquet gathered over time. These beautiful poems belong together- in a way that is rarely the case with selected poems

[Maguire] observes the physical world and the definitive failure of human choices with equal clarity… These are love poems to the world.

Selected Poems

* A POETRY BOOK SOCIETY SPECIAL COMMENDATION * 
 
Sarah Maguire’s first collection, Spilt Milk, established her as one of the most original voices in British poetry, and led to her being chosen as one of the New Generation Poets. Three critically acclaimed volumes have since followed – The Invisible Mender, The Florist’s at Midnight and The Pomegranates of Kandahar – to form a lucid, lyrical and rich body of work remarkable for its intelligence and artistry. 
 
This welcome selection of Maguire’s poems spans time and continents – from the ‘bare flanks’ of the Thames at low tide to the night streets of Marrakech – bringing us the sights and sounds of distant lands, as well as taking us to the very heart of human feeling. 
 
 
Verdant in imagery and imagination, this is poetry of extraordinary precision and power – fully attuned to ‘that precious music, / the pitch of flesh / on flesh’.

Sarah Maguire

Praise for Almost the Equinox

Almost the Equinox is a bouquet gathered over time. These beautiful poems belong together- in a way that is rarely the case with selected poems

Simple ideas braided with complexity

[Maguire] observes the physical world and the definitive failure of human choices with equal clarity… These are love poems to the world.

Almost the Equinox is a bouquet gathered over time. These beautiful poems belong together- in a way that is rarely the case with selected poems

Simple ideas braided with complexity

[Maguire] observes the physical world and the definitive failure of human choices with equal clarity… These are love poems to the world.

Almost the Equinox is a bouquet gathered over time. These beautiful poems belong together- in a way that is rarely the case with selected poems

Simple ideas braided with complexity

[Maguire] observes the physical world and the definitive failure of human choices with equal clarity… These are love poems to the world.

Books by Sarah Maguire

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