Selected Poems

A revised edition of Tony Harrison's award-winning Selected Poems 
 
This indispensable new selection of Tony Harrison's poems includes over sixty poems from his famous sonnet sequence The School of Eloquence and the remarkable long poem 'v.', a meditation in a vandalized Leeds graveyard which caused enormous controversy when it was broadcast on Channel 4 in 1987 and is now regarded as one of the key poems of the late twentieth century. 
 
This substantially revised and updated edition now also features a generous selection of Harrison's most recent work, including the acclaimed poems he wrote for the Guardian on the Gulf War and then from the front line in the Bosnian War which won him the Wilfred Owen Award for Poetry in 2007. 
 
Selected Poems is a collection to be savoured by fans of Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, Simon Armitage and Sophie Hannah. 
 
'A voracious appetite for language. Brilliant, passionate, outrageous, abrasive, but also, as in the family sonnets, immeasurably tender' Harold Pinter 
 
'In the front rank of contemporary British poets. Harrison's range is exhilarating, his clarity and technical mastery a sharp pleasure' Melvyn Bragg 
 
'The poem "v." is the most outstanding social poem of the last twenty-five years. Seldom has a British poem of such personal intensity had such universal range' Martin Booth 
 
'Poems written in a style which I feel I have all my life been waiting for' Stephen Spender 
 
'A poet of great technical accomplishment whose work insists that it is speech rather than page-bound silence' Sean O'Brien, The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry

Tony Harrison was born in Leeds in 1937. His poetry includes The Loiners, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize; v., which became a cause célèbre when broadcast on Channel 4 in 1987 and was broadcast again in full on BBC Radio 4 in 2013, and The Gaze of the Gorgon, which won the Whitbread Prize for Poetry. He has written extensively for film, theatreand opera, producing work for the National Theatre, The Metropolitan Opera, the RSC, the BBC and Channel 4. He has received numerous awards including the inaugural PEN Pinter Prize in 2009, the European Prize for Literature in 2011, and most recently, the David Cohen Prize for Literature in 2015. He lives in Newcastle.

Tony Harrison's Selected Poems was first published in 1984 and has been continuously in print in Penguin, through two editions, ever since. This is the first major new edition for many years. The long early sequence 'Palladas' has been dropped but everything else has been retained including the exquisite sonnets about his parents, the notorious 'V', the beautiful 'A Kumquat for John Keats' and many others that are among the best-loved poems of the later twentieth century. 
In addition powerful and important work from the last twenty or so years has been added, in particular the Gulf and Bosnian war poems commissioned by the Guardian newspaper, which won him the Wilfred Owen Award for Poetry in 2007 - the most powerful war poems of our time. Yet another side of Harrison is represented in the delightfully witty 'Fruitility' - a long poem on the future effects of global warming on the north of England. 
This is altogether the perfect introduction to the work of one of our best poets.

Tony Harrison

Brilliant, passionate, outrageous, abrasive, but also, as in the family sonnets, immeasurably tender

Harrison is a masterly technician, and the most fiery and indelible English poet of the age. This book is a vineyard on a volcano

Tony Harrison changed the entire landscape of British poetry

Slangy, rooted, erudite, rhythmic, Harrison is a titan among poets; a unique Yorkshire brew of Auden, Byron, Brecht and Kipling, with a slug of Roman satire

A pessimist with a relish for life . . . whose work insists that it is speech rather than page-bound silence

Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry

Tony Harrison writes in a style I have all my life been waiting for; combining the uninhibitedly vernacular with a line as taut and astringent as Racine's

The poem "v." is the most outstanding social poem of the last twenty-five years. Seldom has a British poem of such personal intensity had such universal range

The war poems are important and moving, obviously, but his personal writing made me wipe away surreptitious tears

Tony Harrison is a superbly accessible and talented poet

Whatever note Harrison strikes, be it melancholy regret or boisterous high spirits, the youthful energy to be found in his verse marks him out as a towering figure in poetry

Scatological satire suits him as much as political wit or meditation. World-wide in its topography, powerful in its effects . . . stunning!

One of the few truly great poets writing in English. His range is exhilarating, his clarity and technical mastery a sharp pleasure

Some of the most important poems of the present day

More than any other English poet I have read in recent years, Harrison makes good Camus' claim that the function of art is 'to open the prisons and give a voice to the sorrows and joys of all

Tony Harrison published his first pamphlet of poems in 1964 and for over fifty years has been a prominent force in modern poetry. 
 
His poetic range is truly far-reaching, from the intimate tenderness of family life and personal love, to war poems from Bosnia and savage public outcries against politicians. The Collected Poems draws deeply both on classical tradition and on the vernacular of the street. Combining the private and the public in a way Harrison has made distinctly his own, and drawing on his working-class upbringing, these are powerful poems for modern times.

Tony Harrison

Praise for Collected Poems

Brilliant, passionate, outrageous, abrasive, but also, as in the family sonnets, immeasurably tender

Harrison is a masterly technician, and the most fiery and indelible English poet of the age. This book is a vineyard on a volcano

Tony Harrison changed the entire landscape of British poetry

Brilliant, passionate, outrageous, abrasive, but also, as in the family sonnets, immeasurably tender

Harrison is a masterly technician, and the most fiery and indelible English poet of the age. This book is a vineyard on a volcano

Tony Harrison changed the entire landscape of British poetry

Brilliant, passionate, outrageous, abrasive, but also, as in the family sonnets, immeasurably tender

Harrison is a masterly technician, and the most fiery and indelible English poet of the age. This book is a vineyard on a volcano

Tony Harrison changed the entire landscape of British poetry

Books by Tony Harrison

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