Poems in Progress

Alexandra Ault

ISBN 10: 0712354662 / ISBN 13: 9780712354660

Published by British Library Publishing, GB, 2022

About this Item

Ask two poets what their first drafts look like, and you'll get wildly different answers. From typed pages with delicate annotation to hasty scribbles in a dog-eared notebook, drafts can tell us so much more about poems - and their poets - than their final, published versions.Diverse themes including love, inequality, and the natural world bring together some of the most culturally significant and emotionally affecting poems in the British Library's collections and beyond. These carefully selected drafts are written on materials ranging from school exercise books to mulberry bark to Holloway prison toilet paper. They include not only English and American poetry, but also drafts in Amharic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Persian, Thai and Sanskrit. Expert commentary explains the provenance of the manuscripts, as well as the secrets they reveal about the writing process. Previously unpublished early drafts by practising poets including Benjamin Zephaniah, Simon Armitage, Pascale Petit and Hollie McNish are accompanied by new reflections from the poets themselves on their inspiration and craft.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780712354660

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Poems in Progress
• Publisher: British Library Publishing, GB
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0712354662
• ISBN 13: 9780712354660
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Ask two poets what their first drafts look like, and you’ll likely get wildly different answers. From typed pages with delicate annotation to hasty scribbles in a dog-eared notebook, drafts often tell us so much more about poems – and their poets – than the published versions ever could.

Manuscripts shown here range from John Keats’ drafts in his own hand, to poems written on toilet paper by Sylvia Pankhurst while confined in Holloway Prison, to early versions typed by Sylvia Plath on the reverse of Ted Hughes’ own discarded work.

Themed chapters allow for fascinating new comparisons between diverse objects – William Blake’s ‘London’ (1794) sits alongside Andrew Salkey’s ‘Jamaica’ (1973) in discussions of place – revealing how each manuscript has shaped our understanding and practice of poetry today.

Experts from the British Library explain the process and provenance behind poems from the UK and Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East, highlighting the secrets that published poems often conceal.

Previously unpublished early drafts by practicing poets including Benjamin Zephaniah, Simon Armitage, Pascale Petit and Hollie McNish are accompanied by new reflections from the poets themselves on their inspiration and craft.

Featured poets include: Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Betjeman, W. B. Yeats, Maya Angelou, Fujiwara no Teika, Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes, T. S. Eliot, Christina Rossetti, Seamus Heaney, Rudyard Kipling, James Berry, Robert Burns, Sylvia Plath.

About the Author

Laura Walker is Lead Curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts 1850–1950 at the British Library.

Alexandra Ault is Lead Curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts 1601–1850.