Poems in Progress: Drafts from Master Poets
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Previously unpublished early drafts by practicing poets including Benjamin Zephaniah, Simon Armitage, Pascale Petit and Hollie McNish are accompanied by new reflections from the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.
1143087223
Poems in Progress: Drafts from Master Poets
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.
45.0 In Stock
Poems in Progress: Drafts from Master Poets

Poems in Progress: Drafts from Master Poets

Poems in Progress: Drafts from Master Poets

Poems in Progress: Drafts from Master Poets

Hardcover

$45.00 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    In stock. Ships in 1-2 days.
  • PICK UP IN STORE

    Your local store may have stock of this item.

Related collections and offers


Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780712354660
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Publication date: 10/17/2023
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.10(d)

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.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 6
A NOTE ON THE TEXT 9
 
1. EPICS 10
VALMIKI Mewar Rāmāyaṇa 12
JOHN MILTON Paradise Lost 14
UNKNOWN Beowulf 17
STEVIE SMITH A Dream 19
SIMON ARMITAGE Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 20
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO, TRANSLATED BY SIR JOHN HARINGTON Orlando
Furioso 22
GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON, SIXTH BARON BYRON Don Juan 24
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Ticonderoga: A Legend of the West Highlands 27
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 28
 
2. FANTASY 30
LEWIS CARROLL A Mouse’s Tale 32
JOHN DONNE Song: Go and catch a falling star 35
DEREK WALCOTT At Lampfall 36
EDGAR ALLAN POE Annabel Lee 38
EDWARD LEAR Hey diddle diddle 40
VERNON WATKINS, WITH COMMENTS BY T. S. ELIOT The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd 42
HOLLIE McNISH Recurring pregnancy nightmare number 2: the nights you were born a goat 46
EMILY BRONTË The Gondal Poems 48
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Kubla Khan 50
 
3. THE SENSES 54
GEOFFREY CHAUCER The Canterbury Tales 56
SHAMS AL-DIN MUHAMMAD HAFIZ SHIRAZI AND JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Riddle of Life; Solang man nüchtern ist (As long as a man’s sober) 58
BOB COBBING ‘Meditation on WORMS’; ‘Snow’; extract from ‘Transcript for a new sound poem’ 62
WILLIAM COWPER The Bee and the Pine Apple 65
SYLVIA PLATH Insomniac 66
HENRY SAVILE Advice to a Painter (Advice to a Painter to Draw the Duke by) 69
WALTER SCOTT Glencoe 70
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI An Apple-Gathering 73
 
4. PLACE 74
WILLIAM BLAKE London 76
JOHN BETJEMAN AND EVELYN WAUGH Harrow-on-Hill; The Crystal Palace 78
OSCAR WILDE Rome Unvisited 80
ANDREW SALKEY Jamaica 84
LIZ BERRY Princes End 86
JEAN FOLLAIN, TRANSLATED BY DAVID GASCOYNE Broken Bottle 88
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 90
FRANCES CORNFORD Autumn Morning at Cambridge 93
LEE HARWOOD AND JOHN ASHBERY Train Poem – A Collaboration 94
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE Les petites vieilles (The little old women) 96
 
5. THE NATURAL WORLD 98
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH I wandered lonely as a cloud 100
SEAMUS HEANEY Forecast (Glanmore Sonnets, VII) 102
RUDYARD KIPLING The Law of the Jungle 104
BEN JONSON Charme 108
WILLIAM BLAKE The Tyger 110
PHILIP LARKIN Song: The Three Ships 114
KATHLEEN JAMIE What the Clyde said, after COP26 116
CHARLOTTE BRONTË Matin 118
T. S. ELIOTLetters to the Tandy family with drafts for Old Possums’s Book of Practical Cats 120
ROBERT FROST Mending Wall 122
 
6. IMBALANCE AND INEQUALITY 126
PHILLIS WHEATLEY To the University of Cambridge, in New England 128
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY The Masque of Anarchy 130
LADY MARY WROTH The seventh sonnet from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 133
FIONA BENSON [transformation: Daphne] 134
MAYA ANGELOU Still I Rise 136
BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us 139
GEORGE ELIOT Armgart 140
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point 142
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN, TRANSLATED BY FRANCES CORNFORD The Prisoner 146
A. E. HOUSMAN The Laws of God, The Laws of Man 148
SYLVIA PANKHURST Untitled poems written on toilet paper 151
EMILY DICKINSON Mine – by the Right of the White Election! 153
 
7. FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP 154
JAMES BERRY Vigilance of Fathers and Sons (A Father’s Vigil)
JANE AUSTEN Letter to Frank on the birth of his son 158
SAPPHO Poem about her brother Charaxus 160
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH The Mother’s Return 162
陳慶槐 CHEN QINGHUAI 夏孝女 (Filial Daughter Xia) 164
CHARLOTTE MEW Xmas: 1880 167
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI Love me, I love you 168
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE An die neunzehn Freunde in England (To the nineteen friends in England) 170
ERNEST JONES To my child, Ernest Beaufort, on his second Birthday 173
PASCALE PETIT The Strait-Jackets 176
GEORGE ELIOT Brother and Sister 179
 
 
8. CONFLICT 180
WILFRED OWEN, WITH ANNOTATIONS BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON Anthem for Doomed Youth 182
ARTHUR RIMBAUD Le Dormeur du Val (Asleep in the Valley) 185
RUPERT BROOKE ‘The Soldier’ and ‘The Dead’ 187
KATHERINE PHILIPS To the Queen’s Majesty 188
W. B. YEATS Easter (The Rose Tree) 190
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN Fest-Sang til Landsoldaten (Song for the footsoldier) 192
SIEGFRIED SASSOON The March Past 196
ROBERT BROWNING The Incident of the French Camp 198
ALEXANDER POPE The Iliad of Homer 200
KEITH DOUGLAS Aristocrats 202
ALICE MEYNELL Summer in England 1914 205
LANGSTON HUGHES Song of Spain 206
PAUL TRAN Scientific Method 208
 
9. DEATH AND REFLECTION 212
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, COPIED OUT BY QUEEN VICTORIA In Memoriam 214
REBECCA GOSS Room in a Hospital 216
THOMAS GRAY Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 220
ANNE BRONTË Self-Communion 222
DYLAN THOMAS In October 224
MARY SHELLEY Absence 228
THOMAS HARDY A Reconsideration (He Never Expected Much) 230
UNKNOWN Märgämä kәbr (Refutation of Glory) 233
APHRA BEHN On the Death of Edmund Waller 235
JOHN KEATS Isabella, or The Pot of Basil 236
 
10. LOVE 238
ROBERT BURNS A Red, Red Rose 240
WALT WHITMAN Poemet (Of Him I Love Day and Night) 243
藤原定家 FUJIWARA NO TEIKA Seventh Month 244
MAY MORRIS Valentine’s Day card to George Bernard Shaw 246
CAROLINE BIRD Megan Married Herself 248
GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON, SIXTH BARON BYRON Love and Gold 253
MAH LAQA BAI Diwan e Chanda 254
JOHN DONNE The Good Morrow 257
JONATHAN SWIFT To Vanessa 258
TED HUGHES A Pink Wool Knitted Dress 260
UNKNOWN Bird in the Cave 264
OMAR KHAYYÁM, TRANSLATED BY EDWARD FITZGERALD Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 266
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING Sonnet XCIII How do I love thee 268
 
Notes 270
Acknowledgements 271
Manuscript Reproduction Credits 272
Transcription and Translation Credits 274
Picture Credits 275
Glossary 278
Index 280
 
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews