Bibliographic information:
ISBN: 9781804470374
Paperback with flaps • 320pp • £12.99
156mm x 234mm
30 August 2023
BIC: DCQ, 1DBKE
Territory: World English

Contraflow

An Anthology: Lines of Englishness 1922–2022

Various

With an introduction by John Greening and Kevin Gardner

Foreword by Ian McMillan

Paperback with flaps

320pp

Publication date: 30 August 2023

ISBN: 9781804470374

£12.99

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Poets have grappled with the vexed question of what constitutes Englishness since time immemorial, and the poetry of the past century has seen perhaps some of the biggest evolutions in national identity.

Contraflow takes a completely new approach to the subject of Englishness, and in this stimulating and entertaining anthology two poetic currents flow against each other, so that different decades merge, well-known stanzas brushing shoulders with more neglected verse.

What emerges is an extraordinary mosaic of poetic responses to English history, culture and landscape – satirical, visionary, lyrical, comic, political, meditative – yet one which offers a recognisable picture of a land both united and divided through a hundred years.

John Greening is the author of over twenty collections of poetry, most recently The Interpretation of Owls: Selected Poems 1977–2022. Kevin Gardner is a critic, editor and Professor of English at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He has published numerous essays on poets, from John Dryden to the present, has edited several volumes of the works of John Betjeman, and has worked on various anthologies.

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