Book description
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's three volumes of poetry,
Spilt Milk, The Invisible Mender
and
The Florist's at Midnight
, have brought her much acclaim. Formerly poet in residence at the
Chelsea Physic Garden, she is currently the Writing Fellow at the School
of Oriental and African Studies. She is much in demand at readings and
festivals and frequently broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and 4.
