Selected Poems

by Sheenagh Pugh

Here is the best of Sheenagh Pugh's early a generous and wide-ranging selection from her first four collections, together with two dozen previously unpublished pieces Notable inclusions are the prize-winning 'M.S.A' and 'Intercity Lullaby', and the much-anthologised 'Sometimes.' Throughout, a lively and enquiring mind is brought to bear on how we live and die, and how we might live more equitably. Sheenagh Pugh approaches her subject unpredictably, through Norse saga and snooker, apartheid and falling tortoises, in a poetry of invention and conviction At the heart of the book is the Earth Studies sequence, "a history of the world in 19 poems', and the first major environmental poem of the "green" era. Set in the indeterminate future, it explores the rise of human civilisation, and abuse of the Earth, following them to their logical the death of the planet. Ironic, lyrical, penetrating , these poems typify the craft and passion of Sheenagh Pugh's writing. Selected Poems ends with a section of Pugh's much-admired translations, of German poets such as Simon Dach, Andreas Gryphius and Christian Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau.

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2012

About the author

I was born in 1950. I live in Shetland with my husband. I have published nine collections of poetry and translations, plus a Selected Poems and a sort of mini-Selected, two novels and a critical study of fan fiction (see Books). I translate poems mainly from German but sometimes also from French and Ancient Greek. I read German and Russian at the University of Bristol and used to teach creative writing at the University of Glamorgan. I still visit Cardiff, where I used to live, regularly.

My interests are language, history, northern landscapes from Shetland to the Arctic and all points in between, snooker, mortality, cyberspace (I waste massive amounts of time online) and above all, people. I like to use poems to commemorate people and places, sometimes to amuse, to have a go at things I don't like (censorship, intolerance, pomposity) and above all to entertain.

I have been accused of being "populist" and "too accessible", both of which I hope are true.

I have won many prizes and awards, including the Forward Prize for best single poem of 1998, the Bridport Prize, the PHRAS prize, the Cardiff International Poetry Prize (twice) and the British Comparative Literature Association's Translation Prize. My poems have been included in several anthologies, notably Poems on the Underground and The Hutchinson Book of Post-War British Poetry. They have also been set to music, have appeared on the trams of Helsinki and the St Petersburg Underground, and have been translated into German, French, Italian, Russian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch.

My website is at http://sheenagh.webs.com/ and my blog is at http://sheenaghpugh.livejournal.com/. It's usually about writing-related stuff.

I'm not adding any more friends on Goodreads and will ignore all requests - nothing personal, it's just too much trouble.