Life Support: 100 Poems to Reach for on Dark Nights

by Julia Copus (Editor)

These carefully selected poems will offer solace; provide an escape from the constant chatter of everyday thought; help make space for the unexpected; enable us to reinvent ourselves within the chaotic landscape of our lives. Some will be old favourites; others less well-known; all the poems will have the power to surprise or move.

A deeper, more lasting comfort comes from art that makes us sit up and listen, that reawakens the senses and offers new ways of looking - this is poetry that, in the best sense, unsettles us, in order to reconnect us with the world around us and bring us to a place of greater clarity.

The anthology will be divided into the following sections: The deep heart's core (poems about places of sanctuary); As a boy I stood before it for hours (poems that remind us to place our focus 'out there'; that show us how to be mindful); A world in a grain of sand (poems that play with the notion of scale, so that the tiny becomes large and the large tiny - putting things in perspective); Stilll life (poems about focusing on a specific moment); and Another Self (poems on friendship/companionship; a sense of everyone being in the same boat).

Genres: Poetry

201 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 4, 2019

About the author

Julia Copus was born in London, near to the Young Vic theatre, and now lives in Somerset. All three of her poetry collections, The Shuttered Eye, In Defence of Adultery and The World's Two Smallest Humans, are both Poetry Book Society Recommendations. She has won First Prize in the National Poetry Competition, the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (2010), and in 2012 was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.

She also writes for radio; her first play, Eenie Meenie Macka Racka, was awarded the BBC's Alfred Bradley prize for best new radio playwright. She is an Advisory Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund, and in 2008 was made an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter.

Her third collection, The World's Two Smallest Humans, was published this year by Faber.

Reviews

[Tori Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Alice, Ciara and Maisie for gifting me such a gorgeous book. I have been reading a poem a day since my birthday and I have loved them. It has been so lovely to be introduced to some new poets too!

[steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This anthology is a bit of a mixed bag but overall it's nicely done. I like how the sections are each organised by a different mode of perspective, challenging us each time to see things through a different lens. I thank Copus for introducing me to the Ancient Greek ways of thinking about time with chronos being the linear measure of time and kairos being a particular time, one that you have the power to visit at any time. I really liked that notion.

While the poems each section contain are always pertinent to the prescribed subject, they didn't all resonate with me but I don't think it's reasonable to expect that they all would. This book definitely introduced me to some new poems/poets while it also featured others that were more familiar to me.

I think my favourite out of all of them was The Hug by Thom Gunn.

Honourable mentions also go the following contemporary poems:
Hands by Jean Sprackland
Ivan by Laura Kasischke
A Jellyfish by Marianne Moore
Daystar by Rita Dove
A Spider by Colette Bryce
Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara

And to the more classic poems:
Composed Upon Westmeinster Bridge by William Wordsworth
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Sea-Fever by John Masefield
Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Also I should mention that there are author biographies at the back which I found useful.

[Alisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julia Copus collected 100 poems in this book. They are divided into different sections with a leading emotion. I really enjoyed the introductions to each one, already giving one a sense of the feelings you get during the chapters. I gave myself a few weeks to read this book and appreciated it.

Personal favorites have been:
- "Words, Wide Night" by Carol Ann Duffy
- "Summer Nocturne" by Stephen Dunn`s
- "Canopy" by Emily Berry
- "Birches" by Robert Frost

Definitely a good selections for poem lovers <3

[Philippa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of poetry by 87 different poets - from Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath, Denise Levertov to William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson to TS Eliot, and quite a few more modern poets. I borrowed this from the library to read to mum while she was in hospital - it was perfect for that: short poems to be read slowly, to roll around the mouth and savour, and many poems about nature. Thoughtful, reflective, yearning, evocative; most of the poems are accessible, with universal themes.

[Kristen Hewitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Carisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up because the organization really works and there are a number of gems in here. My favorites are probably “Walrus” by Jane Yeh and “Leaves” by Derek Mahon.

[Alice Horncastle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful poetry collection.

[Ghostly Writer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A couple that I liked, but otherwise it just seemed like random poetry thrown together.