Frances Presley Book order

Frances Presley's Collected Poems, spanning from 1973 to 2004, showcases her evolution as a poet through modern and postmodern styles. The collection highlights her strong feminist and political views, as well as her increasing focus on ecological themes. It features notable works such as The Sex of Art and Hula Hoop, alongside collaborative projects with artist Irma Irsara and poet Elizabeth James, reflecting her engagement with both art and women's issues. This volume serves as a significant retrospective of her early poetic journey.

The second volume of Frances Presley's Collected Poems, 2004 to 2020, brings together a distinctive body of work - a major achievement in modern and postmodern poetry and prose, projects and collaborations.

Exploring the interplay of science and poetics, this work reimagines the Exmoor landscape associated with Ada Lovelace, a pioneering mathematician and computer visionary. Through a collaboration with visual poet Tilla Brading, the book features a series of bird-themed poems designed like punch cards to highlight significant words, offering an alternative narrative of a woman's experience. It delves into themes of the unseen, encompassing physiology, computing, music, imagination, and outer space, complemented by an internet cut-up of 'Ada' and extensive notes.

Exploring the journey of a young woman, the collection captures her evolution from an American dream to self-discovery in Ithaca. It reflects Frances Presley's first twelve years of writing, showcasing her unique voice and the influence of her childhood travels to Holland, her mother's homeland. The work intertwines personal narrative with broader themes in American literature, marking a significant milestone in the author's career.

Exploring the interplay between language, nature, and history, the book presents a poetic journey through the significance of hazel trees, represented by the term "Halse." Divided into three sections—Halse, Col, and Hassel—it traverses diverse geographic and linguistic landscapes. Beginning with Exmoor tree names and concluding with Lorna Doone, it shifts from a Celtic tree alphabet to the dominance of hazel in Atlantic woods. The narrative also addresses environmental changes post-WWI, culminating in the discovery of hidden whitebeams in Avon Gorge.

Frances Presley's Lines of sight brings together all her poems from 'Stone settings and longstones', a sequence framed by the Neolithic stone monuments on Exmoor. The poems reflect the fragile, elusive and even disputed existence of these sites, as well as the enduring landscape which surrounds them. They reveal, too, more recent layers of history, and the creation of new stone settings. The writings of a local woman archaeologist are also a source of rediscovery and radical realignment. This sequence is part of a collaboration and performance with Tilla Brading. Other monuments are engaged with in 'Female figures'. These are the rare statues of women in public spaces. The figures chosen are Queen Anne, Margaret Thatcher and Julian of Norwich, along with the spaces they overlook. The final poetic sequence 'The first book of her life', includes a meditation on the war experiences of Frances Presley's mother, and creatively rereads an old Dutch dictionary and primer, in a search for origins of identity and language.