Neil Astley Books

Being Alive is the sequel to Neil Astley’s Staying Alive, which became Britain’s most popular poetry book because it gave readers hundreds of thoughtful and passionate poems about living in the modern world. Now he has assembled this equally lively companion anthology for all those readers who’ve wanted more poems that touch the heart, stir the mind and fire the spirit. Being Alive is about being about love and loss, fear and longing, hurt and wonder. Staying Alive didn’t just reach a broader readership, it introduced thousands of new readers to contemporary poetry, giving them an international gathering of poems of great personal force, poems with emotional power, intellectual edge and playful wit. It also brought many readers back to poetry, people who hadn’t read poetry for years because it hadn’t held their interest. Being Alive gives readers an even wider selection of vivid, brilliantly diverse contemporary poetry from around the world. Being Alive was followed by a companion anthology, Being Human (2011), and by a fourth volume, Staying new poems for Staying Alive (2020). These anthologies have been welcomed not only by poets but by a wide range of well-known people respected for their work in fields other than poetry – all avid readers of poetry. They want to recommend these books above all other anthologies of contemporary poetry.

The third volume in the Staying Alive trilogy of world poetry anthologies.

Pocketbook selection of essential poems from the three anthologies: a Staying Alive travel companion also available as an e-book.

New gift book edition of a classic anthology of love poems presented in a beautiful quarterbound hardback.

Exploring diverse perspectives from Ireland, France, and a breakaway republic, the collection features multi-layered poems voiced by women, men, and animals. Neil Astley challenges conventional notions of biography, truth, gender, and sexuality, weaving a narrative of change and transformation. The poems often echo one another, creating a rich dialogue. Central to the collection is Rebecca Hayes, a young Irishwoman whose experiences and imagination serve as a unifying thread throughout the work.

Staying Alive is an international anthology of 500 life-affirming poems fired by belief in the human and the spiritual at a time when much in the world feels unreal, inhuman and hollow. These are poems of great personal force connecting our aspirations with our humanity, helping us stay alive to the world and stay true to ourselves.

This volume of poetry provides a collection of funeral poems, appropriate for reading at a funeral or memorial service. schovat popis

Bloodaxe's "house" anthology was first published to mark the press's tenth anniversary in 1988. This was a 320-page anthology. A revised, second edition appeared in 1993, with the same ISBN, expanded to 384 pages.