Stone Milk

The poems of Stone Milk address the way the written word preserves yet distorts the lives depending on it for fame or survival. Anne Stevenson's highly engaging new collection opens with "A Lament for the Makers", an experimental sequence based on medieval dream poetry that plays with a Dante-inspired yet modern, scientific vision of an underworld of poets. This is followed by a series of shorter poems, mostly related to aging and the prospect (even the comfort) of dying. "The Myth of Medea" ends the book on a note both stoic and merry, despite its frank look at the reality of death. Stevenson rewrites the myth as an 'entertainment' to be set to music - her own original take on how ancient, classical stories are reinterpreted by societies that inherit and retell them. Anne Stevenson is a major American and British poet. Born in Cambridge of American parents, she grew up in the States but has lived in Britain for most of her adult life. Rooted in close observation of the world and acute psychological insight, her poems continually question how we see and think about the world.They are incisive as well as entertaining, marrying critical rigour with personal feeling, and a sharp wit with an original brand of serious humour. Stone Milk is her 14th collection, her first since "Poems 1955-2005".