Overview

Rich and various, From Base Materials ranges thematically from violence towards women, love in old age and surviving cancer to translations from Arabic and Russian and a topical re-imagining of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The poems speak of formation, transformation and the struggles of the human spirit to transmute 'base matter' and accept mortality and frailty of the flesh with courage and compassion. For the long poem, 'Love in Old Age', Jenny Lewis says: 'Although it addresses a lover, it is really about multiple experiences of love (both real and imagined) throughout a long life and how I am as much a literary construct as a human individual. I have drawn on literature that has shaped me, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, early Celtic nature poetry and hermit poetry and, more recently, feminist writings such as those of Hélène Cixous.'

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9781800174160

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Reviews

'Jenny Lewis is a lyricist for the end times. Technically flawless and blunt, this collection is a fine example of how poetry helps humanity cope.' - Claire Crowther;'An intense and informed love of language.' - Mimi Khalvati;'Jenny Lewis brings the ancient past with her into her poetry, skilfully weaving together history with narration, philosophy with religion and prose with verse. Her similes are in a class of their own.' - Salah Niazi;'Poems of great candour and beauty that address injustice, reckoning, and transformation.' - Maya C. Popa

Author Information

Jenny Lewis is a poet, playwright, translator and songwriter who teaches poetry at Oxford University. She has had seven plays and poetry cycles performed at major UK theatres and published four collections; the most recent, Gilgamesh Retold (Carcanet, 2018), was a New Statesman Book of the Year, an LRB Bookshop Book of the Week and Carcanet's first audio book. Jenny has also published three chapbooks from Mulfran Press in English and Arabic with the exiled Iraqi poet Adnan Al-Sayegh which are part of the award-winning, Arts Council-funded 'Writing Mesopotamia' project aimed at building bridges between English and Arabic-speaking communities. Jenny's first book, When I Became an Amazon (Iron Press, 1996/ Bilingua, Russia, 2002) was set to music by Gennadyi Shiroglazov and performed by the Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Company in 2017 and, for International Women's Day 2023, by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Jenny's album of her 1960's songs, (including 'Seventeen Pink Sugar Elephants', co-written with Vashti Bunyan in 1963 and newly arranged and played by Vashti with Gareth Dickson) is forthcoming in 2024.

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