Tony Harrison

Front Cover
Neil Astley
Bloodaxe Books, 1991 - Drama - 511 pages
Tony Harrison is 'a major dramatic poet' (TLS), 'our finest theatrical translator' (The Times) and 'the greatest modern theatrical poet' (Punch). Like Brecht, Harrison is both a major social poet and an innovative dramatist. In his work for theatre, opera and television he has extended the Brechtian tradition of music theatre. While his poetry and plays have been acclaimed by readers, theatre-goers and critics, he has gained wider notoriety and respect for his controversial television work: especially Channel 4's film of his poem 'v.' and his defence of Salman Rushdie, 'The Blasphemers' Banquet'. This is the first critical guide to the work of Tony Harrison, and covers his poetry, translations, theatre and television work:Essays and articles by leading writers and critics: Jonathan Barker, Rosemary Burton, Maureen Duffy, Douglas Dunn, Peter Forbes, Damian Grant, Romana Huk, Peter Levi, Marianne McDonald, Blake Morrison, Oswyn Murray, Bernard O'Donoghue, Rick Rylance, Carol Rutter, Oliver Taplin, Jeffrey Wainwright, Ken Worpole, Alan Young and others.Working with Tony Harrison: articles by director Richard Eyre, designer Jocelyn Herbert, actors Barrie Rutter and Jack Shepherd, composer Stephen Edwards, and TV producers Andree Molyneux and Peter Symes.Important reviews of Harrison's poetry and plays by John Barber, Clive Barnes, Michael Billington, Michael Coveney, Robert Cushman, Terry Eagleton, James Fenton, Marilyn Hacker, Ian Hamilton, Bernard Levin, John Peter, Michael Ratcliffe, Lawrence Sail, John Simon, Stephen Spender and others.Eight essays and prefaces by Tony Harrison as well as his new long poem 'The Mother of the Muses', and the complete texts of his television poems 'Arctic Paradise' and 'The Blasphemers' Banquet'.Interviews with Tony Harrison by John Haffenden and Richard Hoggart.

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Contents

The Wizard of Uz Preface
10
Tony Harrison An Introduction
14
The Inkwell of Dr Agrippa
32
Copyright

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About the author (1991)

Neil Astley is editor of Bloodaxe Books, which he founded in 1978. His books include novels, poetry collections and anthologies, most notably the Bloodaxe Staying Alive trilogy: Staying Alive (Bloodaxe, UK 2002/ Miramax, US 2003), Being Alive (2004) and Being Human (2011), along with Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy (2012). His other anthologies (all these from Bloodaxe) include Earth Shattering: ecopoems (2007), The Hundred Years' War: modern war poems (2014), and three collaborations with with Pamela Robertson-Pearce, Soul Food: nourishing poems for starved minds (2008), and the DVD-books In Person: 30 Poets (2008) and In Person: World Poets (2017). He has published two novels, The End of My Tether (2002), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and The Sheep Who Changed the World (2005). In 2012 Candlestick Press published his selection of Ten Poems About Sheep in its renowned pamphlet series. In 2015 he guest-edited a special international issue of the American literary journal Ploughshares, its first all-poetry issue in its 44-year history. He received an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry from the Society of Authors in 1982 and was given a D.Litt from Newcastle University for his work with Bloodaxe Books in 1995. He is a trustee of Ledbury Poetry Festival, and a Visiting Fellow at Newcastle University. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.

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