Odes, hymns, and lyrics from many of Greece's most noted classical poets--including Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, Sophocles, and Euripides--are beautifully illustrated here with details of ancient Greek frescoes, vase paintings, and sculptures. Over the centuries, celebrated writers such as George Chapman, Mary Barnard, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and W. B. Yeats have been inspired to create contemporary translations of these enduring verses. In this volume are their and other modern poets' captivating translations, accompanied by the original Greek text. This lively combination of the poetry and illustrations, along with notes on each poet and on archaeological sites such as Knossos, Akrotiri, Mycenae, Lipari, and Paestum where the Greek art objects in this book were excavated, makes this volume a perfect introduction to Greek verse.

The poetry of Catullus, Virgil, Horace and Ovid has endured over 2,000 years. For most of that time it was read only in Latin, the language of its origin - but over the centuries celebrated writers, from John Dryden to Aubrey Beardsley to Ezra Pound, have been inspired to create their own translations. Each verse extract appears both in Latin and English, illustrated with a detail from an ancient Roman painting or mosaic - many of them treasures from Pompeii and Herculaneum, preserved by the volcanic eruption which destroyed the two cities in 79 AD. The images capture the spirit of the age in which this enchanting poetry was written and, accompanied by a biographical note on each poet, make a perfect introduction to the towering civilization that was Rome.

“This is a book for anyone,” Glyn Maxwell declares of On Poetry. A guide to the writing of poetry and a defense of the art, it will be especially prized by writers and readers who wish to understand why and how poetic technique matters. When Maxwell states, “With rhyme what matters is the distance between rhymes” or “the line-break is punctuation,” he compresses into simple, memorable phrases a great deal of practical wisdom. In seven chapters whose weird, gnomic titles announce the singularity of the book—“White,” “Black,” “Form,” “Pulse,” “Chime,” “Space,” and “Time”—the poet explores his belief that the greatest verse arises from a harmony of mind and body, and that poetic forms originate in human necessities: breath, heartbeat, footstep, posture. “The sound of form in poetry descended from song, molded by breath, is the sound of that creature yearning to leave a mark. The meter says tick-tock. The rhyme says remember. The whiteness says alone,” Maxwell writes. To illustrate his argument, he draws upon personal touchstones such as Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. An experienced teacher, Maxwell also takes us inside the world of the creative writing class, where we learn from the experiences of four aspiring poets. “You master form you master time,” Maxwell says. In this guide to the most ancient and sublime of the realms of literature, Maxwell shares his mastery with us.

The ancient Greek hymnic tradition translated beautifully and accessibly. The hymn—as poetry, as craft, as a tool for worship and philosophy—was a vital art form throughout antiquity. Although the Homeric Hymns have long been popular, other equally important collections have not been readily accessible to students eager to learn about ancient poetry. In reading hymns, we also gain valuable insight into life in the classical world. In this collection, early Homeric Hymns of uncertain authorship appear along with the carefully wrought hymns of the great Hellenistic poet and courtier Callimachus; the mystical writings attributed to the legendary poet Orpheus, written as Christianity was taking over the ancient world; and finally, the hymns of Proclus, the last great pagan philosopher of antiquity, from the fifth century AD, whose intellectual influence throughout western culture has been profound. Greek Poems to the Gods distills over a thousand years of the ancient Greek hymnic tradition into a single volume. Acclaimed translator Barry B. Powell brings these fabulous texts to life in English, hewing closely to the poetic beauty of the original Greek. His superb introductions and notes give readers essential context, making the hymns as accessible to a beginner approaching them for the first time as to an advanced student continuing to explore their secrets. Brilliant illustrations from ancient art enliven and enrichen the experience of reading these poems.

A musical celebration of the garden, from chaff to grass, and all of its lowly weeds, herbs, and creatures Sylvia Legris’s Garden Physic is a paean to the pleasures and delights of one of the world’s most cherished pastimes: Gardening! “At the center of the garden the heart,” she writes, “Red as any rose. Pulsing / balloon vine. Love in a puff.” As if composed out of a botanical glossolalia of her own invention, Legris’s poems map the garden as body and the body as garden—her words at home in the phytological and anatomical—like birds in a nest. From an imagined love-letter exchange on plants between garden designer Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson to a painting by Agnes Martin to the medicinal discourse of the first-century Greek pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides, Garden Physic engages with the anaphrodisiacs of language with a compressed vitality reminiscent of Louis Zukofsky’s “80 Flowers.” In muskeg and yard, her study of nature bursts forth with rainworm, whorl of horsetail, and fern radiation—spring beauty in the lines, a healing potion in verse.

In Gardens of the Roman Empire, the pioneering archaeologist Wilhelmina F. Jashemski sets out to examine the role of ancient Roman gardens in daily life throughout the empire. This study, therefore, includes for the first time, archaeological, literary, and artistic evidence about ancient Roman gardens across the entire Roman Empire from Britain to Arabia. Through well-illustrated essays by leading scholars in the field, various types of gardens are examined, from how Romans actually created their gardens to the experience of gardens as revealed in literature and art. Demonstrating the central role and value of gardens in Roman civilization, Jashemski and a distinguished, international team of contributors have created a landmark reference work that will serve as the foundation for future scholarship on this topic. An accompanying digital catalogue will be made available at: www.gardensoftheromanempire.org.

In this anthology of Greek verse, poets from Homer and Sappho to Sophoclesnd Euripides provide a glimpse of the lost world of Ancient Greece. Theriginal Greek verse is accompanied by the translations of celebrated writersuch as Alexander Pope, W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde. Evocative frescoes andase paintings from sites closely linked with Greek myth and history -ncluding Knossos, Mycenae, Paestum and Syracuse - illustrate each page.rief biographical information about each of the Greek poets, as well as aote on the art, complete the book.