New & Collected Poems

Ruth Fainlight is one of Britain’s most distinguished poets. Born in New York City, she has lived mostly in England since the age of 15, publishing her first collection, Cages, in 1966. Her poems ‘give us truly new visions of usual and mysterious events’ (A.S. Byatt). Each is a balancing act between thought and feeling, revealing otherness within the everyday, often measuring subtle shifts in relationships between women and men. Images of the moon, however interpreted - whether as stern and stony presence or protective maternal symbol - recur throughout her work. Peter Porter described one of her collections as having ‘the steadiness and clarity of the moon itself’. This substantial New & Collected Poems covers work written over 50 years, drawing on over a dozen books as well as a whole new collection. It also includes her translations of Sophia de Mello Breyner, Jean Joubert, Sophocles, and several leading modern Latin American poets, including Cesar Vallejo, Blanca Varela, Elsa Cross and Victor Manuel Mendiola, and two of her opera libretti, The Dancer Hotoke and The Bride in Her Grave.