Emergency Kit

by Jo Shapcott (Editor), Matthew Sweeney (Editor)

Emergency Kit is an anthology with many differences. It is, to begin with, a book which gives prominence to poems rather than to the poets who wrote them. It is truly international, bringing together poems not just from these islands but from many parts of the English-speaking world. It is the first book to identify a strain in the poetry of the last half-century which is characteristic of the 'strange times' we live in - an age when, as the editors note, scientific discovery itself has encouraged us to 'make free with the boundaries of realism'. It values imagination, surprise, vivid expression, the outlandish and the playful above ideology and sententiousness. It is, in short, living proof that poetry in the English language continues to thrive and to matter.

Genres: Poetry

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

She was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Dublin. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London, where she teaches on the MA in Creative Writing. She is the current President of The Poetry Society.

Her Book: Poems 1988-1998 (2000), consists of a selection of poetry from her three earlier collections: Electroplating the Baby (1988), which won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Best First Collection, Phrase Book (1992), and My Life Asleep (1998), which won the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection). She has also won the National Poetry Competition twice. Together with Matthew Sweeney she edited an anthology of contemporary poetry in English, but gathered from around the world, entitled Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times (1996).

Jo Shapcott has worked with a number of musicians on collaborative projects. She has written lyrics for, or had poems set to music by, composers such as John McCabe, Detlev Glamert, Nigel Osborne, Alec Roth, Erollyn Wallen, Peter Wiegold and John Woolrich. Her poems were set to music by composer Stephen Montague in The Creatures Indoors, premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre in London in 1997. From 2001-2003, during the BBC Proms season, she presented the weekly 'Poetry Proms' on Radio 3.

Her book Tender Taxes, a collection of versions of Rainer Maria Rilke's poems in French, was published in 2002. The Transformers, due for publication in 2010, is a collection of public lectures given by Jo Shapcott as part of her Professorship at Newcastle, and she is co-editor (with Linda Anderson) of a collection of essays about Elizabeth Bishop. Her translation, with Narguess Farzad, of Poems by Farzaneh Khojandi was published in 2008.

Her latest book of poems is Of Mutability, published in 2010, shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) and overall winner of the 2010 Costa Prize.

In 2011 Jo Shapcott was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

Reviews

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, strange poems for strange times. Only a few are from known poets. Many are from strangers. Several, I like very much but for obvious reasons, the one by Hugo Williams, called “When I Grow Up” is at the top of my list: It goes:


When I grow up I want to have a bad leg.
I want to limp down the street I live in
without knowing where I am. I want the disease
where you put your hand on your hip
and lean forward slightly, groaning to yourself.

If a little boy asks me the way
I’ll try and touch him between the legs.
What a dirty old man I’m going to be when I grow up!
What shall we do with me?

I promise I’ll be good
if you let me fall over in the street
and lie there calling like a baby bird. Please,
nobody come. I’m perfectly all right. I like it here.

I wonder would it be possible
to get me into a National Health Hospice
somewhere in Manchester?
I’ll stand in the middle of my cubicle
holding onto a piece of string for safety,
shaking like a leaf at the thought of my suitcase.

I’d certainly like to have a nervous tic
so I can purse my lips up all the time
like Cecil Beaton. Can I be completely bald, please?
I love the smell of old pee.
Why can’t I smell like that?

When I grow up I want a thin piece of steel
inserted into my penis for some reason.
Nobody’s to tell me why it’s there. I want to guess!
Tell me, is that a bottle of old Burgundy
under my bed? I never can tell
if I feel randy any more, can you?

I think it’s only fair that I should be allowed
to cough up a bit of blood when I feel like it.
My daughter will bring me a special air cushion
to hold me upright and I’ll watch
in baffled admiration as she blows it up for me.

Here’s my list: nappies, story books, munchies,
something else. What was the other thing?
I can’t remember exactly,
but when I grow up I’ll know. When I grow up
I’ll pluck at my bedclothes to collect lost thoughts.
I’ll roll them into balls and swallow them.

[Russio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems are such personal things and the early part of this collection resisted me greatly. In fact, it wasn’t until about half way through that it really hit its stride.

Connected by an invisible thread of themes, so that each poem fits well with the next, although not necessarily in the same way as before, there is pleasure to be had in plotting the course.

I loved 51 of the poems and quite liked lot more - the hit rate was about one in two, which is not bad at all. What is more, most were poems, and sometimes poets, I had never before encountered.

The collection is subtitled Poems for Strange Times and was published in1994. Looking back from the era of Brexit,Putin andTrump makes one yearn for such simple times again!

[Teddy Hazelden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adore this collection, I honestly feel like it was made to perfectly suit my taste. I love the thought of more poetry books that are compiled for their content rather than their authors and this book executes that perfectly

[Victoria Grigg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Visceral, soulful selection. A great way into poetry.

[Tom Houlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed bag. 50% mediocre, 30% good and 20% outstanding. Opens you to a lot of poets you might have never known though and contains some powerful stuff.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not the biggest poetry fan, so 3 stars

[Tania Bies · Rating 5 out of 5]

love it x

[Eve Andrews]

DNF

Never felt compelled to read this, and when I did it wasn’t for me

[Tyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tw: modern poetry

[Mark Glover · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading this collection of poems, along with the excellent Rattle Bag, for about the past two years dipping into it every few days before bed and reading one or two poems both collections being excellently suited for such a purpose. I have thoroughly enjoyed both volumes and feel both are very well thought-out and wide ranging collections. Having tried reading single poet volumes I must say I far prefer the idea of an anthology, given that many poets often pursue the same themes throughout their work which can get a little tedious at times. I have recently returned to reading poetry(in the last 10 years) and think that there is much to offer in the poets realm, especially in current times where social media and constant visual stimulation is like caffeine to the eyeballs and the soul, invigorating but probably not all that good for you. As such poetry's greatest gift is that it forces you to slow down your reading and take in every word, line and stanza. This slowing down lends itself to uncovering the true beauty of poetry and in much the same way that you will get more from staring intently at one painting than rushing through a gallery, it allows you to appreciate both the subtlety of the form and its true value.
Unfortunately I feel the way poetry is taught takes away from the actual emotional impact of the poem and it is little surprise that so few read after they leave school. I feel that with poetry we can get as much as we do from a novel; an insight into a place, a time, an emotion, a mindset, a character but in a far more succinct manner and in a form that is ideally suited for the time poor. Not everyone can wade through a 1000 page novel to get an insight into what the author has to offer, but by reading a poem and stepping away from the bustle of daily life we can gain valuable insight and enjoyment in a bite sized form.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting cosiness from the introduction, it was clear they were looking for 'edgy'. However I was disappointed to find so few poems in this collection that resonated with me - most of those that did were already known to me - and surprised to find quite so many impenetrable.

I did enjoy and want to 'keep' in my mind 'Rat, O Rat' by Christopher Logue.

[Angela Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an inspired idea ... to put together an anthology of poetry to help us face the things we face in our lives. Far better than medicine, every time. Actually, it is medicine in the sense Clarissa Pinkola Estes means in Women who Run with the Wolves http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24...
Wonderful.

[Juliet Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful selection of pems to make sense of todays crazy world. This is not a 'poetry to pick you up when you are down' collection but a real anthology of truly meaningful poetry that can be read over and over again.

[Nina Milton · Rating 4 out of 5]

EMERGENCY KIT If you should want just one large anthology of recent poems, I would recommend this one, as it is both disturbing and exuberant and brings renown poets between the same covers as lesser-known ones.

[Andy Hickmott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was given to me as part of a weekend workshop at Faber, led by Jo Shapcott and Daljit Nagra. This is poetry of the margins, a collection unified by its unconformity! 19 bookmarked poems.

[Kirsty Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a great collection of contemporary poetry. Flick the book open at any page and you are sure to get a treat.

[Ollie Z Book Minx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really fantastic poems and some that were rather meh.

[Angelika Tsivinskaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Passable

[Brettsinclair70 · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Certain houses burst, and vanished. One wept its windows...". Intoxicating.