Brand New Ancients

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In the end, I was kind of fascinated with this as the ultimate incarnation of something I really don't like; and it's absolutely not without power, in a way that really banal things sometimes are. And I have to add that reading this book with the author reading it + the music was excellent, it added a real tension, an authentic atmosphere. When the narrator announces that, in this world, "There are no clear-cut definitions of what's just," it seems like a sort of exhausted shrug in the direction of ethics. The scope is epic, but the drama has the sort of exquisite fragility that only comes from brilliant writing about the most ordinary of souls. I read this in a single sitting, and that final line was a complete gut punch - I had to let out an audible breath when I finished!

effective - speedy and punchy; at others, it seemed to me, it's lazy, and the contents a bit preachy. I really love the parallels between the storyline of the two generations and the one more abstract about the « gods of the every day». Divinità antiche incontrano e si fondono con l'uomo e la donna comune, che sono le divinità contemporanee. A modified version of this poem, with actors but also the poet performing an abridged/revised version of the poem, is available in an almost 12 minute film in YouTube.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. They received the Ted Hughes Award for their long-form narrative poem Brand New Ancients and the Leone D’Argento at the Venice Teatro Biennale for their work as a playwright. I got this and a 'Slam poetry' audio CD at the same time, and its been a brilliant combination of the ancient and the modern. Please read this poem, and read it out loud if you can; it will leave you broken and hopeful and shocked and empowered all at the same time. Kate Tempest’s Brand New Ancients pushes the idea of what poetry can be, telling a complete story through verse rather than serving as a collection of individual poems.

I could have done without the first four pages ("The myths in this city have always said the same thing - /about how all we need is a place to belong", etc. I fear the culture industry in this country is about to eat Kate Tempest on toast, because she does a lot of things the country at large sort of wants to do: be edgy in a nondescript post Guy Ritchie kind of way, think about foreign countries only when they can sort of be used by British people, and kind of tamp down any possibility for meaningful change. Kate Tempest is also skilled at evoking complete scenes from rather minimalist descriptions and at creating vivid imagery. It took a bit of adjusting to Kate's voice, but its a helluva story - really poignant in places, and a bit upsetting at the climax.

She deftly weaves together two generations of modern families, telling stories of love, betrayal, anger and revenge with a minimum of verbiage. The long poem chronicles the story of two families in south London and explores everyday heroism, family life, working-class life, the human condition, and myth. This is a very short read, with stanzas musing on the constancy of the human condition and how we really haven’t come so far from the days when Zeus and Hera might have walked among us.