Songs of Experience

Songs of Experience harvests work by a new generation of poets: has there ever before been so original and inexhaustibly varied a cohort of poets writing and publishing in their seventies, eighties and nineties? Here some of our best-loved poets are shown in a new light, presented side by side in all their diversity. Some have published with Carcanet since the 1970s, others are later arrivals or late starters on the list. All of them still write and publish new work. Songs of Experience is a celebration, providing readers with a first opportunity to engage with an unprecedented generation. Several of the defining poets of the past half century are to be found here - Gillian Clarke, Rowan Williams, Mimi Khalvati, Lorna Goodison, Daniel Huws among them - and some whose work will in due course change how our age is read. The writers include prose reflections on late style, fresh starts, life stories, and a changing take on their calling in an age so different from the one that shaped them.