Off The Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse

By Carol Ann Duffy

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and her friends across the country offer poems in praise of the magic of reading.

In Off the Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has commissioned a selection of the UK's most loved and lauded poets to each write a poem in celebration of books and bookshops - the worlds they hold, the freedoms they promise, and the memories they evoke. From a basement of forgotten books to the shelves of a cramped Welsh arcade, from the poetry corner of the local bookstore to the last bookshop standing in a post-apocalyptic world, these are poems that pay tribute to all the places that house the stories we treasure.

With poems from Carol Ann Duffy, Scottish Makar Jackie Kay, National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke, as well as Clive James, Michael Longley, Don Paterson, Patience Agbabi and many more, this beautiful anthology is a heart-warming reminder of how books nourish us, save us, and inspire us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Sep 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781509841967

Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children's Verse, the Whitbread, Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. She was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 2009 to 2019. Her many collections include Mean Time, Love Poems and The Bees, which won the Costa Poetry Award. Her writing for children includes Queen Munch and Queen Nibble, The Skipping-Rope Snake and The Tear Thief. She was made a DBE in the 2015 New Year Honours list. In 2021, she was awarded the international lifetime achievement award the Golden Wreath for her achievements in poetry.

Book preview

In loving memory of Bernard Stone

and The Turret Bookshop

Off the Shelf

A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse

Edited by Carol Ann Duffy

PICADOR

Contents

Foreword

Last Bookshop in Britain – Patience Agbabi

Book Learning – Jo Bell

Open Book – Rachael Boast

Notes on Bookbarn International after a Visit; with a Questionnaire Answered by O and L – Sean Borodale

In Defence of Old Men Dozing in Bookshops – Colette Bryce

In a Cardiff Arcade, 1952 – Gillian Clarke

Contemporary Americans – Billy Collins

MacNaughton’s Bookshop – Peter Davidson

Beware the Books – Imtiaz Dharker

Without Prejudice – Edward Doegar

At the Minster Gate Bookshop – Maura Dooley

In the Drowned Bookshop – Carol Ann Duffy

The Secondhand Bookshop – Ella Duffy

Gathering – Ian Duhig

River Tigris, River Euphrates – Paul Farley

The Bookshop at the End of the World – Vicki Feaver

For My Wife, Reading in Bed – John Glenday

Lockyer’s – Paul Henry

The Argument of his Book – Robert Herrick

Apotheosis at the Signing Table – Clive James

G. & A. Bowden – Alan Jenkins

Silver Moon – Jackie Kay

Goodbye, Bargain Basement – Neetha Kunaratnam

The Wardrobe – Zaffar Kunial

We Lay Down a Story – Liz Lefroy

Note Taking – Liz Lochhead

Bookshops – Michael Longley

Blank Page Of First Old Book He Read – Glyn Maxwell

What Happens Nest – Helen Mort

Booked – Daljit Nagra

The Tilt – Mark Pajak

Bookshop – Don Paterson

The Girl Who Ate Books – Jean Sprackland

The Elements of Reading – James Sutherland-Smith

The Future of Books – Michael Symmons Roberts

Notes on the Art of Poetry – Dylan Thomas

Books – Katharine Towers

Bookeries – Kit Wright

Biographical Notes

Foreword

In June 2016, in a fortnight either side of the Referendum, the poets Gillian Clarke, Imtiaz Dharker, Jackie Kay and I travelled from Falmouth to St Andrews, via Wales, on a poetry tour, Shore to Shore, to celebrate the UK’s Independent Bookshops. At each event, we invited a poet associated with the area to perform alongside us – and were often upstaged. Our aim was to connect with readers, writers and, of course, our heroic booksellers, who are so vital to our communities. To support this venture, Picador published Off the Shelf, an anthology of specially commissioned poems about the joys of Bookshops.

On the original tour, we were disappointed not to be able to visit more cities, towns or villages with much-loved local Bookshops – so we made a vow that we would try to add more places another year. So here we are in 2018 – the meaning of Brexit as unclear as it was two years ago – back on the road: this time taking a different route and journeying from Penarth to Dunoon. It seemed an excellent idea to add some extra poems to our original anthology, so this new Off the Shelf contains some newly commissioned poems, alongside some old favourites of mine.

My thanks go to Camilla Elworthy and Kish Widyaratna at Picador; to all the poets who will be joining us on the road; to the Independent Bookshops who are helping to make this second venture possible; and, most importantly, Dear Reader, to you.

CAROL ANN DUFFY

Patience Agbabi

LAST BOOKSHOP IN BRITAIN

I won’t tell