{"title":"Fiona Benson","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFiona Benson\u003c\/strong\u003e offers a profound exploration of the human experience through her evocative poetry. With works like \u003cem\u003eEphemeron\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eMidden Witch\u003c\/em\u003e, she delves into themes of memory, loss, and transformation, inviting readers to engage deeply with both the personal and the universal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRooted in the realms of arts and culture, Benson’s writing is marked by its vivid imagery and emotional resonance. Her poetry blends myth, history, and intimate reflection, making her collection a compelling choice for those drawn to contemporary poetic voices that challenge and inspire.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"midden-witch-by-fiona-benson-9781787335240","title":"Midden Witch","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe thrilling story of the healers, artists, and prodigies once persecuted as witches - from the three-time T.S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted poet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMidden Witch\u003c\/em\u003e is the Poetry Book Society Choice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn her thrilling fourth collection, \u003cem\u003eMidden Witch\u003c\/em\u003e, Fiona Benson enters the world of familiars, fables, and hedge-magic and focuses on the persistent superstition - the fear and false knowledge - that was witchcraft.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTelling tales of imagined transformations and spell-casting, these poems present a litany of artists, dreamers, and outcasts and a study of their ostracisation. The poet looks at how gifted, sometimes troubled, individuals - generally healers, artists, prodigies, and almost always women - became scapegoats, victims of societal paranoia and persecution, and were hounded for centuries, often to a gratuitously violent public execution.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eMidden Witch\u003c\/em\u003e, these women speak back to us with dark humour, insight, and real herbal knowledge. Reckoning with middle age, marginalisation, perimenopause, and a steady, unstoppable vanishing, this troubled codex of remedies, spells, and stories speaks to human fear in the face of the unknown, and a drive to protect our loved ones that transcends all rational thought. At play in the language of archival accounts of witchcraft, this is a dark, eclectic spell-book that witnesses the end-days of magic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'Benson is one of the finest English poets writing today' - Blake Morrison\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'No one writes the way Fiona Benson does. No one is as raging, as fearless' - Daisy Johnson\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'A new collection of Benson's wise and vivid work is a real occasion... exciting... fully inhabited and multi-faceted' - Guardian\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46839619354860,"sku":"9781787335240","price":28.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/72a012f0be869e0a2b58c19ad4d4be2d.jpg?v=1758652408"},{"product_id":"ephemeron-by-fiona-benson-9781787333710","title":"Ephemeron","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe third collection from one of Britain's most exciting and celebrated contemporary poets\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe poems in \u003cem\u003eEphemeron\u003c\/em\u003e deal with the short-lived and transitory—whether it's the brief, urgent lives of the first section, 'Insect Love Songs', the abrupt, anguished, physical and emotional changes during secondary school, as remembered in 'Boarding-School Tales', or parenting's day-by-day shifts through love and fear, hurt and healing, in 'Daughter Mother'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe long central section, 'Translations from the Pasiphae', gathers these themes together in a blistering, unforgettable retelling of the Greek myth of the Minotaur, as seen from the point of view of the bull-child's mother—the betrayed and violated Pasiphae. The familiar legend of the dashing male hero slaying the monster in the labyrinth is transformed here into a story of ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary cycle of violence, power and the abuse of power. At the centre lies Pasiphae calling for her son—'They took him away from me\/and they killed him in the dark, for years.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTelling uncomfortable truths, going deep into male and female drives and desires, our most tender and vulnerable places, and speaking of them in frank, unshrinking ways—these poems are afraid, certainly, but also beautiful, resolute and brave.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47596343722220,"sku":"9781787333710","price":37.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781787333710-ephemeron.jpg?v=1777921747"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/fiona-benson.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}