Soul Feast

nourishing poems of hope & light: a companion anthology to Soul Food

Neil Astley editor Pamela Robertson-Pearce editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bloodaxe Books Ltd

Published:21st Mar '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Soul Feast cover

Soul Feast is a companion anthology to Soul Food, offering up a further feast of thoughtful poems to stir the mind and feed the spirit, bringing hope and light in dark, uncertain times. This book’s inspiration – Soul Food – achieved its wide popularity by word of mouth. For many thousands of readers feeling adrift in the early years of the 21st century, the poems in that book offered support and sustenance. What followed has been even more destructive and disorientating: wars, pandemic, oppression, persecution of peoples and minorities, mass migration, dishonest government, financial meltdown, and looming environmental catastrophe. Yet amidst all this there are voices of hope and healing, of love and tolerance, kindness and compassion, sanity and solace, to be heard and felt in the poems of Soul Feast. This new compilation shows how poetry can help sustain our search for meaning in times of spiritual starvation. All these poems are universal illuminations of the meaning of life, speaking to readers of all faiths as well as to seekers and non-believers. Drawn from many traditions, Soul Feast includes work by poets ranging from Lal Ded and Tukaram to Pessoa, Borges, Cummings and Langston Hughes, as well as poems by celebrated contemporary poets such as Ellen Bass, Imtiaz Dharker, Jane Hirshfield and Naomi Shihab Nye. This is a book to keep by the bedside or to keep with you when travelling.

Consolation is a rare quality in our tragic times, but sometimes poetry can provide a sanctuary. Bloodaxe Books, which often sets a creative pace in poetry publishing, offers “nourishing poems of hope and light” in its anthology Soul Feast. This gathers roughly 100 poets from many countries into an ambitious collection, edited by the Bloodaxe founder Neil Astley, and the artist, filmmaker, and translator Pamela Robertson-Pearce. Each poem feels chosen with intelligence and care: accessibility matches profundity. […] a searching anthology that is both elegy, and celebration.

-- Martyn Halsall * Church Times *

In the end, the proof of a Soul Feast has to be in the eating, and I’ve got to admit that, even for an old cynic like me, the whole experience of sitting down and partaking was actually, well… ‘nourishing’.

-- Stuart Henson * London Grip *

It [Soul Feast] would certainly make a perfect Christmas present for someone you’re fond of.

-- Greg Freeman * Write Out Lo

ISBN: 9781780377063

Dimensions: 163mm x 174mm x 11mm

Weight: unknown

160 pages

Paperback original