New blood - Neil Astley

Kafka said we should read books which bite and sting: 'If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the head, what's the point in reading? A book must be the axe which smashes the frozen sea within us.' Brian Hinton applied this to Neil Astley's anthology Poetry with an Edge, which 'crystallises what he has already achieved with Bloodaxe, well designed and committed books, though never comfortable to read. They answer Kafka's de?nition of what real literature should be.' New Blood is the sequel to Poetry with an Edge, which marked Bloodaxe's ?rst decade of poetry publishing. This completely new anthology brings together poets who have published their ?rst collections during the past ten years. New Blood shows that Bloodaxe isn't going rusty with age, for here are some of the sharpest new talents in poetry - with poems which bite and sting as well as disturb and delight the reader. This book of new poetry from Bloodaxe 'must be the axe which smashes the frozen sea within us'.