A selection that includes poems from various stages of Clare's poetic career, organised by theme, from Birds and Beasts to Madhouses, Prisons and Whorehouses.

Presents Clare's poetry exactly as he wrote it, and includes selections from his 'mad' poems as well as his earlier descriptions of birds, animals and village life.

Clare records that it was 'a very old custom among villagers in summer time to stick a piece of greensward full of field flowers and place it as an ornament in their cottages which ornaments are called Midsummer Cushions.' This 'cottage custom'suggested the title to him for this collection. The texts of the poems are those which Clare himself wanted to publish in 1832, but for which he could not find a sufficient number of subscribers. Almost a third of the book's 391 poems were published for the first time when this collection first appeared in 1978. These poems, edited by Anne Tibble, a...

John Clare was a practitioner of the sonnet form at all periods of his poetic career. This volume contains all the sonnets that Clare wrote at Northborough between 1832 and 1837 with the exception of those included in "The Midsummer Cushion" and "The Rural Muse".

This text brings together Clare's longest poem, The Parish, and his satires, The Hue and Cry and The Summons. Other poems, some previously unpublished, are included. They reveal his reactions to political and social conditions and events of his age. There are also prose works and fragments in which he reflects on the issues of the day included in the collection.

The world and its people are in a precarious situation. After the loss and carnage of the twentieth century there is prevailing mood of uncertainty and paranoia, yet at the same time a denial of tragedy, a salvation fantasy, an illusion that we will be saved. Since dreams often reflect the social environment of the dreamer, they thus prove to be a useful tool when examining the group dynamics.

Social Dreaming is the method of working with dreams that are shared and associated within a gathering of people, coming together for this purpose. Its focus is on the dream and not the...

Clare's The Shepherd's Calendar has become the classic poem of English rural life and ceremony. It was accompanied, when first published, by other poems, pastorals, and verse-tales, all of which appear in the first two volumes of the series, along with many others which were not included in the 1827 collection. Clare's first editors also tidied up and standardized his vocabulary, grammar, and spelling, but his original language has here been restored. By the late 1820's, Clare had developed his own distinctive idiom and had adopted a more powerful voice. These volumes make an important...

Clare's The Shepherd's Calendar has become the classic poem of English rural life and ceremony. It was accompanied, when first published, by other poems, pastorals, and verse-tales, all of which appear in the first two volumes of the series, along with many others which were not collected in the 1827 collection. Clare's first editors also tidied up and standardized his vocabulary, grammar, and spelling, but his original language has here been restored. By the late 1820's, Clare had developed his own distinctive idiom and had adopted a more powerful voice. These volumes make an important...