Retellings

On an island the shape of a tear drop live two sisters. One is the Oracle, the other is damned.One is admired far and wide. The other must sacrifice her life to fulfil her destiny. But what will happen when she returns to the island for revenge?

Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances?Ali Smith's re-mix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold.It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations.Funny and fresh, poetic and political, Girl Meets Boy is a myth of metamorphosis for the modern world.

Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances?Ali Smith's re-mix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold.It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations.Funny and fresh, poetic and political, Girl Meets Boy is a myth of metamorphosis for the modern world.

"The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy is a compelling and clever collection of poems that gives voice to the often-overlooked women behind famous men. From Mrs. Darwin to Frau Freud, each poem subverts traditional narratives and offers a fresh, witty perspective on age-old mythology and modern feminist issues. With her quicksilver wit and imaginative style, Duffy's poetic voice mesmerizes and captivates, making this book a must-read for fans of feminist writing and mythological retellings."

Kate Tempest, winner of the Ted Hughes Prize for Brand New Ancients and widely regarded as the UK's leading spoken word poet, has produced a new poem-sequence of electrifying power. Based on the myth of the blind prophet Tiresias, Hold Your Own is a riveting tale of youth and experience, sex and love, wealth and poverty, community and alienation. Walking in the forest one morning, a young man disturbs two copulating snakes - and is punished by the goddess Hera, who turns him into a woman. This is only the beginning of his journey . . . Weaving elements of classical myth, autobiography and social commentary, Tempest uses the story of the gender-switching, clairvoyant Tiresias to create four sequences of poems: 'childhood', 'manhood', 'womanhood' and 'blind profit'. The result is a rhythmically hypnotic tour de force - and a hugely ambitious leap forward for one of the UK's most talented and compelling young writers.

In fierce, textured voices, the women of Ovid's Metamorphoses claim their stories and challenge the power of mythI am the home of this story. After thousands of years of other people's tellings, of all these different bridges, of words gotten wrong, I'll tell it myself.Seductresses and she-monsters, nymphs and demi-goddesses, populate the famous myths of Ovid's Metamorphoses. But what happens when the story of the chase comes in the voice of the woman fleeing her rape? When the beloved coolly returns the seducer's gaze? When tales of monstrous transfiguration are sung by those transformed? In voices both mythic and modern, Wake, Siren revisits each account of love, loss, rape, revenge, and change. It lays bare the violence that undergirds and lurks in the heart of Ovid's narratives, stories that helped build and perpetuate the distorted portrayal of women across centuries of art and literature.Drawing on the rhythms of epic poetry and alt rock, of everyday speech and folk song, of fireside whisperings and therapy sessions, Nina MacLaughlin, the acclaimed author of Hammer Head, recovers what is lost when the stories of women are told and translated by men. She breathes new life into these fraught and well-loved myths.

With an introduction by Jeanette WintersonThis unique collection of poems from the Poet Laureate, filled with her characteristic wit, is a feminist classic and a modern take on age-old mythology.Who? Him. The Husband. Hero. Hunk.The Boy Next Door. The Paramour. The Je t'adore.Behind every famous man is a great woman - and from the quick-tongued Mrs Darwin to the lascivious Frau Freud, from the adoring Queen Kong to the long-suffering wife of the Devil himself, each one steps from her counterpart's shadow to tell her side of the story in this irresistible collection.Original, subversive, full of imagination and quicksilver wit, The World's Wife is Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy at her beguiling best.