Of Certain Angels

A new collection of poems by the award-winning poet, novelist and librettist, David Harsent. These are no guardian angels. They are dangerous, feral. They arrive uninvited, unrefusable and each visceral encounter demands an existential reckoning, an unflinching honesty. They are love's arbiters, though themselves loveless. ‘David Harsent is a unique mix of the nervily cerebral and the visionary, the deeply lyrical and the sourly vernacular, with a nice top-spin of craziness in imagery and a fantastic ear.’ - Ruth Padel David Harsent is an acclaimed poet, librettist, novelist and script writer. In 2014 he won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Fire Songs. In 2012 he was awarded the Griffin International Poetry Prize for Night. In 2005 he received the Forward Prize for Legion. Recent collections include Salt (Faber, 2017), Loss (Faber, 2020) and Homeland: Eighteen Bitter Songs: Versions of Yannis Ritsos (Rack Press, 2021). He has written a number of operas in collaboration with composer Harrison Birtwhistle, including Gawain, The Minotaur, The Cure and The Corridor. They have been performed at opera houses around the world including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Carnegie Hall. His collaborations with Birtwhistle include the song cycles The Woman and the Hare and Songs from the Same Earth.