Corpus

Winner of the Whitbread Prize, this gripping collection of poems centers around the body. Mystical, philosophical, and erotic, the bodies in these poems move between different worlds—life and after-life, death and resurrection—encountering pathologists' blades, geneticists' maps, and the wounds of love and war. Equally at ease with scripture and science, these poems are a thrilling blend of modern and ancient wisdom, a profound and lyrical exploration of the mysteries of the body. Ranging effortlessly between the physical extremes of death—from putrefaction to purification—and life—drought and flood, hunger and satiation—the poems in Corpus speak most movingly of “living the half-life between two elements,” of what it is to be unique and luminously alive.