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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > The World Record

The World Record

The World Record is an international anthology of work by poets from all the countries taking part in the 2012 London Olympics, featuring a poem from each of the 204 Olympic nations, from Armenia to Tuvalu, Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan.

With this book you can discover the world through its keenest observers, political activists and most articulate wordsmiths. There’s something for every taste: new voices as well as world greats, rappers and spoken word artists as well as poets and storytellers. The World Record marks the first time so many living poets from so many countries have been gathered together in one anthology – and 2012 was the first time so many poets have been gathered in one place. Up to 204 poets came together in London for Poetry Parnassus, a week-long celebratory gathering as part of the finale of the Cultural Olympiad, the Festival of the World and the London 2012 Festival.

Introduced by the festival’s curator, Simon Armitage, The World Record shows how poetry crosses all international boundaries to speak to readers everywhere.

This anthology includes the work of a huge array of poets and translators, the full list of which can be found within the book.

‘The World Record is a unique publication, a snapshot or cross-section of global poetry from over two hundred countries… This ambitious anthology is not only a record of that extraordinary happening but an enduring and echoing experience, one that celebrates and honours a multitude of voices, languages and attitudes, all joined under the flag of poetry’
Simon Armitage.

Author

Neil Astley

Neil Astley

Books

The World Record

Neil Astley is editor of Bloodaxe Books, which he founded in 1978. His books include novels, poetry collections and anthologies, most notably the Bloodaxe Staying Alive trilogy: Staying Alive (2002), Being Alive (2004) and Being Human (2011), which were followed by Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy (2012).

His other anthologies, all from Bloodaxe, are Pleased to See Me: 69 very sexy poems, Do Not Go Gentle: poems for funerals, Passionfood: 100 Love Poems, Soul Food: nourishing poems for starved minds with Pamela Robertson-Pearce, Earth Shattering: ecopoems, the DVD-books (filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce) In Person: 30 Poets and In Person: World Poets, The World Record: international voices from Southbank Centre’s Poetry Parnassus (with Anna Selby, 2012), The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems and Funny Ha-Ha, Funny Peculiar: a book of strange & comic poems.

Novels he’s published are, The End of My Tether,  which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and The Sheep Who Changed the World.

He received an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry and was given a D.Litt from Newcastle University for his work with Bloodaxe Books. He lives in Northumberland.

Anna Selby

Anna Selby

Books

The World Record

Anna Selby was born in Shropshire in 1982 to a Canadian artist and a British minimalist. She was one of four writers selected from the UK to travel to Bangladesh with the British Council as part of a writing exchange project with young Bangladeshi writers. In 2011, she was shortlisted for an Eric Gregory Award. Her poetry has been published in various magazines and anthologies, including Smiths Knoll, Magma, The Rialto and the Cinnamon Anthology of Young British Poets. She is a graduate of the Creative Writing Masters at the University of East Anglia. A specialist in contemporary international poetry, she works as Literature and Spoken Word Co-ordinator at the Southbank Centre and is an associate artist of dance-film company, State of Flux.

Translator

Published by

Bloodaxe Books,
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The World Record is an international anthology of work by poets from all the countries taking part in the 2012 London Olympics, featuring a poem from each of the 204 Olympic nations, from Armenia to Tuvalu, Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan.

With this book you can discover the world through its keenest observers, political activists and most articulate wordsmiths. There’s something for every taste: new voices as well as world greats, rappers and spoken word artists as well as poets and storytellers. The World Record marks the first time so many living poets from so many countries have been gathered together in one anthology – and 2012 was the first time so many poets have been gathered in one place. Up to 204 poets came together in London for Poetry Parnassus, a week-long celebratory gathering as part of the finale of the Cultural Olympiad, the Festival of the World and the London 2012 Festival.

Introduced by the festival’s curator, Simon Armitage, The World Record shows how poetry crosses all international boundaries to speak to readers everywhere.

This anthology includes the work of a huge array of poets and translators, the full list of which can be found within the book.

‘The World Record is a unique publication, a snapshot or cross-section of global poetry from over two hundred countries… This ambitious anthology is not only a record of that extraordinary happening but an enduring and echoing experience, one that celebrates and honours a multitude of voices, languages and attitudes, all joined under the flag of poetry’
Simon Armitage.

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