Rough Music

Sourcing folk songs, ballads, and medieval carols, the poems in this collection explore the points where poetry and music meet and result in a crude dissonance derived from Anglo-Saxon and Romanian traditions. Exploring a range of personal material informed by the deep, medieval iconography of common prayer, by the diction of medieval carol as well as metaphysics, poetry, and madrigal sounds, this innovative volume touches on themes of women's identities, grief, loss, shame, loneliness, ill health, and surviving in the aftermath of violence.

Fiona Sampson is the award-winning author of 17 books, including A Century of Poetry Review, Common Prayer, which was short-listed for the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2007, and Writing Poetry: The Expert Guide.