Brand New Ancients

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This is a very short read, with stanzas musing on the constancy of the human condition and how we really haven’t come so far from the days when Zeus and Hera might have walked among us.

Brand New Ancients has been adapted an as album, theatre piece and a short film (which can be found for free online here! I can’t really say that I’m that fond of the plot, it’s not bad in any way but after the appraisal that it was given by friends I was expecting more. We’re proud to share the words of our staff, volunteers and placement students and we hope you enjoy reading their thoughts.

I fear the culture industry in this country is about to eat Kate Tempest on toast, because she does a lot of things the country at large sort of wants to do: be edgy in a nondescript post Guy Ritchie kind of way, think about foreign countries only when they can sort of be used by British people, and kind of tamp down any possibility for meaningful change. Leggerlo in inglese dà un valore aggiunto, permette di carpire tutta la musicalità del testo originale; bella la storia delle persone comuni come noi, che ricordano le antiche divinità. Brand New Ancients is the tale of two families and their intertwining lives, set against the background of the city and braided with classical myth. They received the Ted Hughes Award for their long-form narrative poem Brand New Ancients and the Leone D’Argento at the Venice Teatro Biennale for their work as a playwright.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. I like her insights into modern urban life, and applying that epic vibe ("the Gods are in the toilets having unprotected sex".

In short, this one doesn't really do a good job of living up to the whole Ancient/Modern mash-up because it really just uses the idea of the gods as a mask. It took a bit of adjusting to Kate's voice, but its a helluva story - really poignant in places, and a bit upsetting at the climax. Kae Tempest (pronouns: they/them) started out when they were 16, rapping at strangers on night buses and pestering MCs to let them on the mic at raves.

Their debut novel, "The Bricks That Built The Houses", sold in a highly competitive auction to Bloomsbury and was published in territories including the UK, US, France, Holland and Brazil in Spring 2015.It’s the kind of story that deserves to be read all in one go, preferably with tea, and lose yourself into the world of these characters whose lives intersect in ways that are recognisable to the reader. Tempest’s gods and heroes are the everyday characters, the little people who keep getting up and keep carrying on despite all odds. It is entirely possible that this issue is one I only noticed because I read the poem instead of listening to it being performed; I might not have paid so much attention to the narrative structure otherwise.

The main story running through the poem, telling the story of a group of young people growing up in modern times, one the product of an affair, one unloved by his father, getting in trouble, their lives spiralling out of control and becoming more violent is brilliantly executed.People glass and get glassed, fuck and get fucked; there's no system to intervene, nor anything one can do save try to be "the kind of god a god can trust. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.