Let Them Eat Chaos : Mercury Prize Shortlisted - Kae Tempest

Let Them Eat Chaos

Mercury Prize Shortlisted

By: Kae Tempest

Paperback | 27 September 2016

At a Glance

Paperback


$37.25

or 4 interest-free payments of $9.31 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 15 to 25 business days

When will this arrive by?
Enter delivery postcode to estimate

Let Them Eat Chaos, Kate Tempest's new long poem written for live performance and heard on the album release of the same name, is both a powerful sermon and a moving play for voices. Seven neighbours inhabit the same London street, but are all unknown to each other. The clock freezes in the small hours, and, one by one, we see directly into their lives: lives that are damaged, disenfranchised, lonely, broken, addicted, and all, apparently, without hope. Then a great storm breaks over London, and brings them out into the night to face each other - and their last chance to connect. Tempest argues that our alienation from one another has bred a terrible indifference to our own fate, but she counters this with a plea to challenge the forces of greed which have conspired to divide us, and mend the broken home of our own planet while we still have time.

Let Them Eat Chaos is a cri de coeur and a call to action, and, both on the page and in Tempest's electric performance, one of the most powerful poetic statements of the year.

About the Author

Kate Tempest grew up in southeast London, where she still lives. She has gained acclaim as a poet, playwright, rapper, and recording artist. Her last album, Everybody Down, was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Her books of poetry include Brand New Ancients, a long poem conceived as a performance piece, which won the Ted Hughes Award for Poetry in 2012, and the collection Hold Your Own, and she was selected as one of this decade's Next Generation Poets by the Poetry Book Society in 2014. She is also the author of a novel, The Bricks that Built the Houses.
Industry Reviews
Kate Tempest's Let Them Eat Chaos is this year's antidote to Brexit and Trump. Across genre, across politics, across imagination. Rapper. Ranter. Run-a-way. Runway -- Jeanette Winterson * Guardian * In terms of visibility, Kate Tempest is currently way ahead of her performance-poet peers. Out on her own, she sounds like a woman who knows exactly what she's doing -- Alexis Petridis * Guardian *

More in Poetry

Gutsy Girls : Love, Poetry and Sisterhood - Josie McSkimming
Dropbear : Winner of the 2022 Stella Prize - Evelyn Araluen
Doggedly Onward : A Life in Poems - Pam Ayres

RRP $55.00

$43.50

21%
OFF
Iliad and Odyssey : Leather-bound Classics - Homer

RRP $49.99

$43.75

12%
OFF
The Prophet : Penguin Classics Hardcover - Kahlil Gibran

RRP $32.99

$30.25

Complete Poems Of Banjo Paterson - A. B. Paterson

RRP $39.99

$35.35

12%
OFF
Heroes : The myths of the Ancient Greek heroes retold - Stephen Fry
The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump - Rob Sears
The Way Forward : The Inward Trilogy - yung pueblo

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass : Poems - Lana Del Rey
Eclipse - Kirli Saunders

Paperback

$24.99

If I Must Die : Poetry and Prose - Refaat Alareer

RRP $44.99

$44.90

The Essential Rumi : New Expanded Edition - Coleman Barks
Tao Te Ching : Penguin Classics - Lao Tzu
The Epic of Gilgamesh : Penguin Classics - Andrew George

RRP $22.99

$17.75

23%
OFF
Tao Te Ching : Traditional Wisdom - Stephen Mitchell
The Iliad : Penguin Clothbound Classics - Homer

RRP $39.99

$30.90

23%
OFF
The Divine Comedy : Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso - Dante Alighieri