Books by Peter Barry

16-year old Alan Crosthwaite is committed to a mental asylum when he takes action against an international oil company polluting the environment. The only reason he doesn''t end up in prison is because the company''s CEO is his father.In therapy, Alan writes about the doomsday scenario confronting our planet, his feelings for the girl he met at a School Strike for Climate demonstration, and his family. But it''s his preoccupation with the world''s political and business leaders'' persistent refusal to respond meaningfully to climate change that compels Alan to take one final, desperate step.Like many of his generation, Alan Crosthwaite feels compelled to take up the fight against the looming climate change catastrophe because big business and petty politicians, worldwide, have seemingly disclaimed all responsibility for the problem.Insanity is the disturbing story of a teenager who courageously confronts the challenge to our very survival: the rapidly accelerating and wanton destruction of our planet.

Though poets have always written about cities, the commonest critical categories have stressed the rural, so that poetry can seem irrelevant to a predominantly urban population. This book seeks to redress the balance by exploring work by a range of poets who reflect the contemporary urban scene.

Poetry Wars describes the battle at the National Poetry Society during the 1970s between radicals and conservatives, which had lasting effects on British poetry. Myths and anecdotes about these events have long been circulated, but this is the first detailed account of what happened, based on archival sources, and told by a writer who knew many of those involved.

This book seeks to problematise the very notion of context, which has remained for the most part stubbornly un-theorised and un-examined. The book aims to set a distinction between 'deep' and 'broad' contexts, arguing that we need to counter the prevalence of the latter if literary studies is to avoid becoming a minor branch of history. -- .

This book is about reading and studying poetry. Using fully-worked examples and complete poems wherever possible, it shows all the key elements of poetry 'at work' in poems -- .