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The Rose
- Author
- Ariana Reines
- Narrator
- Ariana Reines
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Publish Date
- 2 April 2026
- Run Time
- 1 hour 44 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
Fury is very lustful
A body concealing its heart’s desire
Has a certain texture
A tang or an edge if you will
That the openhearted cannot match
& when exactly does the deceitful
Heart open? At climax.
—from ‘The Hanged Man’
The Rose navigates the intersection of power and surrender. Drawing on the history of ‘romance’ as the troubadours knew it, and the titular flower’s ancient allegories for sexuality and mystery, award-winning poet Ariana Reines plunges into feminine archetypes to explore masculine pain: ‘I have always liked helpless / & terrible men because they break my mind.’ In these poems, inherited ideologies of gender performance are replaced with bold vulnerability: paradoxes of power and surrender transmute the speaker’s understanding of suffering, desire, and the soul.
The voice in The Rose is wry and bare, approaching the connection between erotic love and spirituality with humour. Investigating war, maternity, violent sensuality, and the role of language in magical acts, Reines is unafraid to uncover the ‘secret / & terrible shovelings / Of love,’ and the result is a bloody and pulsing, sexy and unabashed bloom.
© Ariana Reines 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026
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Details
- Author
- Ariana Reines
- Narrator
- Ariana Reines
- Duration
- 1 hour 44 minutes
- Release Date
- 2 April 2026
- ISBN
- 9781837314201
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Genre
- Poetry / poems by individual poets, Modern and contemporary poetry / poems, Narrative theme: love / relationships
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin. Fury is very lustfulA body concealing its heart’s desireHas a certain textureA tang or an edge if you willThat the openhearted cannot match& when exactly does the deceitfulHeart open? At climax.—from ‘The Hanged Man’The Rose navigates the intersection of power and surrender. Drawing on the history of ‘romance’ as the troubadours knew it, and the titular flower’s ancient allegories for sexuality and mystery, award-winning poet Ariana Reines plunges into feminine archetypes to explore masculine pain: ‘I have always liked helpless / & terrible men because they break my mind.’ In these poems, inherited ideologies of gender performance are replaced with bold vulnerability: paradoxes of power and surrender transmute the speaker’s understanding of suffering, desire, and the soul.The voice in The Rose is wry and bare, approaching the connection between erotic love and spirituality with humour. Investigating war, maternity, violent sensuality, and the role of language in magical acts, Reines is unafraid to uncover the ‘secret / & terrible shovelings / Of love,’ and the result is a bloody and pulsing, sexy and unabashed bloom.© Ariana Reines 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026
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