Hold Your Own: Kate Tempest

Hold Your Own is Kate Tempest's first full-length collection for Picador. It is a multivoiced work that revolves around the mythical figure of Tiresias, who transforms from child, man, woman, and blind prophet throughout the four parts of the book. Through this structure, Tempest offers a mirror to contemporary life in a direct and provocative manner that is not often associated with poetry. As a highly popular and accomplished performance poet, Tempest has a large and devoted following on the performance and rap circuit. Her previous collection, Brand New Ancients, also available from Picador, won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry and has been performed to sold-out concert halls on both sides of the Atlantic.