With this dazzling modern myth in verse, Kae Tempest became the youngest winner of the prestigious Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. Yes, the gods are on the park bench, the gods are on the bus, /__The gods are all here, the gods are in us. /__The gods are timeless, fearless, fighting to be bold, /__conviction is a heavy hand to hold, /__grip it, winged sandals tearing up the pavement -- /__you, me, everyone: Brand New Ancients. Kae Tempest's words in Brand New Ancients are written to be read aloud; the book combines poem, rap, and humanist sermon, by turns tender and fierce. Set in Southeast London, Brand New Ancients finds the mythic in the mundane. It is the story of two half-brothers, Thomas and Clive, unknown to each other -- Thomas the result of an affair between his mother and Clive's father. Tempest, with wide-ranging empathy, takes us inside the passionless marriage of Jane and Kevin -- the man who suspects Thomas is not his son,