Poetry

Stephen Fry believes that if you can speak and read English you can write poetry. But it is no fun if you don't know where to start or have been led to believe that Anything Goes. Stephen, who has long written poems, and indeed has written long poems, for his own private pleasure, invites you to discover the incomparable deli... read more

I saw a tramp last night the way the old dog walked with dotted, tired fur down nobody's alley being nobody's dog ...past the empty vodka bottles past the peanut butter jars, with wires full of electricity and the birds asleep somewhere, down the alley he went - nobody's dog moving through it all, brave as any army. In the li... read more

A lovely new hardback edition of T.S. Eliot's beloved cat poems with colourful illustrations by Axel Scheffler, the award-winning illustrator. Jellicle Cats come out tonight. Jellicle Cats come one come all: The Jellicle Moon is shining bright - Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball. Cats! Some are sane, some are mad and som... read more

Shakespeare's Sonnets are universally loved and much-quoted throughout the world, while debates still rage as to the identity of the Dark Lady and how autobiographical the sonnets really are. First published in 1997 to much critical acclaim, the Sonnets has been a consistent best-seller in the Arden Shakespeare series. Kather... read more

'Billy Collin's is one of my favourite poets in the world' Carol Ann Duffy Readers will only have to open this book at random to realize the privation a life without Billy Collins has been. A writer of immense grace and humanity, Billy Collin's shows how the great forces of history and nature converge on the tiniest details o... read more

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our lit... read more

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our lit... read more

Before the National Book Award-winning Just Kids, Patti Smith addressed the life and passing of her intimate friend, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Through the linked pieces of The Coral Sea, Patti Smith honours her comrade-in-arms Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989). She tells the story of a man on an ocean journey to see the... read more

"Across the Land and the Water" brings together poems published during W.G. Sebald's life, with an additional selection of those which were found in his literary archives in Marbach and never published while he was alive. Arranged chronologically, from work published during his student days in the 1960s to the longer narrativ... read more

The new collection from the Poet Laureate

Research shows that the seemingly simple act of being read to brings remarkable health and happiness benefits. It stimulates thought and memory, encourages the sharing of ideas and feelings, hopes and fears. It enriches our lives and minds. This unique book offers a selection of prose and poetry especially suitable for readin... read more

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Willow Macky (1921-2006) is best known to New Zealanders for her popular Christmas carol 'Te Harinui', written in 1957 and still widely sung today. A folksong composer and singer in her heyday in the 1960s, Willow recorded and performed throughout New Zealand, celebrating our country, its history, people and places. But behin... read more

"Across the Land and the Water" brings together poems published during W.G. Sebald's life, with an additional selection of those which were found in his literary archives in Marbach and never published while he was alive. Arranged chronologically, from work published during his student days in the 1960s to the longer narrativ... read more

Forthcoming, 24th of October, 2012

Strange Meetings" provides a highly original account of the War Poets of 1914-1918, written through a series of actual encounters, or near-encounters, from Siegfried Sassoon's first, blushing meeting with Rupert Brooke over kidneys and bacon at Eddie Marsh's breakfasts before the war, through famous moments like Sassoon's enc... read more

Andrew Motion's new book opens with a sequence of war poems (first published as the pamphlet "Laurels and Donkeys", on Armistice Day 2010), drawing on soldiers' experiences of war from 1914 until today - beginning with a story about Siegfried Sassoon and moving via World War Two and Korea to the recent conflicts in Iraq and A... read more

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The Scottish poet Robert Burns has been idolised and eulogised. He has been sainted, painted, tarted up and toasted. He is famous as the author of Auld Lang Syne, and he has long since become the patron saint of the heart-sore and the hung-over. But what about the poems? Beneath the cult of Burns' Nights and patriotic yawps, ... read more

Auguries of Innocence is the first book of poetry from Patti Smith in more than a decade. It marks a major accomplishment from a poet and performer who has inscribed her vision of our world in powerful anthems, ballads, and lyrics. In this intimate and searing collection of poems, Smith joins in that great tradition of trouba... read more

Matthew Arnold praised the "Iliad" for its 'nobility', as has everyone ever since - but ancient critics praised it for its enargeia, its 'bright unbearable reality' (the word used when gods come to earth not in disguise but as themselves). To retrieve the poem's energy, Alice Oswald has stripped away its story, and her accoun... read more