No catches, no fine print just unadulterated book loving, with your favourite books saved to your own digital bookshelf.
New members get entered into our monthly draw to win £100 to spend in your local bookshop Plus lots lots more…
Find out moreShort and sweet poems and sonnets or lyrical and lengthy epics, sit back and relax while you enjoy the work of these wonderful wordsmiths.
Winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award 2009. Josephine Hart, chair of the final judges, said: ”Out of a personal tragedy, Christopher Reid has written a masterwork which has universal power. Austere, beautiful and moving – we all felt this is a book we would want everyone to read. Packed full of unforgettable lines, A Scattering is a remarkable piece.”
Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2009. Costa Book Awards 2009 Judges' comment: "Beautifully written, intelligent, full of ideas clearly communicated and feelings perfectly encapsulated - these are proper poems with musical structure that are clever, moving and memorable." Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 4 December 2008. Clive James is well know as a TV presenter and writer of prose but not everyone knows he has written poetry. Here in his third anthology he brings together poems written over the last five years. Definitely worth a look if you are a fan of Clive as these poems show his same inimitable style and charm.
Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2008.Costa Book Awards 2008 Judges' comment: "Honest, observant poems from a collection which is both wonderfully unsettling and deeply life-affirming."
Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 30 October 2008. The poems of Roger McGough are always a joy to read and accompanied by fantastic illustrations this is a book you will want to open up again and again whether you are 7 or 70!
Winner of the Costa Poetry Award 2008.Costa Book Awards 2008 Judges' comment: "This heart-stopping story about the Mau Mau uprising brings hidden conflicts of conscience, race and class to the surface in a brutally compelling narrative."
Shades of the Sublime & Beautiful is a warm, human, anecdotally rich book, concentrating many of the themes that have obsessed its author over the last twenty years: language, love, the invocation of place, the mysteries of the Australian wilderness, and our mediations between the human and natural realms.Together, these lyric meditations build towards a profound thesis on the ecology of the imagination, and are always conducted in concrete, vivid and exuberant language that is unmistakably Kinsella's own. 'Kinsella's poems are a very rare feat: they are narratives of feeling. Vivid sight of landscapes, of animals, of human forms in distant light becomes insight.
Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2008.Costa Book Awards 2008 Judges' comment: "The voices in this film noir poem - confident, seductive and hypnotic - draw the reader into a tragic, complex and dream-like love story."
Winner of the Forward Prize for best first collection, 2008 Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2008.Costa Book Awards 2008 Judges' comment: "This first collection is witty, humane, confident, full of everyday details but with a capacity to surprise and delight."
The Book of the Duchess, also known as The Deth of Blaunche is the earliest of Chaucer’s major poems, preceded only by his short poem, ”An ABC,” and possibly by his translation of The Romaunt of the Rose. Most sources put the date of composition after 12 September 1368 (when Blanche of Lancaster died) and 1372, with many recent studies privileging a date as early as the end of 1368. At the beginning of the poem, the sleepless poet lies in bed, reading a book. A collection of old stories, the book tells the story of Ceyx and Alcyone. The story tells of how Ceyx lost his life at sea, and how Alcyone, his wife, mourned his absence. Unsure of his fate, she prays to the goddess Juno to send her a dream vision. Juno sends a messenger to Morpheus to bring the body of Ceyx with a message to Alcyone. The messenger finds Morpheus and relays Juno’s orders. Morpheus finds the drowned Ceyx and bears him to Alcyone three hours before dawn. The deceased Ceyx instructs Alcyone to bury him and to cease her sorrow, and when Alcyone opens her eyes Ceyx has gone. The poet stops relaying the story of Ceyx and Alcyone and reflects that he wished that he had a god such as Juno or Morpheus so that he could sleep like Alcyone and describes the lavish bed he would gift to Morpheus should he discover his location. Lost in the book and his thoughts, the poet suddenly falls asleep with the book in his hands. He states that his dream is so full of wonder that no man may interpret it correctly. He begins to relay his dream.
You may know his music, you may not, but if you want to have a taste of what a superb writer, lyricist and poet this man is then dip in to this book of poems. Absolutely brilliant stuff. Well that’s our opinion anyway! September 2009 Guest Editor Emily Barr on Book of Longing by LEONARD COHEN Leonard Cohen has had a huge effect on me, since I discovered him in my late teens. A poet since the sixties, he gets wiser and more wonderful as the years go by. Book of Longing is a book of poetry, illustrated with Cohen’s own witty line drawings. Self deprecating and thought provoking, it makes you look at the world slightly differently, as the best writing ought to do.
Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 26 February 2009. If you only want one collection of poetry on your child’s bookshelf then it has to be this stunning collection by best-selling author Michael Rosen and illustrator Quentin Blake whose pictures complement and bring to life the4 words so perfectly. Alone or together with your child you will be totally transported into the words and pictures and if the book wasn’t good enough it also comes with a CD of the poems read by the author.
Hilarious and bawdy, slightly reminiscent of Roald Dahl but a bit ruder and more grown-up. Binge drinking, retail addiction and recreational drug use are just a few of the vices that James Landale touches upon. Deliciously wicked humour, I absolutely loved it. You certainly don't need to be a regular poetry reader to appreciate this collection.
.jpg)
From the Haiku to Xanadu, a well-crafted poem can speak of an experience of our world in a way that stays with us for a long time; often for life. Everyone has a poem they learned in school that holds increased sentimental importance as time goes by.
The ability of words and language to define us and the poet’s ability to harness it are what makes poetry such a powerful genre. The field is huge, the subjects covered too numerous to list. From the fields of Flanders to the kitchen sink there are poems that encapsulate all of human life. Funny, thought-provoking, challenging, evocative, story-telling, satire and tribute. All are here. Why not use our special recommendations to find something to inspire you today?