A bouquet is a welcome and beautiful thing, but the beauty is inevitably short-lived. This delightful mini-anthology, however, is guaranteed never to wither. Roses, fritillaries, daisies, gentians and the humble ragwort are celebrated here by poets ranging from Mimi Khalvati to William Wordsworth. We experience their colours and scents in vivid language, so each lives on the page with all the intensity of a real flower. Sometimes it seems we can even learn from them; lilacs growing in an urban street know as much about love as we do: “Lilac, like love, makes no distinction. It will open for anyone. Even before love knows that it is love lilac knows it must blossom.” from ‘City Lilacs’ by Helen Dunmore. This is one of the lovely mysteries of these poems – that a flower can somehow be like us and shed light on our own hopes and joys. Poems by John Clare, Beth Davies, Helen Dunmore, John Heath-Stubbs, Seán Hewitt, Mimi Khalvati, DH Lawrence, Anne Ridler, Edward Thomas and William Wordsworth.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-02-2020

A mountain is something very particular – a place that entices and daunts us, that commands our gaze while also making it very clear that we’re not required. These glorious poems capture the majesty and wonder of mountain landscapes, whether they’re encountered up-close by walkers and climbers or are being marvelled at from afar by more contemplative souls. In one poem, even a failed ascent offers a moment of wonder: “The late afternoon sun comes rushing and skimming Toward you, through your eyes, And through your trembling, stiffening fingers In a dazzle of light, a burnt-gold avalanche.” from ‘On a Mountainside’ by David Wagoner. Whichever way we look at mountains, they make us feel small and these poems revel in that marvellous and uplifting thought. Poems by Li Bai, Gladys Cardiff, Emily Dickinson, Clifton Gachagua, Norman MacCaig, Helen Mort, Yvonne Reddick, Nan Shepherd, David Wagoner and David Wilson.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-05-2023

There’s a fragrant, peachy-yellow rose called ‘poetry in motion’ – proof (if needed) of poetry’s love affair with roses, this most sumptuous of flowers. Our gorgeous mini-anthology contains all manner of roses. You’ll find a climbing rose that longs for another life, a meditation on the simple pleasure of tending roses and helping them to grow, together with a lyrical paean to the essence of the flower itself in all its scented, luscious-petalled glory: “Blossom, my darling, blossom, be a rose Of roses unchidden and purposeless; a rose For rosiness only, without an ulterior motive…” from ‘Rose of all the World’ by DH Lawrence. This selection of rose poems makes a beautiful little garden that will offer delight in every season of the year. Poems by Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, David Constantine, Emily Dickinson, Lucy Eddy, DH Lawrence, Stanley Plumly, Christina Rossetti, Sara Teasdale, Eloise Unerman and Jean Valentine.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-01-2022

Many of us have a favourite tree. It may be one we remember from childhood – a tree we loved to climb in or swing from or hide behind. Or perhaps it’s one of the ancient and majestic yews or oaks that stand sentinel in churchyards and on village greens, hardly seeming to change as the human years hurry by. This beautiful selection celebrates the glory and mystery of all manner of trees – from David Constantine’s apple tree clothed in frost to Alistair Elliot’s birch waving its ‘delicate hair’ in the breeze. “I’m thankful to the trees outside my window” says Moniza Alvi at the beginning of her quietly rhapsodic poem of the same name. This is tree-love of the everyday kind – the simple pleasure of looking out on a garden from which familiar trees look back. We can almost imagine they’re keeping us company. Poems by Moniza Alvi, Paul Batchelor, David Constantine, Alistair Elliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, DH Lawrence, Kim Moore, Louisa Rhodes, Ruby Robinson and Edward Thomas.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-03-2019

Sunshine and showers, cuckoos, frogs, daffodils and cherry blossom…. Poets writing about spring certainly have no shortage of material. Our selection of poems takes in many of these yearly delights. There are contemporary voices – a poem in which a dog sniffs around a city park and enjoys the new smells, and another where an “immortal frog” seems to promise the speaker fresh hope and a return to good health. In a poem from the nineteenth century, spring is a time of renewal when the world is restored to its original beauty: “What is all this juice and all this joy? A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning…” from ‘Spring’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins. This delightful mini-anthology provides a taste of the countless ways in which this most uplifting of seasons has been celebrated in verse over the centuries. Poems by Thomas Carew, John Clare, Nichola Deane, Emily Dickinson, Valerie Gillies, Gerard Manley Hopkins, AE Housman, Edna St Vincent Millay, Jessica Mookherjee and Alicia Ostriker.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-03-2020

There seem to be fewer poems about summer than about other seasons. Perhaps the impulse to be outdoors when the weather is at its best goes against the inward mood that writing poems requires. This makes poetry about summer all the more glorious – each poem in this mini-anthology is like a rare, bright jewel that shines with the season’s own brief intensity: “Summer was wealthy with a daze of suntraps, Daffodil-spitting, sumptuous. Everywhere Ours for the taking.” from ‘Woodniche’ by Aidan Carl Mathews. The selection takes us into gardens, fields, forests and up onto city rooftops – sharing an exuberant delight in those precious few months when the natural world seems to wear its heart on its sleeve. Poems by Fiona Benson, Louise Glück, Choman Hardi, Jane Kenyon, DH Lawrence, Norman MacCaig, Aidan Carl Mathews, Isaac Rosenberg, Naomi Shihab Nye and Edward Thomas.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 24

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-06-2020

Autumn can be so many things. There are some years when summer seems to pack up her bags and disappear in the space of just a few days. Other times there’s a delicious lingering of warmth so that autumn seems to be merely a softer, more gentle version of what has gone before: “The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.” from ‘September, 1918’ by Amy Lowell. This selection of poems captures one of poetry’s favourite seasons in all its variety and opulence, bringing us ripe pears, twittering swallows and children gathering berries, alongside the early-evening switching on of TVs and the drawing of curtains. Poems by Emily Brontë, Maggie Dietz, Kahlil Gibran, Jane Hirshfield, John Keats, Ted Kooser, Amy Lowell, Freya Manfred, Vinode Ramgopal and RS Thomas.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-09-2020

Winter seems to divide opinion more than any other season; we love it or we definitely don’t! The poems in this mini-anthology are guaranteed to delight readers of every persuasion; we encounter muddy walks, ice-skating, cosy fires, chilblains and even a snow pudding. There’s also a Skype meeting between a child and a grandparent – a poignant reminder that distance from a loved one can mean living in different seasons: “You hold handfuls of snow to my face, say ‘You can eat it’, your eyes laughing as you gulp it down and show me red berries on the naked tree, footprints on the icy track.” from ‘January Skype July’ by Christine Coates. These are poems to curl up with: they relish the season’s rigours, finding warmth and humanity in the midst of darkness and cold. This title completes our beautiful seasonal quartet, making a sumptuous collection of four spanning the whole year. Each pamphlet – or indeed the complete set – makes an ideal gift for occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries and more… Poems by John Clare, Christine Coates, Jane Duran, Robert Hayden, Rhiannon Hooson, Christopher James, Ted Kooser, Ruby Robinson, Rob Walton and Holly Yuille.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 24

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-11-2020

The British archipelago has over 7,000 miles of coastline – everything from limestone cliffs to muddy estuaries and from sand dunes to saltmarshes. These landscapes – and others far beyond – are reflected in these glorious poems. We find mudflats and wild Scottish shorelines, along with a ballad celebrating the shingle of a Suffolk beach where: “The shelving’s steep With stones to skim As if they’d feet To hop and skip Across the deep…” from ‘The Ballad of Shingle Street’ by Blake Morrison. Everywhere, there’s a sense that we go to the land’s edge to escape the hurly-burly of our daily lives. Being close to the ocean is “as near as we come to another world” as Anne Stevenson says in her paean to the North Sea. Poems by Matthew Arnold, Miriam Darlington, Helen Dunmore, Jen Hadfield, Kathleen Jamie, Blake Morrison, Kenneth Steven, Anne Stevenson, Giles Watson and Derek Walcott.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 24

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-06-2022

The word countryside conjures up all manner of landscapes. It can suggest woods or high moors, mountains or farmland, meadows or gentle chalk hills. In fact, the countryside is everything that isn’t town or city, which is probably why we’re so drawn to it. These poems selected by Irish poet Seán Hewitt explore the countryside in all this variety. There are moments of pure rhapsody with larks singing overhead, alongside encounters with bad weather and poor soil to remind us that it’s not all bliss and beauty. Together the poems capture the consoling rhythms of the seasons as they are played out in our rural landscapes: “for as earth Rolls on her journey, so her little fields Ripen or sleep…” from ‘The Land’ by Vita Sackville-West. Whatever countryside suggests to you, we’re sure you’ll be delighted by this beguiling selection. Poems by Kayo Chingonyi, John Clare, Helen Dunmore, WD Ehrhart, Vona Groarke, Jen Hadfield, Seán Hewitt, Claude McKay, Vita Sackville-West and Sara Teasdale.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-07-2021