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

A wedding isn’t a wedding without a poem. The enduring quality of great poetry seems to promise that all will be well for a couple on the threshold of marriage. You’ll be dazzled by the brilliance and beauty of this selection, which offers everything from heartfelt blessings to reflections on the rich rewards of married life. And of course there are also declarations of love: “But for now, we make our promises gently. This extraordinary day we have made. Listen – the birds in their ordinary heaven.” from ‘Vow’ by Clare Shaw. Whether you’re seeking a poem to read at a marriage ceremony or a gift for a soon-to-be-married friend, this anthology sparkles like a jewel, with something for every imaginable kind of wedding. Poems by Kathryn Bevis, John Donne, Michael Donaghy, Sasha Dugdale, Kahlil Gibran, Jane Hirshfield, Li-Young Lee, William Meredith, Alice Oswald and Clare Shaw.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-06-2023

Happiness: the mid-point, perhaps, between contentment and joy. We all hope for it, but we all also have times when it seems far away. Sometimes, we even fail to notice when it’s there. These poems don’t celebrate rapture or feverish delight. Mostly they capture moments of what Emily Dickinson calls “casual simplicity” – giggling irreverently during a yoga class or seeing a dragonfly land on a lake. Happiness, they seem to say, is far less complicated than we sometimes imagine: “It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker, and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots in the night.” from ‘Happiness’ by Jane Kenyon. Deborah Alma is a poet and poetry tutor, also known as the Emergency Poet offering the world’s first mobile poetry first aid service. Her delightful and thoughtful selection is sure to lift the spirits and gladden the heart. Poems by Deborah Alma, Meg Cox, Emily Dickinson, Jonathan Davidson, Tony Hoagland, Jane Kenyon, Bryony Littlefair, Naomi Shihab Nye, RS Thomas and James Wright.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-07-2019

We couldn’t survive without hope – that light at the end of the tunnel which seems to promise ‘this will pass’ when times are hard. These poems offer hope in a whole range of guises – from the uplift of the first signs of spring to the infectious optimism of a child who believes he will live for ever if he eats his greens. There’s also a poem in which a grandmother’s words become a precious talisman: “…empty your paradise onto a desk: your white sands, green hills and fresh fish. Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.” from ‘A Portable Paradise’ by Roger Robinson. Each of these poems is a little chink of light – a reminder that a moment of joy and consolation is always just around the corner. Poems by Fleur Adcock, Sujata Bhatt, Arthur Hugh Clough, Katie Dunstan, Kerry Hardie, Winifred Holtby, Roy Marshall, Paula Meehan, Roger Robinson, Laura Theis and Walt Whitman.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-12-2022

A sister often knows us better than anyone. This selection of poems (a companion to Ten Poems about Brothers) explores that special relationship – from the games and secrets of early childhood that we remember so vividly to the separate journeys of later life. For Dorothea Smartt, two sisters form a pair of carefree ‘toe-tapping feet’ while Jean Tepperman’s depiction of sisterhood celebrates the thrill of defying convention. In Galway Kinnell’s moving poem a childhood shared with a sibling creates a reassuring lifelong bond: “…we will walk hand in hand a little while, taking the laughter of childhood as far as we can into the days to come,” from ‘Two Set Out On Their Journey’ by Galway Kinnell. Most of all, these poems remind us of that life is enlivened and enriched by having a sister. Never coy or timid, they are sure to provoke discussion – and hopefully many lively family conversations! Poems by Julia Bird, Wendy Cope, Michael Donaghy, Galway Kinnell, Esther Morgan, PK Page, Dorothea Smartt, Jean Tepperman, Jack Underwood and Julia Webb.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-10-2017

This wonderful mini-anthology of poems is a celebration of the many ways in which mothers are important in our lives. We meet the bedtime-story-reading mother with her special bedtime story voice, and the mother who loves to cook with fruit and vegetables from her patch at the bottom of the garden. Then there’s the elderly mother who can still manage a couple of “quick two minute waltzes” to Abba or Queen when her son comes to visit. This mother’s relationship with her son is complex, but nevertheless there is love. There are also poems that celebrate the precious memories we hold after our mothers are no longer with us. When a man hears a woman singing he is transported back: “To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.” from ‘Piano’ by DH Lawrence. These poems will make you laugh and cry – and sometimes both. Poems by Fleur Adcock, Mona Arshi, Gillian Clarke, Maura Dooley, Jonathan Edwards, Jackie Kay, DH Lawrence, James Reeves, John Siddique and Benjamin Zephaniah.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 24

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-01-2011

“If ever two were one, then surely we.” So says the seventeenth-century poet Anne Bradstreet. These days, her portrayal of the marriage bond as one of unconditional mutual devotion might underestimate the complexity of the husband/wife relationship. The other poems in this vivid and entertaining mini-anthology go on to celebrate just that. Our selection offers moments of tenderness, romance and wry humour. There’s a poem in which a newly-married woman reflects on the “woosh” sound of the word wife and another where a man wonders about a woman he’s never met, as if he could have married her. We encounter a mysterious wife who arrives when the tide is right, while for Tiffany Atkinson a husband is like a farmers’ market, his heart “…a loom of many rhizomes”. These beguiling poems are arranged in pairs so they speak to each other across the page – rather like a husband and wife engrossed in conversation across an old kitchen table. Poems by Moniza Alvi, Tiffany Atkinson, Mike Barlow, Anne Bradstreet, Angela Carter, Choman Hardi, Paul Henry, Ada Limón, Linda Pastan, RS Thomas and Tiphanie Yanique.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-02-2019

This title from Candlestick Press is something of a departure: all the poems have been chosen by pupils at Headington School and the selection includes contributions written by the students themselves and by their English teacher, Liz Soar. The pupils were diligent editors and their choices reflect the multicultural world in which they are growing up. There’s a poem in three languages about a joyful reunion with a grandparent arriving from overseas and another in which a Muslim grandmother raises eyebrows in a posh department store by washing her feet in the sink in the ladies’ room. But the abiding spirit of the selection is the sense of safety and comfort we feel in the company of a beloved grandparent. Joan Johnston’s tiny poem ‘Safe’ captures the feelings of a child tucked up in bed while a grandmother busies herself downstairs in the kitchen. Or as Andrew Waterhouse says so touchingly, it’s simply about: “feeling his heat, knowing the slow pulse of his good heart.” from ‘Climbing my Grandfather’ by Andrew Waterhouse. Poems by Tiffany Atkinson, John Burnside, Katie Cleverley, Vicki Feaver, Joan Johnston, Katerina de Jong / Anastasia Matveeva / Minnah Rashid, Mohja Kahf, Derek Mahon, Liz Soar and Andrew Waterhouse.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 24

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-05-2017

Being old isn’t what it used to be. Sixty is the new forty. The world is full of expressions designed to make us feel better about the inevitable passing of the years. This fascinating mini-anthology of poems selected by John McCullough – which includes the three winners of our ‘getting older’ poetry competition – opens with an enlivening meditation on the meanings of the word ‘spry’. The speaker delights in hopping up and down some hotel stairs when no one is looking and in the fact of being “inescapably me”. It matters not one jot that he is: “like a dancer running out of melody, a boulevardier running out of boulevard, a prizewinner running out of shelf;” from ‘Hop’ by Alasdair Paterson. The poems look in both directions; backwards to heydays of young love and time deliciously misspent, and forwards to the perils and thrills of middle age and beyond. Poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Rita Dove, Mark Granier, John McCullough, Frank O’Hara, Alasdair Paterson, Elvire Roberts, Judith Shaw and Jackie Wills.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-07-2021

We’ve had so many requests for a pamphlet about friends and friendship, and finally it’s here! This insightful selection of ten funny, poignant and refreshingly honest poems deals with the reality of friendship in all its forms. From childhood alliances at school through the angst of teenage years into companionship and the redemption of old age, Lorraine Mariner shows that friendship poems come in as many different shapes and sizes as our friends themselves. “Half my friends are dead. I will make you new ones, said earth. No, give them back, as they were, instead, with faults and all, I cried.” from ‘Sea Canes’ by Derek Walcott. Poems by Edwin Brock, Polly Clark, Elizabeth Jennings, Jackie Kay, Lorraine Mariner, Alden Nowlan, May Sarton, Stevie Smith, Derek Walcott and Emily Wills.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-10-2016