“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

This mini anthology is a wonderful introduction to the countless poems written about fathers and fatherhood. Father William is present, of course, a feisty figure who reminds us that age is entitled to have the last word. There’s affection and humour, alongside tender remembrance. In one poem a father carries his young daughter on his shoulders after a trip to the pantomime and realises how precious such moments are: “And I clutch you tightly for fear you blow away For fear you grow up to soon …. … And sensing this, I hold you tighter still.” from ‘Cinders’ by Roger McGough. Just as important are the everyday happenings that become special with hindsight: a family meal at which a dad contends with a hot potato, or the nightly ritual of an ageing father who insists on turning off the water before he goes to bed in case a pipe bursts while he’s asleep. Poems by Coral Bracho, Lewis Carroll, Louise Glück, Tony Harrison, Tariq Latif, Joanne Limburg, Roger McGough, Shazea Quraishi, Michael Rosen and Siriol Troup.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-03-2012

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

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

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

Over the years, a lot of people (mostly men, let it be said) have asked for poems about cricket. So it is with great pleasure, and a bit of a drum-roll, that we present Ten Poems about Cricket selected and introduced by John Lucas, who knows a thing or two about both. In his Introduction, John Lucas writes: “Ten poems about cricket? Given the number of good poets who have written about the game, to choose a mere ten is mission impossible.” Although it may indeed be “mission impossible”, he has nonetheless chosen ten superb poems to whet the appetite, including one that he describes as “quite possibly the best poem about cricket ever written”. The poems capture the game and its history, the excitement of the moment and the hinterland of reminiscence, eulogy and elegy. “…the bowler six times looped a slow ball like a deeply considered question, and six times the batsman in his plum cap leaned very attentively and returned an answer.” from ‘Near Greenford, 1951’ by Brian Jones. Poems by John Arlott, Adrian Buckner, Joan Downar, Philip Hodgins, Brian Jones, John Lucas, Matt Merritt, Hubert Moore, Norman Nicholson and Kit Wright.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 24

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-06-2016

This second edition of our much-loved mini-anthology of bicycle poems is a real treat. Invigorated by some delightful new poems, the selection takes us along the highways and byways of cycling lore, from a freewheeling nun relishing the exhilaration of being on a bike on a hot summer’s day to the young man cycling in his brand new soldier’s uniform at the start of World War One. In a captivating poem about young love, a girl is waiting to meet a boy whose bicycle seems to encapsulate his glamour: “He rides A bicycle that glitters like The wind.” from ‘Girl, Boy, Flower, Bicycle’ by MK Joseph. Poignant, humorous and unexpected by turn, these poems will delight anyone who loves cycling – as well as those who just like to remember those carefree days when falling off didn’t seem to matter. Poems by Connie Bensley, James Roderick Burns, Jonathan Davidson, Michael Donaghy, Jonathan Edwards, Jacqueline Gabbitas, MK Joseph, Derek Mahon, Paul McLoughlin, Helena Nelson.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 20

Dimensions: 137 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-12-2009