Andrew Motion

The comprehensive guide to a deeply human tradition of memory, mourning and consolation. Elegy is among the world's oldest forms of literature. Born in Ancient Greece, practised by the Romans, revitalised by the poets of the Renaissance and continuing down to the present day, it speaks eloquently and affectingly of the experience of loss and the yearning for consolation. It...

Poetry moves us when we read it but when we say or hear the words aloud it can be spellbinding. From Geoffrey Chaucer to Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte to Benjamin Zephaniah, the poems included in this treasury have been chosen because they delight the ear as much as they do the mind. Familiar poems and almost unknown poems. Love poems...