Our Book Reviewer’s Pick Of Poetry Collections To Enjoy This World Poetry Day
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1 week ago
Classics and contemporary verse for the ages
Poetry, like most art, is subjective, and people’s tastes run as wide as the collections on offer. Whether young or old, well-versed or a casual dabbler, everyone can find something that speaks to them in this round-up of poetry books, which lists our favourite anthologies and poets to know, both time-proven and emerging.
It’s World Poetry Day on Saturday 21 March 2026, a UN initiative to promote the reading, writing and teaching of poetry, honouring poets and their contributions to culture and linguistic diversity. To celebrate, here are book reviewer Belinda Bamber‘s picks of the best poetry collections to enjoy today.
Best Anthologies
From Shakespeare to Keats and Byron, Elizabethan lyric to American folk, anthologies can give a grounding in whichever branch of poetry takes your fancy.
The Oxford Anthology of English Poetry Volume I: Spenser to Crabbe
Edited by John Wain
Oxford University Press, paperback, £6.50
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The Oxford Anthology of English Poetry Volume II: Blake to Heaney
Edited by John Wain
Oxford University Press, paperback, £13.77
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Poetry Please: Love Poems
As heard on Radio 4’s Poetry Please
Faber & Faber, paperback, £10.99
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Modern Poets To Know
Seamus Heaney
If you’re new to the work of the legendary Irish poet and Nobel prize-winner, try his first volume of poetry, Death of a Naturalist, first published in 1966, about his childhood on a farm in Derry.
Ted Hughes
The reputation of the craggily handsome poet who loved fishing in wild landscapes still suffers from the tragic suicide of his wives, Sylvia Plath and Assia Weevil, but that shouldn’t detract from his astonishing work. Crow is the volume where he found his voice, underscored with the raw intensity of his passion for history, mythology and the natural world.
Sylvia Plath
A feminist icon as a result of her novel The Bell Jar and famed for her youthful marriage to Ted Hughes, Plath was a remarkable poet in her own right. Start with Ariel, featuring her famous poem ‘Daddy’.
Dylan Thomas
Under Milk Wood is the unforgettable story of 60 characters in the fictional Welsh seaside village of Llareggub (‘buggerall’ spelt backwards), narrated by two people, including blind old Captain Cat. Who can forget local siren Polly Garter or the romantic yearning of dressmaker Myfanwy Price for Mr Mog Edwards, the draper? Listen to the definitive 1954 audio version voiced by Richard Burton or a recent recording with Michael Sheen.
Wendy Cope
The Orange contains deliciously droll poems that beg to be read aloud to a friend or lover.
Pablo Neruda
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924) is the ultimate romantic gift for your beloved, by Spain’s bestselling poet.
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Pablo Neruda, trans. W S Merwin
Vintage Classics, paperback, £10.44
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Jen Hadfield
The Stone Age describes the poet’s life in the Shetlands, pulling vegetables from the dense soil, buffeted by high winds as she walks the cliffs, chilled by naked sea swims. Winner of the 2021 Highland Book Prize, her language sings with love for the land, history and dialect.
John Birtwhistle
Partial Shade, Poems New & Selected by the poet and librettist from Scunthorpe brings together a lifetime of grappling with love, politics, art, parenting and mortality.
Ian Humphreys
Tormentil is set in the wildflowers and wildlife of the West Yorkshire moorlands, and its poems are anchored to family and community, with an original eye. Don’t miss ‘There’s a walrus on my windscreen’.
Ocean Vuong
Night Sky with Exit Wounds was the first volume of poetry by the now-acclaimed American novelist; it contains meditations on war and conflict that are both visceral and vulnerable.
Suzannah V Evans
Under the Blue is the debut collection by the award-winning British poet, and it has just been shortlisted for the 2026 Dylan Thomas Prize. It documents the experience of being a carer, and all the love, intimacy, tenderness and pain that role involves, recounted through resonant prose poems and postcards.
Harry Man
Popular Song is an interstellar adventure into science fiction and pop culture, where you can find Bowie alongside Wordsworth and Ed Sheeran.
Olga Dermott-Bond
Frieze is a debut poetry collection about dark magic and Irish folklore, featuring muses, mothers, goddesses, saints and dead girls.
