Recommend me a poetry book

[Maggiethecat]

For Dd1 whose having her 18th soon. She has offers for English at uni and really likes poetry but I haven't a clue!

Is there any poet or book of poetry that you really enjoy?

Thomas Hardy
WB Yeats
Wendy Cope
Simon Armitage

A Poem Every Night of the Year

Milk and Honey
The Sun and Her Flowers
Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass
Pillow Thoughts
I Wrote This For You
Bright Dead Things

Undying

I always say that finding the poetry that really speaks to you is a very personal journey - it's like wandering along a beach looking for beautiful shells - there are so many to choose from. You'll pick one up, then another and another but once your pockets are full you'll find another, a better shell and you'll end up discarding one you picked up earlier - it's a lifelong pursuit. I probably wouldn't buy anything archaic, e.g. Keats - there is some incredible contemporary poetry being written today. There is one book, a collection, I like to recommend:
Anthony Wilson - Lifesaving Poems.
The great thing about this is that AW writes a short piece to go with each poem usually explaining why he chose it, what he likes about it, what he reads into it, etc - it's a very inclusive book designed to help you enjoy the writing not alienate you - I wish more poetry books were written like this.

Anything by poet Ted Kooser e.g. Delights & Shadows, Early Morning Walks - probably my favourite poet just edging out Simon Armitrage - TK's poems are very easy to read and understand.

Simon Armitrage - anything! I like The Dead Sea Poems, Out of the Blue.
Malena Mörling - Astoria & Ocean Avenue - excellent modern poetry - probably write hard to find though.
Jane Kenyon - Let Evening Come - another one I often recommend - her life story is part of what makes this interesting - lots of extra notes and ac lecture included in the book make it an interesting read.
Adelia Prado - The Mystical Rose
Bloodaxe is the best publishers name to look for for poetry IMHO - they have several thick collections - Being Alive and Staying Alive are better IMHO than the 3rd collection Being Human - I can recommend the first 2.
HTH.

Thank you all! Although I must say it feels like you're speaking another language - I've just never managed to get "into" poetry

Will have a smooch around the book shops.

Nikita Gill

Margaret Atwood, might be a few signed ones of her recent book kicking around still.

I am not really into poetry either, but I absolutely love Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes.

Hollie McNish - Slug

Can't bear to leave the typo uncorrected - for Dd1 "who's" having her 18th....

@FAQs - Maybe not her most recent but found "There are Girls like Lions: Poems about Being a Woman" - seems fitting given she's turning 18. Although she'd probably consider it cringe 🙄

Hollie McNish.

Working my way through some of these

@larkstar - Jane Kenyon sounds interesting

Ffs. John Donne. Sylvia Plath. Metaphysical poets collection. Ww1 poets collection. Sir Garwain and the Green Knight. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Pope. Dryden.

Not fucking Wendy Cope or shit anthologies if she is studying English Literature. Actual, ya know, canonical literature.

Byron. Shelley. KEATS. The Oxford Book of English Poetry. The Oxford Book of 20th century poetry. T.S. Eliot. Philip Larkin. Any of the Bloodaxe books.

@Mountaingoatling - 😂

I expect that at uni she'll be introduced to the "proper" stuff - so perhaps I could give her something of lesser weight?

Having said that I've seen her walking around clutching Plath so maybe I should get her something from the canons.....

I was in a bookshop at the weekend, and they had some nice hardback editions in good bindings as gift books in the poetry section. Didn't look very closely, as it wasn't what I was looking for. I have given similar books as christening presents for children to grow up with in the past. A good general anthology.

www.amazon.co.uk/She-Fierce-Brave-Beautiful-Poems/dp/1509899421?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Nah put down the dead white men and pick up something more lively. Canonical lit will be plenty studied.

Aja Monet, Stevie Smith, Elizabeth B Browning, Carol Ann Duffy, Jenni Couzyn and Fleur Adcock.

@QualityMarguerite - come to think of it I do fancy some of Jackie Kay's stuff I've heard...

I love this thread. I never read enough poetry. Thanks for some of the recommendations!

'Poems that make grown women cry' is a lovely book. There's an equally good book of poems that make grown men cry, but that's probably not such a suitable mother-daughter gift.

Indeed Maggiethcat a great suggestion, another good Bloodaxe choice.

@Maggiethecat My suggestions are for reading for enjoyment - not preparation for the course - you can probably get a required reading list for the course but I think it's good to continue to make your own choice and explore in your own way. I went to uni to study physics but read a lot of fiction, poetry, biography in those 4 years - nothing at all to do with physics and I look back fondly on that reading as well as played in a band, played sport, travelling, hanging out with the soft science people, etc.

I also might add the Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath - a dauntingly thick book but perhaps a more important body of work than The Bell Jar.