Poetry

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I used to love poetry, long before I got into reading stories. However I haven't read any for years and would really like to get back into it. I like something a bit gritty and thought provoking. No wishy washy lovey dovey stuff.
Can anyone recommend a good anthology to read?

I love Edwin Morgan. Or Philip Larkin. Both gritty and lovely depending on what you pick up.

Milk and honey. Rupi Kaur. ⭐️

Shesnotme has beaten me to it! Also anything by Kate Tempest and John Cooper Clarke. Even This Page is White by Vivek Shraya as well.

After hearing A Good Read today I want to read James Fenton.

Have you read Pink Mist by Owen Sheers? That's fabulous.

Thank you for all the amazing suggestions, I now have a rather large Amazon basket
Excited to start reading some again

Transformations by Anne Sexton - retelling of fairy stories with a gritty, feminist sensibility.

A good Larkin collection.

Ariel by Sylvia Plath

Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney edited an anthology some years ago called the Rattle Bag, I think there was a series, but that was good for a cross-section and introduced me to some different poets as well as some "greatest hits" by more well known ones.

I love Mary Oliver, I am obsessed with the natural world and gardening so her work resonates with me.

Do you listen to Poetry Please on R4? A wonderful way to hear a wide range of poems, beautifully read.

A dear friend is a poet, so I get exposed to some new and interesting works. It's worth looking for local events, there are some great writers, and it's a great way to meet interesting people.

Seamus Heaney is always good. I also love Edna St. Vincent Millay - her work seems so contemporary, even though a lot of it is nearly a century old by now.

Neil Astley's three Bloodaxe anthologies Being Alive, Staying Alive and Being Human are good as a starting point. And then you can look up individual poets. Or you could start by reading the collections shortlisted for this year's T S Eliot prize: Void Studies by Rachael Boast, Measures of Expatriation by Vahni Capildeo, The Blind Road-Maker by Ian Duhig, Interference Pattern by J O Morgan, The Seasons of Cullen Church by Bernard O'Donoghue, Falling Awake by Alice Oswald, Jackself by Jacob Polley, Say Something Back by Denise Riley, Every Little Sound by Ruby Robinson and The Remedies by Katherine Towers.

Classic! but I hope you'd agree it's beautifully read.
I listened to it few days ago and it stayed with me since.

Actress Noma Dumezweni reads Wordsworth's Daffodils

www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39325952

Try Kate Tempest.

Anything by Clive James. Literally anything.

Carol Ann Duffy - rapture. It's the story of a love affair and reads like a
Novel. Fab

Auden and Shelley are my faves, but more modern poets Tim Leach and John Muckle are really good, imo.

The Golden Gate Bridge by Vikram Seth is fab. It's written entirely in sonnet form. You think it's going to piss you off but it doesn't, and when you've finished it, you start reading hte next book in rhythm!

Anthology wise, one of hte best I have is a bit old now, The Rattle Bag.