Please recommend me a nice poetry collection for DD 16th birthday.

[forcryinoutloud]

She has suddenly got more into poetry but prefers more old fashioned stuff eg 18th or 19th century than very modern. Please recommend something...many thanks.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Link below:

www.amazon.co.uk/Selected-Poems-Tennyson-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140424431?tag=mumsnetforum-21

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti (and other poems by her)
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

She might already know these, but they are both very very good.

Emily Dickinson

We had an anthology called ‘the rattlebag’ which I recall having a nice mixture of older and newer stuff?

I was going to suggest Sylvia Plath , dd16 loves her poems, but see you're looking for something older.

I agree with the Rattlebag recommendation. There is also a series of Lifelines books, which are anthologies compiled by a school in Ireland, with reasons for each recommendation by the person recommending.

Wow, thank you for all your quick replies, will look at some of these

The Rattlebag suggestion reminded me that Ted Hughes put together a collection called “By Heart” - probably has a mixture with some modern stuff - but it was designed to be read aloud and easy to recite and remember.

Mary Oliver? Will look for a link x

Have a look at this www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-oliver

Sorry I read your post in full after I thought of Mary Oliver - she might not be as old as your daughter is enjoying at the moment but I think her poetry is beautiful and studied 19th century poetry - maybe she will like her. There's another American poet I'd like to recommend as well, wait there ... x

This is who I was looking for. Warsan Shire. Much more modern but as you might appreciate - very beautiful and real. Hope you enjoy x

We used this at University and I absolutely loved it (and still have my copy).

books.wwnorton.com/books/webad.aspx?id=10357
I imagine most book shops would order it you if they didn't already stock it.

It has 1,828 poems ranging from Chaucer to Donne to Shelley to Whitman to Yeats and Auden. It's one of those things you can lose yourself in for hours and certainly introduced me to lots of poets I'd never heard of before.

In fact, I'm going to go find my copy and take it to bed.

The Norton Anthology; I had forgotten about that! I used to hate that thing; it was the bane of my life!

A Poet’s Guide to Britain, edited by Owen Sheers, is a lovely anthology of poems from all around the UK, about its cities and towns, its landscape, its people, etc - lots of well known names in there. A good blend of newer and older poets.

Either that or a really lovely edition of Keats.

And get her a copy of Under Milkwood. Am ashamed to say that I”ve only just read it and it’s beautiful.

Oh yes actually I agree with onlylivingboy Keats would be a beautiful present. I have a collection my Nan gave me and I cherish it.

@PasstheStarmix Heresy!

Under Milkwood is fabulous, although I think I prefer listening to Richard Burton reading it than reading it myself so might be worth getting the audio as well as the book.

There is also this: www.amazon.co.uk/Eighteenth-Century-Poetry-Annotated-Anthology-Anthologies/dp/111882475X?tag=mumsnetforum-21

or this:

www.amazon.co.uk/Romantic-Poets-Word-Cloud-Classics/dp/1626863911/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_2?psc=1&_encoding=UTF8&tag=mumsnetforum-21&refRID=GAT7H8PT611S99QCH6DZ

(which looks like a lovely book).

I love Keats. First read his work when I was in my late teens.