Modern & Contemporary Poetry Books

The Confidential Clerk was first produced at the Edinburgh Festival in the summer of 1953. 'The dialogue of The Confidential Clerk has a precision and a lightly felt rhythm unmatched in the writing of any contemporary dramatist.'…

For the poet and activist June Jordan, neither poetry nor activism could easily be disentangled from the other. Her storied career came to chronicle a living, breathing history of the struggles that defined the USA in the latter h…

Amanda Gorman's powerful and historic poem 'The Hill We Climb,' read at President Joe Biden's inauguration, is now available as a collectible gift edition. 'Stunning' CNN 'Dynamic' NPR'Deeply rousing and uplifting' VogueOn 20 Janu…

A forceful and moving final volume from one of the most masterful poets of the twentieth century.Throughout her nearly sixty-year career, acclaimed poet Eavan Boland came to be known for her exquisite ability to weave myth, histor…

Kleinzahler's poetry is, as ever, concerned with permeability: voices, places, the real and the dreamed, the present and the past, colliding and intersecting and spilling over into each other. Whether the voice embodied is that of…

Cult bestseller The Invitation is more than just a poem. It is a profound invitation to a life that is more fulfilling and passionate, with greater integrity. This book is a word-of-mouth sensation, whose truths have resonated wit…

Hannah Lowe taught for a decade in an inner-city London sixth form. At the heart of this book of compassionate and energetic sonnets are fictionalised portraits of ‘The Kids’, the students she nurtured. But the poems go further, m…

Rita Ann Higgins’ poetry became a national salve during the pandemic, uniquely capturing the mood of the country as read live on radio from RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor Show. This collection of poetry, containing the bank holiday poems …

A timeless, stunning gift to be pored over and cherished for years - dazzlingly beautiful and richly inventive, discover the magical new book from the creators of The Lost Words. Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but fresh in it…

The Magic Border is the debut book from Mercury Prize-winning musician and poet Arlo Parks, combining never-before-seen poetry, song lyrics and beautiful, intimate images from collaborator, photographer Daniyel Lowden. Featuring t…

The Orange provides the perfect introduction to Wendy Cope, one of Britain's wittiest, best-selling and best-loved poets. In poems that can turn from laugh-out-loud funny to deeply moving, Wendy Cope offers reflections on love and…

This is the long-awaited, definitive edition of Seamus Heaney's poetry. It encompasses all the poems Heaney published in his lifetime as well as the small number that appeared after his death: twelve single volumes, from Death of …

“The Risen Tree” is Bernadette Gallagher's debut poetry collection. It is thought-provoking contemplative poetry that touches upon themes of nature, growth, and human connection. The poems are inspired by and reference psalm verse…

A new collection of expert lyric poems from Bernard O'Donoghue, which movingly animates the characters of his childhood in County Cork. Shortlisted for the 2016 T. S. Eliot Prize, this new collection of expert lyric poems from Whi…

Clarity in vision, thought and language, distinguishes The Time Being, John FitzGerald's first collection. With poems that explore place and memory, family, relationships and the natural world, John FitzGerald establishes a potent…

The first ever collection of poems by the acclaimed author of the Aubrey/Maturin series of Napoleonic naval adventures. As we have stood with Jack and Stephen on the deck of the Surprise and other ships, readers around the world h…

  Published in 1922, The Waste Land was the most revolutionary poem of its time, offering a devastating vision of modern civilisation which has lost none of its power as we enter a new century.

In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother's death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Vivid, brave a…

Do our passions control us or us them? These poems find themselves asking such questions in hospitals, in cellars, in Parisian parks and American laundromats, inside our screens and beyond them. Poems of blood and birdsong, of rai…

We are not wholly bad or good, who live our lives under Milk Wood. Under Milk Wood is Dylan Thomas's best-known and best-loved work, his radio play completed in 1953 at the very end of his life. It tells the story of a seaside v…

From the New York Times best-selling author of Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín’s first collection of poetry explores sexuality, religion, and belonging through a modern lensFans of Colm Tóibín’s novels, including The Magician, The Master, a…

THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED DEBUT BOOK OF POETRY FROM LANA DEL REY, VIOLET BENT BACKWARDS OVER THE GRASS ' Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me …

We Play Here is a collection of four poem-stories, taking place in an underdeveloped area of Protestant North Belfast in the summer of 1988, against a background of political turbulence during the Troubles. Written from the perspe…

In WHAT, the original 'People's Poet' comes storming out of the gate with an uproarious new collection, reminding us why he is one of Britain's most beloved writers and performers.James Brown, John F. Kennedy, Jesus Christ: nobody…