Batsford Poetry Anthologies – serie

A calming collection of nature poems to help you relax and unwind at the end of every day.Now more than ever we’re all in need of a daily fix of the natural world, to comfort and distract us from the cares of everyday life. Keep this beautiful book by your bedside and enjoy a dreamy stroll through nature every evening, just before you go to sleep. All the great, time-honoured poets are here – William Wordsworth, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Robert Bridges – along with some newer and less-well known poetic voices. The poems reflect and celebrate the changing seasons: read Emily Brontë on bluebells in spring and Edward Thomas’s evocative ‘Adlestrop’ in summer, then experience golden autumn with Hartley Coleridge and William Blake's 'To Winter'. Beautifully illustrated with scenes from each season, this wonderful book deserves a place on your bedside table for years to come.

365 poems celebrating nature and the changing seasons.This is the perfect bedside companion for any nature or poetry fan, featuring famous odes from big-name poets alongside unsung poems from less-well-known writers.Each poem is chosen to chime with the natural world through the seasons. Spring is a time of hope, a season of new life with William Wordsworth’s daffodils, John Clare’s lambs and Christina Rossetti’s birdsong. Summer shifts into a time of leisure with long idyllic holidays in the countryside. According to Henry James, the two most beautiful words in the English language were ‘summer afternoon’, a sentiment echoed by Edward Thomas and Emily Dickinson. John Keats, William Blake and W. H. Auden are the poets we associate with autumn and this is possibly the most poetic season. The natural world, and the human one, hold onto the last lingering memories of summer before they turn to face the oncoming hardships of winter. Amy Lowell and George Meredith perfectly frame this time of year with their silver-fringed leaves and crimson berries. Winter can be savoured in poetry, rather than endured; bleak grey days are transformed into a world of glittering frost and snow-blanketed landscapes. Even in the darkest days life continues and soon we can turn our attention to the rebirth of spring.A wonderful collection of poems that help mark the daily turn of the seasons and all the rituals marking the significant moments of the year, from Candlemas to Christmas.

Sunny Spells and Scattered Showers: A Weather Poem for Every Day of the Year is an anthology of classic and contemporary poems, all about the weather.This latest anthology from Jane McMorland Hunter covers all aspects of the weather: from storms to heatwaves to April showers, there's a poem to reflect all the elements throughout the year.From the nursery rhyme 'Rain, Rain, Go Away' to Sylvia Plath's 'Black Rook in Rainy Weather', from Ralph Waldo Emerson's 'A Snowy Day' to Amanda Gorman's 'Earthrise', there is a weather poem for every day of the year. You can slip into a poem to dream of better weather (whether to you that means snow, rain or sun) or revel in a mirroring of what is currently going on outside of your window.With contributions from classic and contemporary poets alike, there is all sorts of weather to be found; some favourites as well as some you may not even have heard of. With a selection of poems stretching across the globe and centuries, you're sure to find a weather poem to cast some sunlight on your day.

365 poems celebrating friendship, love and constancy.This wonderful collection of poems celebrates friendship every day of the year. There are poems on the joys of companionship, encouragement, consolation, humour and love, making this a perfect gift for friends, family and partners.Poems featured include Emily Bronte's 'Love and Friendship' and Stevie Smith's 'Pleasures of friendship', as well as writings from Keats, Norman MacCaig, Waldo Emerson and Amy Lowell.Some of the most beautiful poems ever written are collected here to give us insight into the important things in life.

Enjoy a whole year of the very finest nature writing, with one carefully selected piece to savour every day.This beautifully illustrated daily anthology brings you the very best of nature writing from around the world and through the centuries, from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History to modern authors such as Helen Macdonald and Robert Macfarlane. Encompassing fact and fiction, essays and field guides, letters and diaries, it’s a rich banquet of prose, the perfect companion to help your mind escape into the world of nature every day.It contains descriptions of nature in all its guises: Virginia Woolf on snails, Kenneth Grahame on the charms of a riverbank, Willa Cather on the rolling American prairies, and, via L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables on Octobers. David Attenborough pops up to talk about our responsibility to the natural environment, Edith Holden provides evocative descriptions from The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, and Henry David Thoreau, of course, sends dispatches from Walden Pond. We meet Rudyard Kipling’s jungle animals and Jack London’s wild dogs, and Mark Twain explains why a camel is not jumpable.Keep this wonderful celebration of nature by your bedside and it will become the perfect start or close to each day of the year.

‘I can't think of a single person who wouldn't enjoy having this beautiful collection of poetry to dip into when they need a boost' – Good Housekeeping ‘This is supreme bedtime reading.’ – The Lady‘Go to sleep with the lightest of hearts, with verses from Thomas Hardy, Emily Brontë, Simon Armitage, Wendy Cope and more’ – TownswomanThese days we're all in need of a little nugget of happiness to help soothe our weary souls at the end of the day. A Happy Poem to End Every Day provides just that: one sublimely happy poem for every day of the year, from cosy fireside idylls in winter to outdoor adventures in summer, encounters with the beauty of nature in spring and moments of quiet reflection in autumn. It features some of the greatest poets ever to put pen to paper, from William Wordsworth on the joy of skating and Emily Brontë enjoying life on the moors to Simon Armitage catching a cricket ball and Wendy Cope sharing an orange, with a good smattering of classic jolly verse such as Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat.Beautifully illustrated with contemplative scenes of pure happiness, this wonderful book is the perfect way to give yourself a little lift every evening. Keep it by your bedside and it's sure to bring restful sleep and sweet dreams.

A handsome anthology of 366 poems from around the world and throughout history, all especially selected for reading aloud, with one glorious poem for every day of the year.Everyone benefits from reading aloud, whether it's a bedtime story with Dad or Granny, an intimate moment with a loved one, or a performance to a group of people. When spoken, the poet’s words hit us more powerfully and meaningfully, and what's more, it's good for our health: mindfully reading aloud helps with relaxation, improves working memory and aids vocabulary acquisition.With a wide and diverse range of poets including the 14th-century Persian poet Hafiz and Mary Oliver in the 21st century, old favourites such as Emily Dickinson and more recent voices such as Lemn Sissay, the obvious classics such as Wordsworth’s Daffodils and slightly more offbeat fare like Spike Milligan, there's something for everyone in this book: poems that are funny, sad, consoling, uplifting and everything in between.Whether you're a teacher enthralling a class of children or a carer entertaining a group of pensioners, if you're looking for a reading for a special occasion or a powerful piece for a performance, you'll find everything you need here. It's the perfect book to dip into daily to share a poem with anyone, to hear the true beauty and rhythm of words and the magic they can weave.

This poetry anthology provides a bright and cheery way to start your day, with one joyful poem for every morning of the year.Whether you wake up to the chirping of birds or stumble out the door in a last minute rush, it's important to take some time for yourself in the mornings to boost your mood. Before stepping into the day, prepare yourself with a jolly poem. You could allow the poem that has been selected for that date to soothe you, to excite you, to motivate you: whatever your needs, have a meditative morning moment with a happy poem to set yourself up for a successful day.With one happy poem for every single day of the year, keep this book by your bedside for a serotonin boost upon waking, on the kitchen counter for a pick-me-up while your coffee brews, or in your rucksack for a moment of (rare) commuting joy. With a delightful illustration for every month and a vast range of poems, it'll be easy to find something that sparks joy within you. From the timeless phrasing of John Keats and Rumi to the celebratory observations of Wendy Cope OBE and Pulitzer Prize Winner Rita Dove, there'll be a moment of delight ready and waiting, just for you.