Poetry

90 Classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Luminous and intensely lyrical, Dylan Thomas’ works have captivated generations of readers, inspiring artists like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Igor Stravinsky, and Phoebe Bridgers. This selection...

Joy Is My Middle Name documents crawling through your twenties and emerging into your thirties. Walking uneasy cities and rural towns, talking about sex, race, womanhood, addiction, sobriety, consumerism and pop culture, these poems pull at the...

A powerful debut compelled by questions of borders and displacement.In one story I stay in that city forever,in one I board, and in another I am still waiting.I am daybreak; I am everywhere.In The Tree Is Missing, Shannon Kuta Kelly explores the...

'The most exciting poet writing in English today' - Michael Ondaatje Anne Carson' s Glass and God introduces an assured and challenging new voice: vivid, laconic, precise. Her 'Short Talks' are about everything from Sylvia Plath to Franz Kafka,...

"I named my first album All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend to help welcome the sadness into our lives more as a friend than a part of you. Because I think we're better at being good to our friends than we are to ourselves. Especially when we feel that...

Why do we write poetry?Who should write it?And where do you even start?Well, Brian Bilston, one of the UK’s most hilarious and best-loved poets, is here to take us through the hows, whys and whats of reading, writing and enjoying poetry every day...

One of the earliest and most astonishing examples of surrealist writingInsolent and defiant, the Chants de Maldoror, by the self-styled Comte de Lautréamont (1846-70), depicts a sinister and sadistic world of unrestrained savagery and brutality...

This collection illuminates the uniquely fascinating era between 1820 and 1950 in French poetry—a time in which diverse aesthetic ideas conflicted and converged as poetic forms evolved at an astonishing pace. It includes generous selections from...

Set during a single twelve-hour night shift in an injection molding factory, plastic is a poem exploring the life of the industrial worker turned poet. Set during a single twelve-hour night shift in a factory, plastic is a...

Amory Blaine, intent on rebelling against his staid, Midwestern upbringing, longs to acquire the patina of Eastern sophistication. In his quest for sexual and intellectual enlightenment, he progresses through a series of relationships, until he is cast...

Just after the iron curtain fell on Eastern Europe John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer, Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the "New York Herald Tribune". This rare opportunity took the famous travelers not only to Moscow...

The centenary of Patrick Kavanagh's birth in 2004 provides the ideal opportunity to reappraise one of modern Ireland's greatest poets. From a harsh, humble background that he himself described so brilliantly, Kavanagh burst through immense constraints to...

A hugely influential philosophical work of prose poetry, Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet is an inspirational, allegorical guide to living, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Robin Waterfield. First published in the 1920's,...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books. One of the finest poets of the Victorian age, Christina Rosetti is known today for the directness, clarity and unmatched lyricism of her works. This selection brings together some of her finest...

We should ALL wake up each day to a Shakespeare passage. This book helps us with that goal. The bard for every occasion and moment. "Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year is not just for Christmas, but for all time." —Helena Bonham CarterA...

One of Time‘s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025From award-winning Driftpile Cree poet Billy-Ray Belcourt, a dazzling exploration of love, anguish, queerness, and Indigenous resistance in the 21st centuryQueer Indigenous poet Billy-Ray Belcourt...

For a half-century, The Paris Review has published writing and interviews from the world's most brilliant authors. To commemorate the anniversary, a breathtakingly diverse and illuminating anthology has been assembled. The greatest writers here...

Twenty-eight days there are in the month of February, a cold month, a month in which the summer seems an endless dream one had once, long ago. We should not be tricked by the frost, for it was during the dreaming month of February that Amal El-Mohtar...

Though as yet little known in English-speaking countries, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is the finest German poet of this century and one of the greatest lyrical writers in the history of Western literature. A major figure in the modernist movement,...

For Lucy, hope can be found everywhere – in family, friendships and even the changing of seasons – and in her art, she seeks to capture that magic in every line and brushstroke.From celebrating the kindness of strangers and commemorating loss...