Twelve poetry books worth owning
Poetry is the hardest thing to read on a screen, so these are the books we would print if we could: Middle English narrative, Romantic travel verse, American free verse, devotional lyrics and two small collections that fit in a pocket.
The list
- Leaves of Grass — Walt Whitman, 1855. The book that changed what an English poem was allowed to look like.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Canterbury Tales — Geoffrey Chaucer, 1400. The foundation of English comic narrative, and still one of the rudest things in the canon.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Troilus and Criseyde — Geoffrey Chaucer, 1385. The finest long poem in Middle English, and a serious study of betrayal without a villain.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Childe Harold's Pilgrimage — Lord Byron, 1812. The poem that made Byron famous, and the best travel poem of the century.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Gitanjali — Rabindranath Tagore, 1912. Devotional poetry that changed the way English readers thought about Indian writing.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Songs of a Sentimental Bloke — C. J. Dennis, 1915. Vernacular poetry that is funny, tender and much better than its novelty reputation.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - A Child's Garden of Verses — Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885. The most durable collection of children's verse in English, and a good first poetry book.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Songs of Innocence and of Experience — William Blake, 1794. The most original poetry book of the eighteenth century, and one that needs its images as well as its words.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Poems Published in 1820 — John Keats, 1820. The best single volume of Romantic poetry, and the shortest route to Keats.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Poems — Emily Dickinson, 1890. The most original American poet of the nineteenth century, and one of the strangest voices in English.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Raven — Edgar Allan Poe, 1845. The most famous American poem of the nineteenth century, and still effective when read aloud.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - A Shropshire Lad — A. E. Housman, 1896. The most popular poetry collection of its era, and a masterclass in brevity and refrain.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Free full-text links are always listed first, and every one of them goes to a public library rather than a shop. Disclosure