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George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, but more commonly known as just Byron, was a leading English poet in the Romantic mMovement along with Keats and Shelley. Byron was born on January 22nd, 1788. He was a great traveller across Europe, spending many years in Italy and much time in Greece. With his aristocratic indulgences and flamboyant style, along with his debts and a string of lovers, he was the constant talk of society.

In January 1866 Hopkins composed his most ascetic poem, The Habit of Perfection, but a few days later he included poetry in the list of things to be given up for Lent. In July he decided to become a Catholic, and by May 1868 Hopkins firmly 'resolved to be religious'. Less than a week later, he made a bonfire of his poems and ceased to write for almost seven years.

This group of 19th-century American poets was the first to rival their British counterparts in popularity. Gathered around their New England roots, they were also known as the Schoolroom or Household poets and comprised of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell and Olivier Wendell Holmes, Sr. Occasionally Ralph Waldo Emerson was included, although his poetic philosophy differed in some key aspects.

Rudyard Kipling. With our almost religious zeal to categorise and pigeon hole everything it should come as little surprise that one of the poems we learnt at school should so regularly be voted the best ever poem. Whether ‘If..’ deserves that credit or not is irrelevant to this empire wandering artist who was not only a fine story teller but a great poet of the Empires, its people and views.

Do men need poems? Is the gender of brawn and ‘can-do’ really a candidate for honeyed verse? Obviously yes. Through the centuries men seem to dominate the writing of poetry. From books of epics to quatrains of love poetry it seemed to be a man’s world. His domain. A volume purely for men, to show other facets of their personalities and characters seems to be an obvious choice. One verse fits all is, in fact, far removed from the truth. Men needs words. They need support, understanding as well as goals, ambition and structure. They need purpose, desire; the need to love and be loved.

Alexander Pope was born on May 21st, 1688 into a Catholic family in London. Over the years and centuries since his death, Pope’s work has been in and out of favour, but with this distance he is now truly recognised as one of England’s greatest poets. This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialised imprint from Deadtree Publishing. Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.

The seas and oceans have a mystical power over us: From a playful day at the beach to the hysterical waves of a storm, this ever-changing element evokes both beauty and fear; its great mass, its shimmering beauty, its raging howl and all in colours from blue to grey to green and crystal clear. In these collections of verse our poets - including Tennyson, Swinburne, Keats, Shelley, and many others - explore the relationship between ourselves and the great mystical waters.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21st, 1772, in Ottery St Mary in Devon. As a child he was an early and devoted reader, and after being schooled at Christ's Hospital, a charity school, he attended, from 1791, Jesus College, Cambridge, and the following year won the Browne Gold Medal for an ode on the slave trade. This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialised imprint from Deadtree Publishing. Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.

William Cowper was born 26th November 1731 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. Traumatically he and his brother, John, were the only siblings, out of seven, to survive infancy. His mother died when he was six. In 1763 he was offered a Clerkship of Journals in the House of Lords. With the examinations approaching, Cowper had a mental breakdown. He tried to commit suicide three times, and a period of depression and insanity seemed to settle on him. The end of this unhappy period saw him finding refuge in evangelical Christianity, becoming the inspiration behind his much-loved hymns.

John Clare was born on 13th July, 1793 in Helpston, a few miles north of Peterborough. Schooled only until the age of 12, his early career was that of agricultural labourer, pot boy, gardener and lime burner. His early life of hardship and frequent malnutrition led to his diminutive stature of five feet and contributed to his later health problems. In 1820 his first poems were published and began to earn him a reputation as the 'Northamptonshire Peasant Poet'. His poetry sold well, but only occasionally did that and other incomes keep his head above water.

Many giants of literature originate from the shores of the emerald isles: Shakespeare, Dickens, Chaucer, the Brontes, and Austen, to which most people would willingly add the name Thomas Hardy. Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and The Mayor of Casterbridge are but three of his literary masterpieces. But let us go further and add to his canon his poems....

Macbeth, a general of the army of Duncan, King of Scotland, rises through the ranks after victory over the rebel MacDonald. Inspired by three witches' prediction that he would become king, he and his wife murder Duncan, and he becomes King of Scotland himself. The heir, Malcolm, flees to England, where he is joined by Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife.

Andrew Marvell was born in Winestead-in-Holderness, in the East Riding of Yorkshire on March 31st, 1621. He was educated at Hull Grammar School, and at the age of 13 he attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and eventually received his BA degree. It is thought that in 1642 Marvell travelled in Europe and, while England was embroiled in its civil war, remained there until 1647, mastering several languages including French, Italian and Spanish.

In the war a great volume of poetry was written, produced and published in books, periodicals, newspapers or letters back to home. We often think of war as a necessity. We fight for a more just and better world. We often fail. But in our poets we gain a truth and a morality that shocks us, consoles us and holds our values to the light. In this volume we hear poems from the front, from home, from soldiers, from auxiliaries, from friend and from foe.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst Massachusetts. Rightly regarded as a major American poet, her life was sheltered, introverted, and reclusive. Despite writing over 1800 poems, only a dozen or so were published during her lifetime. Her structures and wordings are at times difficult to get to grips with, though recurring themes of religion and death certainly shadow many of her works.

Benjamin 'Ben' Jonson was born in June 1572. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair and his equally accomplished lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, including time in jail and a penchant for switching faiths, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets.

For many of us Autumn, or as the Americans would say; Fall is the season of mixed emotions. Summer's long days are replaced by a chill in the air. The colours on the trees and fields ripen to warmer hues and the harvest is brought safely home. Yet with this bounty there is the knowledge that Nature is turning her attention to the harder, colder Winter month's ahead.

At this time of the year, as the nights close in and the temperature drops, winter seems like a season that nobody really enjoys, and we look forward all the more to spring. For many children, however, it is the bounty of Christmas that steals their attention, and for others the renewal of the New Year. But for Nature it is a pause for breath, to take stock of what has gone by in the year to date and ready herself for the energies and dramatic development to the landscape that spring will bring.

As private as she was eccentric, Emily Dickinson published only a handful of poems in her lifetime. Most of her work, much of which dealt with themes of death and immortality, was published posthumously, to mixed reviews. But it would be her unconventional poetic style, which was most criticized early on, that would ultimately gain her recognition as one of the greatest American poets of all time. Here, a lovely sampling of the poems of Emily Dickinson is presented for your listening pleasure.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts on 25th May 1803, the son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. Emerson was the second of five sons who survived into adulthood. His father died before Emerson was eight, and the young boy was raised by his mother and other female members of the family. Emerson's formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812 when he was nine. In October 1817 at 14, Emerson went to Harvard College.