Product Description

In 1995 BBC Television's "Bookworm" programme conducted a poll amongst viewers to determine their favourite poems. The top 100 are presented in this book. They include the winner, Kipling's "If", and many other classics, as well as modern verse by writers such as Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1009 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Nation's Favourite Poems, reprinted many times over since it was first published by BBC Worldwide Books in 1996, is an uplifting and inspiringly varied collection of great poems.The late, lamented Auberon Waugh called it "the best popular anthology ever printed in Britain."

Poetry anthologies abound, in infinite variety. Themed volumes range in usefulness, from time to place, to subject. But aside from containing the odd classic and a few modern masterpieces, the remainder is often there because it fits the description and not necessarily because it is great poetry. How wonderful then to read a poetry anthology where every poem, without exception, is worth reading and, more importantly with poetry, worth keeping on your bookshelves to read again and again.

The book is based on the result of a poll conducted in 1995 by The Bookworm, to coincide with National Poetry Day. And an eclectic collection it is, with the heavyweights, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Marvell and Wordsworth, rubbing shoulders with their latter-day counterparts, Larkin, Hughes, Heaney and McGough. Romantics are well served with Yeats, Keats, Tennyson and Shelley. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee" is here, as is Christina Rossetti¹s "Remember." The Great British Public shows its lighter side, with "The Owl and the Pussycat," "Jabberwocky," "Macavity: the Mystery Cat" and children's favourite, Allan Ahlberg's "Please Mrs Butler." But it commemorates the horrors of the century too, with the war poets, Wilfred Owen and Rupert Brooke.

And the Nation's Favourite? Well, as this is no novel with a surprise ending to give away, Rudyard Kipling's "If" received twice as many votes as the runner-up, Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." There are 98 other poems to savour here, so if Kipling's not your style, try Stevie Smith or Jenny Joseph.

At any price, this is a must-have poetry anthology. Buy a copy for everyone you know with a birthday this year. And don't forget yourself!--Carey Green

Review
A fascinating document in popular taste (readers voted for their 100 best-loved poems), this is a fine and thoughtfully produced reading edition, with many genuinely profound and numinous poems nestling among the stirringly rhythmic and the mawkishly sentimental. A poem like John Masefield's 'Cargoes', or Byron's 'She Walks in Beauty', gains from being placed in a value-free perspective - knowing merely that a piece is popular, we can make up our own minds, with no scholarly claim or context to influence us, whether it earns its keep in our consciousness. Highly recommended. (Kirkus UK)

Customer Reviews

Classic!
A classic collection of some of the best poems ever written in one thoroughly enjoyable book. All the biggest names and titles from the world of poetry are there, making this a colection with a poem for every mood and occasion.

Whether you want to stretch your mind, provoke your thoughts, or merely delight in the composition of some exquisite works of words, I'm sure you will enjoy this!

Declan Mullan.

Nations Favorite Poems
I bought this after participating in an acting course where one of the criteria was to bring along a poem. I hated poems at school and certainly had no interest in them after leaving. However, after purchasing this book and finding a new appreciation for poems I was surprised to find myself dipping in to the book when a quite moment arose and to find that I knew some of the poems such as “If” and “Chocolate Cake”. It also kept the in-laws (whom were already into poetry) busy for a while, when they came over to visit. This is a great book for all degrees of appreciation.

Nations Favorite Poems
I bought this after participating in an acting course where one of the criteria was to bring along a poem. I hated poems at school and certainly had no interest in them after leaving. However, after purchasing this book and finding a new appreciation for poems I was surprised to find myself dipping in to the book when a quite moment arose and to find that I knew some of the poems such as "If" and "Chocolate Cake". It also kept the in-laws (whom were already into poetry) busy for a while, when they came over to visit. This is a great book for all degrees of appreciation.