Poetry by Heart: A Treasury of Poems to Read Aloud

Description

Poetry moves us when we read it but when we say or hear the words aloud it can be spellbinding. From Geoffrey Chaucer to Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte to Benjamin Zephaniah, the poems included in this treasury have been chosen because they delight the ear as much as they do the mind. Familiar poems and almost unknown poems. Love poems and war poems. Funny poems and heartbroken poems. Poems that re-create the world we know and poems written on the dark side of the moon. Poetry by Heart is an essential collection of over 200 poems, from Geoffrey Chaucer to Emily Dickinson, from Christina Rossetti to Benjamin Zephaniah, all carefully chosen for their suitability for learning and reciting. This is an anthology which celebrates the age-old pleasure of reciting poems - an anthology for all ages to treasure.

Sir Andrew Motion was Poet Laureate from 1999 till 2009, and is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, London. Jean Sprackland's Tilt won the Costa Poetry award in 2008. She is a Reader in Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. Julie Blake is the Director of the national poetry recitation competition Poetry By Heart which she co-founded with Sir Andrew Motion in 2012. Mike Dixon is an educational consultant specializing in English in the classroom.

The poems we learn stay with us for the rest of our lives. They become personal and invaluable, and what's more they are free gifts - there for the taking -- Simon Armitage