In our deepest grief we still turn instinctively to poetry for solace. These poems, drawn from many different ages and cultures, remind us that the experience of parting is a timelessly human one: however alone the loss of a loved one leaves us, our mourning is also something that deeply unites us; these poems of parting and passing, of sorrow and healing, will find a deep echo within those who find themselves dealing with grief or bereavement. Whatever our loss, it is assuaged in finding a voice – and whether that voice is one of private remembrance or public memorial, The Picador Book of Funeral Poems will help you towards it.

Aphorism (n.): a pithy observation which contains a general truth 'All my teachers have been women. Though several men have taken me aside for an hour to tell me things they know' The Book of Shadows contains several hundred reflections and aphorisms on love, God, art, sex, death, work, and the spirit, imagination and conduct of the human animal. Writing with the same mixture of high seriousness, dark humour and lyric precision that define his poetry, Don Paterson has made a book to carry everywhere and open anywhere - to brighten or darken the moment, but always to administer a jolt to the idling mind. 'Falling and flying are near-identical sensations, in all but one final detail. We should remember this when we see those men and women seemingly in love with their own decline'

'The godfather of British performance poetry' - Daily Telegraph The Luckiest Guy Alive is the first new book of poetry from Dr John Cooper Clarke for several decades – and a brilliant, scabrous, hilarious collection from one of our most beloved and influential writers and performers. From the ‘Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman’ to a hymn to the seductive properties of the pie – by way of hand-grenade haikus, machine-gun ballads and a meditation on the loss of Bono’s leather pants – The Luckiest Guy Alive collects stunning set pieces and tried-and-tested audience favourites to show Cooper Clarke still effortlessly at the top of his game. Cooper Clarke’s status as the ‘Emperor of Punk Poetry’ is certainly confirmed here, but so is his reputation as a brilliant versifier, a poet of vicious wit and a razor-sharp social satirist. Effortlessly immediate and contemporary, full of hard-won wisdom and expert blindsidings, it’s easy to see why the good Doctor has continued to inspire several new generations of performers from Alex Turner to Plan B: The Luckiest Guy Alive shows one of the most compelling poets of the age on truly exceptional form. 'John Cooper Clarke is one of Britain’s outstanding poets. His anarchic punk poetry has thrilled people for decades . . . long may his slender frame and spiky top produce words and deeds that keep us on our toes and alive to the wonders of the world.' – Sir Paul McCartney

Words of sadness and loss, comfort and consolation Summoning the words to express our feelings of loss for a loved one in the days following a death can feel almost impossible. And often the choice of readings available can seem daunting. Poems and Readings for Funerals is a carefully curated collection of the very wisest words about death by some of the world's greatest poets, thinkers, playwrights and novelists. Featuring beautifully and thoughtfully written poems, prose extracts and prayers, these readings have been chosen to move and console, sympathize and relieve - to bring everyone attending a funeral or memorial closer together.

These two volumes constitute the first substantial anthology of paederastic poetry and prose compiled since Men and Boys: An Anthology in 1924. It is a representative sampling of the diverse paederastic texts written by the English Uranians, ranging from William Johnson's Ionica (1858) to Samuel Elsworth Cottam's Cameos of Boyhood (1930). Forty-seven writers of Uranian poetry and prose have been included in the two volumes of this anthology, including, in this second volume: Edmund St. Gascoigne Mackie, Hector Hugh Munro (Saki), A. Newman, John Gambril Francis Nicholson, William Paine, Walter Pater, Mark Andre Raffalovich, Forrest Reid, Frederick William Rolfe (Baron Corvo), Charles Edward Sayle, Charles Kenneth Scott-Moncrieff, Arnold William Smith, Simeon Solomon, Lord Henry Richard Charles Somerset, Stanislaus Eric, Count Stenbock, John Moray Stuart-Young, John Addington Symonds, Edward Perry Warren, Joseph William Gleeson White, Oscar Wilde, Theodore Percival Cameron Wilson, George Edward Woodberry, Cuthbert Wright Despite a variety of approaches to the theme, the writers anthologized here have one thing in common: Boy-love was, for them, a profound passion.

The poems in Poems on Nature are divided into spring, summer, autumn and winter to reflect in verse the changes of the seasons and the passing of time. Part of the Macmillan Collectors Library series, featuring expert introductions for your favourite classics. This edition features an introduction by Helen Macdonald, author of the international bestseller, H is for Hawk. Since poetry began, there have been poems about nature; it’s a complex subject which has inspired some of the most beautiful poetry ever written. Poets from Andrew Marvell to W. B. Yeats to Emily Brontë have sought to describe the natural environment and our relationship with it. There is also a rich tradition of songs and rhymes, such as ’Scarborough Fair’, that hark back to a rural way of life which may now be lost, but is brought back to life in the lyrical verses included in this collection.

Four times each year, the Poetry Book Society selects the best poetry titles being published and asks the poet to write 500 words on their own work at the time of its publication. The PBS bulletin has published some of the most revealing, candid and insightful statements these poets have ever made. DON'T ASK ME WHAT I MEAN selects the best of these pieces. A genuine Who's Who of late 20th-century verse - Auden, Raine, Gunn, Hughes (who also contributes a remarkable short essay on Sylvia Plath's Ariel), Heaney, R.S. Thomas, Betjeman, Larkin, Merwin, Hecht, Paul Muldoon, Craig Raine, Norman McCaig, Geoffrey Hill, Tom Paulin, Derek Mahon, Sean O'Brien, up to and including contemporary notables such as Simon Armitage, Shapcott, Glyn Maxwell, Lavinia Greenlaw, Carol Ann Duffy, Wendy Cope, Michael Donaghy and Paul Farley.