Start here to explore the Archive through individual poems. You can select
titles, poetic forms or themes, or you can follow a route suggested by one of our
guides. You can also go straight from here to our Education pages, where you'll
find a wealth of information and advice to help you with your studies, or you
can watch one of our interviews with a poet. Don't forget to listen to what's
new, either: the Poetry Archive is always adding new 'historic' voices, as well
as contemporary ones.
Start here to explore the Archive through individual poems. You can select
titles, poetic forms or themes, or you can follow a route suggested by one of our
guides. You can also go straight from here to our Education pages, where you'll
find a wealth of information and advice to help you with your studies, or you
can watch one of our interviews with a poet. Don't forget to listen to what's
new, either: the Poetry Archive is always adding new 'historic' voices, as well
as contemporary ones.
As a secondary schoolteacher in London for the past thirty years, it has been my privilege to have had a job which at its core, involves getting teenagers to fall in love with poetry. I have made my selection for this tour from my working perspective. As a consequence one frustration of writing the guide is not being able to call up the voices of earlier poets. I want us to stop and listen to the inspired love in Keats' voice as he reads Bright Star and then to move on to hear Shakespeare's tone as he warns us in Sonnet 129 of the perils of lust. A profound consolation that the existence of this site offers me is that no such limit will be placed upon access to poets' voices in the future.
This poem has an almost magical effect in the classroom as it never fails in reproducing the very experience that it describes. Students unfailingly e...
Bring poetry to life in your school! These pages are specially designed to help you and your students to get the most out of the Poetry Archive.
Students
The Poetry Archive is a great place for students to research and learn about poetry.
Librarians
Support and practical ideas to help you and your readers enjoy the Archive.
New to Poetry?
Tips on using the Archive for less confident readers, and for those who are unfamiliar with reading poetry.
This part of the Archive is full of poems chosen specially for children. Meet old favourites and make new discoveries.
Do you like hearing something about how or why the poem was written? Here are poems introduced by the poet.
Do you have a favourite sort of poem, like a haiku, a riddle or a kenning? You can search the Archive by poetic forms.
This part of the Archive is full of poems chosen specially for children. Meet old favourites and make new discoveries.
The Poetry Archive depends on donations from public bodies and private individuals. Find out how you can contribute to the work of the Archive.