Edexcel GCSE

Poetry Anthology
GCSE English and GCSE English Literature

The Edexcel GCSE Poetry Anthology should be used to prepare students

for assessment in:
English 2EH01 - Unit 3
English Literature 2ET01 - Unit 2

Published by Pearson Education Limited, a company incorporated in England and Wales, having its registered office at Edinburgh
Gate, Harlow, Essex, CM20 2JE. Registered company number: 872828
Edexcel is a registered trade mark of Edexcel Limited
Pearson Education Limited 2009
First published 2009
12 11 10 09
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84690 641 1
Copyright notice
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means (including photocopying
or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this
publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 610
Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS (www.cla.co.uk). Applications for the copyright owners written permission should be addressed
to the publisher.
Picture research by Alison Prior
Illustrated by Bob Doucet
Printed and bound by Ashford Colour Press Ltd., Gosport
See page 72 for acknowledgements.

Contents
Collection A: Relationships

Collection B: Clashes and collisions

19

Collection C: Somewhere, anywhere

37

Collection D: Taking a stand

55

Collection A

s
p
i
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s
n
o
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t
a
l
e
R
Valentine

Rubbish at Adultery

Sonnet 116

Our Love Now

Even Tho

Kissing

One Flesh

Song for Last Years Wife

Carol Ann Duffy

Sophie Hannah

William Shakespeare
Martyn Lowery
Grace Nichols
Fleur Adcock
Elizabeth Jennings
Brian Patten

My Last Duchess

10

Pity me not because the light of day

12

The Habit of Light

13

Nettles

14

At the border, 1979

15

Lines to my Grandfathers

16

04/01/07

18

Robert Browning

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Gillian Clarke

Vernon Scannell
Choman Hardi
Tony Harrison
Ian McMillan

s
p
i
h
s
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Relati
Valentine
Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
5

like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection

10

a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

15

possessive and faithful

as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,

20

if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
Carol Ann Duffy

Collection A

Relationships
Rubbish at Adultery
Must I give up another night
To hear you whinge and whine
About how terribly grim you feel
And what a dreadful swine
5

You are? You say youll never leave

Your wife and children. Fine;
When have I ever asked you to?
Id settle for a kiss.
Couldnt you, for an hour or so,

10

Just leave them out of this?

A rare ten minutes off from guilty
Diatribes what bliss.
Yes, Im aware youre sensitive:
A tortured, wounded soul.

15

Im after passion, thrills and fun.

You say fun takes its toll,
So what are we doing here? I fear
Weve lost our common goal.
Youre rubbish at adultery.

20

I think you ought to quit.

Trouble is, though, fidelity?
Youre just as crap at it.
Choose one and do it properly,
You stupid, stupid git.
Sophie Hannah

s
p
i
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s
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Relati
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
5

O, no! it is an ever-fixd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worths unknown, although his height be taken.
Loves not Times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

10

Within his bending sickles compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare

Collection A

Relationships
Our Love Now
I said,
observe how the wound heals in time,
how the skin slowly knits
and once more becomes whole
5
The cut will mend, and such
is our relationship.

She said,
Although the wound heals
and appears cured, it is not the same.
10 There is always a scar,
a permanent reminder.
Such is our love now.

I said,
observe the scab of the scald,
15 the red burnt flesh is ugly,
but it can be hidden.
In time it will disappear,
Such is our love, such is our love.

She said,
20 Although the burn will no longer sting
and well almost forget that its there
the skin remains bleached
and a numbness prevails.
Such is our love now.

25

I said,
remember how when you cut your hair,
you feel different, and somehow incomplete.
But the hair grows before long
it is always the same.
30 Our beauty together is such.

She said,
After youve cut your hair,
it grows again slowly. During that time
changes must occur,
35 the style will be different.
Such is our love now.

I said,
listen to how the raging storm
damages the trees outside.
40 The storm is frightening
but it will soon be gone.
People will forget it ever existed.
The breach in us can be mended.

She said,
45 Although the storm is temporary
and soon passes,
it leaves damage in its wake
which can never be repaired.
The tree is forever dead.
50 Such is our love.
Martyn Lowery

The line reference numbers have been added for ease of reference to the poem. They do not dictate the
appropriate stanza order.

s
p
i
h
s
n
o
Relati
Even Tho
Man I love
but wont let you devour
even tho
Im all watermelon
5

and starapple and plum

when you touch me
even tho
Im all seamoss
and jellyfish

10

and tongue
Come
leh we go to de carnival
You be banana
I be avocado

15

Come
leh we hug up
and brace-up
and sweet one another up
But then

20

leh we break free

yes, leh we break free
And keep to de motion
of we own person/ality
Grace Nichols

Collection A

Relationships
Kissing
The young are walking on the riverbank,
arms around each others waists and shoulders,
pretending to be looking at the waterlilies
and what might be a nest of some kind, over
5

there, which two who are clamped together

mouth to mouth have forgotten about.
The others, making courteous detours
around them, talk, stop talking, kiss.
They can see no one older than themselves.

10

Its their river. Theyve got all day.

Seeings not everything. At this very
moment the middle-aged are kissing
in the back of taxis, on the way
to airports and stations. Their mouths and tongues

15

are soft and powerful and as moist as ever.

Their hands are not inside each others clothes
(because of the driver) but locked so tightly
together that it hurts: it may leave marks
on their not of course youthful skin, which they wont

20

notice. They too may have futures.

Fleur Adcock

s
p
i
h
s
n
o
Relati
One Flesh
Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere it is as if they wait
5

Some new event: the book he holds unread,

Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.
Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do it is like a confession

10

Of having little feeling or too much.

Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.
Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold

15

And not wind in. And time itself s a feather

Touching them gently. Do they know theyre old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?
Elizabeth Jennings

Collection A

Relationships
Song for Last Years Wife
Alice, this is my first winter
of waking without you, of knowing
that you, dressed in familiar clothes
are elsewhere, perhaps not even
5

conscious of our anniversary. Have

you noticed? The earths still as hard,
the same empty gardens exist; it is
as if nothing special had changed,
I wake with another mouth feeding

10

from me, yet still feel as if

Love had not the right
to walk out of me. A year now. So
what? you say. I send out my spies.
to discover what you are doing. They smile,

15

return, tell me your bodys as firm,

you are as alive, as warm and inviting
as when they knew you first ... Perhaps it is
the winter, its isolation from other seasons,
that sends me your ghost to witness

20

when I wake. Somebody came here today, asked

how you were keeping, what
you were doing. I imagine you,
waking in another city, touched
by this same hour. So ordinary

25

a thing as loss comes now and touches me.

Brian Patten

s
p
i
h
s
n
o
Relati
My Last Duchess
Ferrara
Thats my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fr Pandolfs hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
5

Willt please you sit and look at her? I said

Fr Pandolf by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by

10

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, twas not
Her husbands presence only, called that spot

15

Of joy into the Duchess cheek: perhaps

Fr Pandolf chanced to say Her mantle laps
Over my ladys wrist too much, or Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat: such stuff

20

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A hearthow shall I say?too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whateer
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

25

Sir, twas all one! My favor at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terraceall and each

10

Collection A

Relationships

30

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked mengood! but thanked
SomehowI know not howas if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybodys gift. Whod stoop to blame

35

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speechwhich I have notto make your will
Quite clear to such a one, and say, Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the markand if she let

40

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse
Een then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt
Wheneer I passed her; but who passed without

45

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Willt please you rise? Well meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your masters known munificence

50

Is ample warrant that no just pretense

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughters self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, well go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

55

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Clause of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
Robert Browning

11

s
p
i
h
s
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Relati
Pity me not because the light of day
Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by;
5

Pity me not the waning of the moon,

Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a mans desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I known always: Love is no more

10

Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,

Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales:
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

12

Collection A

Relationships

The Habit of Light

In the early evening, she liked to switch on the lamps
in corners, on low tables, to show off her brass,
her polished furniture, her silver and glass.
At dawn shed draw all the curtains back for a glimpse
5

of the cloud-lit sea. Her oak floors flickered

in an opulence of beeswax and light.
In the kitchen, saucepans danced their lids, the kettle purred
on the Aga, supper on its breath and the buttery melt
of a pie, and beyond the swimming glass of old windows,

10

in the deep perspective of the garden, a blackbird singing,

shed come through the bean rows in tottering shoes,
her pinny full of strawberries, a lettuce, bringing
the palest potatoes in a colander, her red hair bright
with her habit of colour, her habit of light.
Gillian Clarke

13

s
p
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h
s
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Relati
Nettles
My son aged three fell in the nettle bed.
Bed seemed a curious name for those green spears,
That regiment of spite behind the shed:
It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears
5

The boy came seeking comfort and I saw

White blisters beaded on his tender skin.
We soothed him till his pain was not so raw.
At last he offered us a watery grin,
And then I took my billhook, honed the blade

10

And went outside and slashed in fury with it

Till not a nettle in that fierce parade
Stood upright any more. And then I lit
A funeral pyre to burn the fallen dead,
But in two weeks the busy sun and rain

15

Had called up tall recruits behind the shed:

My son would often feel sharp wounds again.
Vernon Scannell

14

Collection A

Relationships
At the border, 1979
It is your last check-in point in this country!
We grabbed a drink
soon everything would taste different.
The land under our feet continued
5

divided by a thick iron chain.

My sister put her leg across it.
Look over here, she said to us,
my right leg is in this country
and my left leg is in the other.

10

The border guards told her off.

My mother informed me: We are going home.
She said that the roads are much cleaner
the landscape is more beautiful
and people are much kinder.

15

Dozens of families waited in the rain.

I can inhale home, somebody said.
Now our mothers were crying. I was five years old
standing by the check-in point
comparing both sides of the border.

20

The autumn soil continued on the other side

with the same colour, the same texture.
It rained on both sides of the chain.
We waited while our papers were checked,
our faces thoroughly inspected.

25

Then the chain was removed to let us through.

A man bent down and kissed his muddy homeland.
The same chain of mountains encompasses all of us.
Choman Hardi

15

s
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Relati
Lines to my Grandfathers
I
Ploughed parallel as print the stony earth.
The straight stone walls defy the steep grey slopes.
The places rightness for my mothers birth
exceeds the pilgrim grandsons wildest hopes
5

Wilkinson farmed Thrang Crag, Martindale.

Horner was the Haworth signalman.
Harrison kept a pub with home-brewed ale:
fell farmer, railwayman, and publican,
and he, while granma slaved to tend the vat

10

graced the rival bars to make comparisons,

Queens Arms, the Duke of this, the Duke of that,
while his was known as just The Harrisons .
He carried cane and guineas, no coin baser!
He dressed the gentleman beyond his place

15

and paid in gold for beer and whisky chaser

but took his knuckleduster, just in case.

16

Collection A

Relationships

II
The one who lived with us was grampa Horner
who, I remember, when a sewer rat
got driven into our dark cellar corner
20

booted it to pulp and squashed it flat.

He cobbled all our boots. Ive got his last.
We use it as a doorstop on warm days.
My present is propped open by their past
and looks out over straight and narrow ways:

25

the way one ploughed his land, one squashed a rat,

kept railtracks clear, or, dressed up to the nines,
with waxed moustache, gold chain, his cane, his hat,
drunk as a lord could foot it on straight lines.
Fell farmer, railwayman and publican,

30

I strive to keep my lines direct and straight,

and try to make connections where I can
the knuckledusters now my paperweight!
Tony Harrison

17

s
p
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s
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Relati
04/01/07
The telephone shatters the nights dark glass.
Im suddenly awake in the new year air
And in the moment it takes a life to pass
From waking to sleeping I feel you there.
5

My brothers voice that sounds like mine

Gives me the news I already knew.
Outside a milk float clinks and shines
And a lit plane drones in the nights dark blue,
And I feel the tears slap my torn face;

10

The light clicks on. I rub my eyes.

Im trapped inside that empty space
You float in when your mother dies.
Feeling that the story ends just here,
The stream dried up, the smashed glass clear.
Ian McMillan

18

Collection B

Half-caste

20

Parades End

21

Belfast Confetti

22

Our Sharpeville

23

Exposure

24

Catrin

26

Your Dad Did What?

27

The Class Game

28

Cousin Kate

29

Hitcher

30

The Drum

31

O What is that Sound

32

Conscientious Objector

34

August 6, 1945

35

Invasion

36

John Agard

Daljit Nagra

Ciaran Carson
Ingrid de Kok

Wilfred Owen
Gillian Clarke
Sophie Hannah
Mary Casey

Christina Rossetti
Simon Armitage
John Scott

W.H. Auden

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Alison Fell

Choman Hardi

19

Half-caste
Excuse me

Explain yuself

standing on one leg

wha yu mean

Im half-caste

Ah listening to yu wid de keen

half of mih ear

Explain yuself
5

half of mih eye

when you say half-caste

and when Im introduced to yu

yu mean when picasso

Im sure youll understand

mix red an green

why I offer yu half-a-hand

an when I sleep at night
I close half-a-eye

wha yu mean

consequently when I dream

when yu say half-caste

I dream half-a-dream

yu mean when light an shadow

an when moon begin to glow

45

I half-caste human being

is a half-caste weather/

cast half-a-shadow

well in dat case

but yu must come back tomorrow

england weather

wid de whole of yu eye

nearly always half-caste

an de whole of yu ear

in fact some o dem cloud

20

40

explain yuself

mix in de sky
15

Ah lookin at yu wid de keen

wha yu mean

is a half-caste canvas/
10

35

50

an de whole of yu mind

half-caste till dem overcast

so spiteful dem dont want de sun pass

an I will tell yu

ah rass/

de other half

explain yuself

of my story

wha yu mean
25

when you say half-caste

yu mean tchaikovsky
sit down at dah piano
an mix a black key
wid a white key

30

20

is a half-caste symphony/

John Agard

Collection B

Parades End
Daljit Nagra

This poem is not available

in this online version.

21

Belfast Confetti
Suddenly as the riot squad moved in, it was raining
exclamation marks,
Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And the
explosion.
Itself - an asterisk on the map. This hyphenated line, a burst
of rapid fire
I was trying to complete a sentence in my head but it kept
stuttering,
5

All the alleyways and side streets blocked with stops and
colons.
I know this labyrinth so well - Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman,
Odessa Street Why cant I escape? Every move is punctuated. Crimea
Street. Dead end again.
A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkietalkies. What is
My name? Where am I coming from? Where am I going? A
fusillade of question-marks.
Ciaran Carson

22

Collection B

Our Sharpeville

10

15

I was playing hopscotch on the slate

when miners roared past in lorries,
their arms raised, signals at a crossing,
their chanting foreign and familiar,
like the call and answer of road gangs
across the veld, building hot arteries
from the heart of the Transvaal mine.
I ran to the gate to watch them pass.
And it seemed like a great caravan
moving across the desert to an oasis
I remembered from my Sunday School book:
olive trees, a deep jade pool,
men resting in clusters after a long journey,
the danger of the mission still around them
and night falling, its silver stars just like the ones
you got for remembering your Bible texts.
Then my grandmother called from behind the front door,
her voice a stiff broom over the steps:
Come inside; they do things to little girls.

20

25

30

35

For it was noon, and there was no jade pool.

Instead, a pool of blood that already had a living name
and grew like a shadow as the day lengthened.
The dead, buried in voices that reached even my gate,
the chanting men on the ambushed trucks,
these were not heroes in my town,
but maulers of children,
doing things that had to remain nameless.
And our Sharpeville was this fearful thing
that might tempt us across the wellswept streets.
If I had turned I would have seen
brocade curtains drawn tightly across sheer net ones,
known there were eyes behind both,
heard the dogs pacing in the locked yard next door.
But, walking backwards, all I felt was shame,
at being a girl, at having been found at the gate,
at having heard my grandmother lie
and at my fear her lie might be true.
Walking backwards, called back,
I returned to the closed rooms, home.
Ingrid de Kok

23

Exposure
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent
Low, drooping flares confuse our memories of the salient
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
5

But nothing happens.

Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire,
Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,
Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.

10

What are we doing here?

The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow
We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey,

15

But nothing happens.

Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause, and renew,
We watch them wandering up and down the winds nonchalance,

20

But nothing happens.

Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces
We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snowdazed,
Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.

25

24

Is it that we are dying?

Collection B

Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires, glozed
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
For hours the innocent mice rejoice: The house is theirs;
Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed,
30

We turn back to our dying.

Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
Nor ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
For Gods invincible spring our love is made afraid;
Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,

35

For love of God seems dying.

Tonight, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,
Shrivelling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp.
The burying party, picks and shovels in the shaking grasp,
Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,

40

But nothing happens.

Wilfred Owen

25

Catrin
I can remember you, child,
As I stood in a hot, white
Room at the window watching
The people and cars taking
5

Turn at the traffic lights.

I can remember you, our first
Fierce confrontation, the tight
Red rope of love which we both
Fought over. It was a square

10

Environmental blank, disinfected

Of paintings or toys. I wrote
All over the walls with my
Words, coloured the clean squares
With the wild, tender circles

15

Of our struggle to become

Separate. We want, we shouted,
To be two, to be ourselves.
Neither won nor lost the struggle
In the glass tank clouded with feelings

20

Which changed us both. Still I am fighting

You off, as you stand there
With your straight, strong, long
Brown hair and your rosy,
Defiant glare, bringing up

25

From the hearts pool that old rope,

Tightening about my life,
Trailing love and conflict,
As you ask may you skate
In the dark, for one more hour.
Gillian Clarke

26

Collection B

Your Dad Did What?

Where they have been, if they have been away,
or what theyve done at home, if they have not
you make them write about the holiday.
One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what?
5

Thats not a sentence. Never mind the bell.

We stay behind until the work is done.
You count their words (you who can count and spell);
all the assignments are complete bar one
and though this boy seems bright, that one is his.

10

He says hes finished, doesnt want to add

anything, hands it in just as it is.
No change. My Dad did. What? What did his Dad?
You find the E you gave him as you sort
through reams of what this girl did, what that lad did,

15

and read the line again, just one e short:

This holiday was horrible. My Dad did.
Sophie Hannah

27

The Class Game

How can you tell what class Im from?
I can talk posh like some
With an Olly in me mouth
Down me nose, wear an at not a scarf
5

With me second-hand clothes.

So why do you always wince when you hear
Me say Tara to me Ma instead of Bye Mummy
dear?
How can you tell what class Im from?
Cos we live in a corpy, not like some

10

In a pretty little semi, out Wirral way

And commute into Liverpool by train each day?
Or did I drop my unemployment card
Sitting on your patio (We have a yard)?
How can you tell what class Im from?

15

Have I a label on me head, and another on me bum?

Or is it because my hands are stained with toil?
Instead of soft lily-white with perfume and oil?
Dont I crook me little finger when I drink me tea
Say toilet instead of bog when I want to pee?

20

Why do you care what class Im from?

Does it stick in your gullet like a sour plum?
Well, mate! A cleaner is me mother
A docker is me brother
Bread pudding is wet nelly

25

And me stomach is me belly

And Im proud of the class that I come from.
Mary Casey

28

Collection B

Cousin Kate
I was a cottage-maiden

25

Hardened by sun and air,

He bound you with his ring:

Contented with my cottage-mates,

The neighbours call you good and pure,

Not mindful I was fair.

5

Call me an outcast thing.

Even so I sit and howl in dust

Why did a great lord find me out

And praise my flaxen hair?

30

Why did a great lord find me out

You had the stronger wing.

He lured me to his palace-home

O Cousin Kate, my love was true,

Your love was writ in sand:

Woes me for joy thereof

To lead a shameless shameful life,

35

If you stood where I stand,

He wore me like a golden knot,

He had not won me with his love

Nor bought me with his land:
I would have spit into his face

So now I moan an unclean thing

Who might have been a dove.

40

O Lady Kate, my Cousin Kate,

And seem not like to get:

He saw you at your fathers gate,

For all your clothes and wedding-ring

Ive little doubt you fret.

Chose you and cast me by.

He watched your steps along the lane,
Your sport among the rye:
He lifted you from mean estate
To sit with him on high.

And not have taken his hand.

Yet Ive a gift you have not got

You grow more fair than I:

20

If he had fooled not me but you,

His plaything and his love.

He changed me like a glove:
15

You sit in gold and sing:

Now which of us has tenderer heart?

To fill my heart with care?

10

Because you were so good and pure

45

My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,

Cling closer, closer yet:
Your sire would give broad lands for one
To wear his coronet.
Christina Rossetti

29

Hitcher
Simon Armitage

This poem is not available

in this online version.

30

Collection B

The Drum
I hate that drums discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,
And lures from cities and from fields,
5

To sell their liberty for charms

Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms;
And when Ambitions voice commands,
To march, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands.
I hate that drums discordant sound,

10

Parading round, and round, and round:

To me it talks of ravaged plains,
And burning towns, and ruined swains,
And mangled limbs, and dying groans,
And widows tears, and orphans moans;

15

And all that Miserys hand bestows,

To fill the catalogue of human woes.
John Scott

31

O What is that Sound

W. H. Auden

This poem is not available

in this online version.

32

Collection B

This poem is not available

in this online version.

33

Conscientious Objector
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear
the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba, business in the
Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle while he cinches the girth.
5

And he may mount by himself; I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flick my shoulders with his whip, I will not
tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the
black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am
not on his pay-roll.
I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends nor of
my enemies either.

10

Though he promises me much, I will not map him the

route to any mans door.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

34

Collection B

August 6, 1945
In the Enola Gay
five minutes before impact
he whistles a dry tune
Later he will say
5

that the whole blooming sky

went up like an apricot ice.
Later he will laugh and tremble
at such a surrender, for the eye
of his belly saw Marilyns skirts

10

fly over her head for ever

On the river bank,
bees drizzle over
hot white rhododendrons
Later she will walk

15

the dust, a scarlet girl

with her whole stripped skin
at her heel, stuck like an old
shoe sole or mermaids tail
Later she will lie down

20

in the flecked black ash

where the people are become
as lizards or salamanders
and, blinded, she will complain:
Mother you are late, so late

25

Later in dreams he will look

down shrieking and see
ladybirds
ladybirds
Alison Fell

35

Invasion
Soon they will come. First we will hear
the sound of their boots approaching at dawn
then theyll appear through the mist.
In their death-bringing uniforms
5

they will march towards our homes

their guns and tanks pointing forward.
They will be confronted by young men
with rusty guns and boiling blood.
These are our young men

10

who took their short-lived freedom for granted.

We will lose this war, and blood
will cover our roads, mix with our
drinking water, it will creep into our dreams.
Keep your head down and stay in doors

15

weve lost this war before it has begun.

Choman Hardi

36

Collection C

City Jungle

38

City Blues

39

Postcard from a Travel Snob

40

Sea Timeless Song

41

My mothers kitchen

42

Cape Town morning

43

Our Town with the Whole of India!

44

In Romney Marsh

46

A Major Road for Romney Marsh

47

Composed upon Westminster Bridge,

September 3, 1802

48

London

49

London Snow

50

Assynt Mountains

51

Orkney / This Life

52

The Stone Hare

54

Pie Corbett

Mike Hayhoe
Sophie Hannah
Grace Nichols

Choman Hardi
Ingrid de Kok
Daljit Nagra

John Davidson

U.A. Fanthorpe

William Wordsworth
William Blake
Robert Bridges

Mandy Haggith
Andrew Greig
Gillian Clarke

37

City Jungle
Rain splinters town.
Lizard cars cruise by;
Their radiators grin.
Thin headlights stare
5

shop doorways keep their mouths shut.

At the roadside
Hunched houses cough.
Newspapers shuffle by,
hands in their pockets.

10

The gutter gargles.

A motorbike snarls;
Dustbins flinch.
Streetlights bare
Their yellow teeth.

15

The motorways
cat-black tongue
lashes across
the glistening back
of the tarmac night.
Pie Corbett

38

Collection C

City Blues
Sunday dawn in a November city
the bully light wades in
sun
sets glass aflame
slams
dark
puts
hard shadows on anything
5
not big enough to take it.
The wind strips trees
unzips
makes them tittletattle
harsh small talk
puts
drives their leaves into a lurch
10 somewhere.
A sheet of paper
followed
by a coke can
chased
takes ridiculously to the air
floats into the sunlight
flaps
15 is a swan
bird
tumbles
knows its place
as the less fortunate should.
In the shadow
shade
miniscule steeple
small
comes to the point
which is more than can be said
corporations
for the big-time
companies
skyscrapers
and their sky-spoilers
napalmed by that
25
lit up
lousy sun.
20 this

Mike Hayhoe

39

Postcard from a Travel Snob

I do not wish that anyone were here.
This place is not a holiday resort
with karaoke nights and pints of beer
for drunken tourist types perish the thought.
5

This is a peaceful place, untouched by man

not like your seaside-town-consumer-hell.
Im sleeping in a local farmers van
its great. Theres not a guest house or hotel
within a hundred miles. Nobody speaks

10

English (apart from me, and rest assured,

Im not your sun-and-sangria-two-weekssmall-minded-package-philistine-abroad).
When youre as multi-cultural as me,
your friends become wine connoisseurs, not drunks.

15

Im not a British tourist in the sea;

I am an anthropologist in trunks.
Sophie Hannah

40

Collection C

Sea Timeless Song

Hurricane come
and hurricane go
but sea ... sea timeless
sea timeless
5

sea timeless
sea timeless
sea timeless
Hibiscus bloom
then dry-wither so

10

but sea ... sea timeless

sea timeless
sea timeless
sea timeless
sea timeless

15

Tourist come
and tourist go
but sea ... sea timeless
sea timeless
sea timeless

20

sea timeless
sea timeless
Grace Nichols

41

My mothers kitchen
I will inherit my mothers kitchen.
Her glasses, some tall and lean, others short and fat,
her plates, an ugly collection from various sets,
cups bought in a rush on different occasions,
5

rusty pots she cant bear throwing away.

Dont buy anything just yet, she says,
soon all of this will be yours.
My mother is planning another escape,
for the first time home is her destination,

10

the rebuilt house which she will furnish.

At 69 she is excited about
starting from scratch.
It is her ninth time.
She never talks about her lost furniture

15

when she kept leaving her homes behind.

She never feels regret for things,
only for her vine in the front garden
which spread over the trellis on the porch.
She used to sing for the grapes to ripen

20

sew cotton bags to protect them from the bees.

I know I will never inherit my mothers trees.
Choman Hardi

42

Collection C

Cape Town morning

Winter has passed. The wind is back.
Window panes rattle old rust,
summer rising.
Street children sleep, shaven mummies in sacks,
5

eyelids weighted by dreams of coins,

beneath them treasure of small knives.
Flower sellers add fresh blossoms
to yesterdays blooms, sour buckets
filled and spilling.

10

And trucks digest the citys sediment

men gloved and silent
in the municipal jaws.
Ingrid de Kok

43

Our Town with the Whole of India!

Daljit Nagra

This poem is not available

in this online version.

44

Collection C

This poem is not available

in this online version.

45

In Romney Marsh
As I went down to Dymchurch Wall,

As I came up from Dymchurch Wall,

I heard the South sing oer the land

I saw above the Downs low crest

I saw the yellow sunlight fall

The crimson brands of sunset fall,

On knolls where Norman churches stand.

5

Night sank: like flakes of silver fire

Within the wind a core of sound,

The stars in one great shower came down;

The wire from Romney town to Hythe

Shrill blew the wind; and shrill the wire

Along its airy journey wound.

Rang out from Hythe to Romney town.

The darkly shining salt sea drops
Streamed as the waves clashed on the shore;

The upper air like sapphire glowed:

The beach, with all its organ stops

And roses filled Heavens central gates.

Pealing again, prolonged the roar.

Masts in the offing wagged their tops;

John Davidson

The saffron beach, all diamond drops

And beads of surge, prolonged the roar.

46

25

And trailed its fringe along the Straits;

The swinging waves pealed on the shore;

15

Flicker and fade from out the West.

And ringing shrilly, taut and lithe,

A veil of purple vapour flowed

10

20

Collection C

A Major Road for Romney Marsh

It is a kingdom, a continent.
Nowhere is like it.
(Ripe for development)
It is salt, solitude, strangeness.
5

It is ditches, and windcurled sheep.

It is sky over sky after sky
(It wants hard shoulders, Happy Eaters,
Heavy breathing of HGVs)
It is obstinate hermit trees.

10

It is small, truculent churches

Huddling under the gale force.
(It wants WCs, Kwiksaves,
Artics, Ind Ests, Jnctns)
It is the Military Canal

15

Minding its peaceable business,

Between the Levels and the Marsh.
(It wants investing in roads,
Sgns syng TDEN, FSTONE, CBURY)
It is itself, and different.
(Nt fr lng. Nt fr lng.)

20

U.A. Fanthorpe

47

Composed upon Westminster Bridge,

September 3, 1802
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
5

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep

10

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Neer saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
William Wordsworth

48

Collection C

London
I wander thro each charterd street
Near where the charterd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
5

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forgd manacles I hear:
How the Chimney-sweepers cry

10

Every blackning Church appalls,

And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls;
But most thro midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse

15

Blasts the new-born Infants tear,

And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
William Blake

49

London Snow
When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
5

Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;

Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

10

All night it fell, and when full inches seven

It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:

15

The eye marvelled - marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;

The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,

20

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder!
O look at the trees! they cried, O look at the trees!

25

With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,

Following along the white deserted way,
A country company long dispersed asunder:
When now already the sun, in pale display
Standing by Pauls high dome, spread forth below

30

His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.

For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:
But even for them awhile no cares encumber

35

Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,

The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.
Robert Bridges

50

Collection C

Assynt Mountains
the row of crones
rugs on knees
watch the coalfire dawn
Canisp, nearest the blaze, grins
5

the sun rises

between blackened stumps
in ancient Lewisian gums
Mandy Haggith

51

Orkney / This Life

It is big sky and its changes,
the sea all round and the waters within.
It is the way sea and sky
work off each other constantly,
5

like people meeting in Alfred Street,

each face coming away with a hint
of the others face pressed in it.
It is the way a week-long gale
ends and folk emerge to hear

10

a single bird cry way high up.

It is the way you lean to me
and the way I lean to you, as if
we are each others prevailing;
how we connect along our shores,

15

the way we are tidal islands

joined for hours then inaccessible,
Ill go for that, and smile when I
pick sand off myself in the shower.
The way I am an inland loch to you

20

52

when a clatter of white whoops and rises...

Collection C

It is the way Scotland looks to the South,

the way we enter friends houses
to leave what we came with, or flick
the kettles switch and wait.
25

This is where I want to live,

close to where the heart gives out,
ruined, perfected, an empty arch against the sky
where birds fly through instead of prayers
while in Hoy Sound the ferns engines thrum

30

this life this life this life.

Andrew Greig

53

The Stone Hare

Think of it waiting three hundred million years,
not a hare hiding in the last stand of wheat,
but a premonition of stone, a moonlit reef
where corals reach for the light through clear
5

waters of warm Palaeozoic seas.

In its limbs lies the story of the earth,
the living ocean, then the slow birth
of limestone from the long trajectories
of starfish, feather stars, crinoids and crushed shells

10

that fill with calcite, harden, wait for the quarryman,

the timed explosion and the sculptors hand.
Then the hare, its eye a planet, springs from the chisel
to stand in the grass, moonlights muscle and bone,
the stems of sea lilies slowly turned to stone.
Gillian Clarke

54

Collection D

On the Life of Man

56

I Shall Paint My Nails Red

56

The Penelopes of my homeland

57

A Consumers Report

58

Pessimism for Beginners

60

Solitude

61

No Problem

62

Those bastards in their mansions

63

Living Space

64

The archbishop chairs the rst session

65

The world is a beautiful place

66

Zero Hour

68

One World Down the Drain

69

Do not go gentle into that good night

70

Remember

71

Sir Walter Raleigh

Carole Satyamurti
Choman Hardi
Peter Porter

Sophie Hannah

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Benjamin Zephaniah
Simon Armitage
Imtiaz Dharker
Ingrid de Kok

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Matthew Sweeney
Simon Rae

Dylan Thomas

Christina Rossetti

55

On the Life of Man

What is our life? a play of passion,
Our mirth the music of division,
Our mothers wombs the tiring houses be,
Where we are dressed for this short Comedy,
5

Heaven the Judicious sharp spectator is,

That sits and marks still who doth act amiss,
Our graves that hide us from the searching Sun,
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done,
Thus march we playing to our latest rest,

10

Only we die in earnest, thats no Jest.

Sir Walter Raleigh

I Shall Paint My Nails Red

Because a bit of colour is a public service.
Because I am proud of my hands.
Because it will remind me Im a woman.
Because I will look like a survivor.
5

Because I can admire them in traffic jams.

Because my daughter will say ugh.
Because my lover will be surprised.
Because it is quicker than dyeing my hair.
Because it is a ten-minute moratorium.

10

Because it is reversible.
Carole Satyamurti

56

Collection D

The Penelopes of my homeland

(for the 50,000 widows of Anfal)
Years and years of silent labour
the Penelopes of my homeland
wove their own and their childrens shrouds
without a sign of Odysseus returning.
5

Years and years of widowhood they lived

without realising, without ever thinking
that their dream was dead the day it was dreamt,
that their colourful future was all in the past,
that they had lived their destinies

10

and there was nothing else to live through.

Years and years of avoiding despair, not giving up,
holding on to hopes raised by palm-readers,
holding on to the wishful dreams of the nights
and to the just God

15

who does not allow such nightmares to continue.

Years and years of raising more Penelopes and Odysseuses
the waiting mothers of my homeland grew old and older
without ever knowing that they were waiting,
without ever knowing that they should stop waiting.

20

Years and years of youth that was there and went unnoticed
of passionate love that wasnt made
of no knocking on the door after midnight
returning from a very long journey.
The Penelopes of my homeland died slowly

25

carrying their dreams to their graves,

leaving more Penelopes to take their place.
Choman Hardi

57

A Consumers Report
The name of the product I tested is Life,
I have completed the form you sent me
and understand that my answers are confidential.
I had it as a gift,
5

I didnt feel much while using it,

in fact I think Id have liked to be more excited.
It seemed gentle on the hands
but left an embarrassing deposit behind.
It was not economical

10

and I have used much more than I thought

(I suppose I have about half left
but its difficult to tell)
although the instructions are fairly large
there are so many of them

15

I dont know which to follow, especially

as they seem to contradict each other.
Im not sure such a thing
should be put in the way of children
Its difficult to think of a purpose

20

for it. One of my friends says

its just to keep its maker in a job.
Also the price is much too high.
Things are piling up so fast,
after all, the world got by

25

for a thousand million years

without this, do we need it now?
(Incidentally, please ask your man
to stop calling me the respondent,
I dont like the sound of it.)

58

Collection D

30

There seems to be a lot of different labels,

sizes and colours should be uniform,
the shape is awkward, its waterproof
but not heat resistant, it doesnt keep
yet its very difficult to get rid of:

35

whenever they make it cheaper they seem

to put less in if you say you dont
want it, then its delivered anyway.
Id agree its a popular product,
its got into the language; people

40

even say theyre on the side of it.

Personally I think its overdone,
a small thing people are ready
to behave badly about. I think
we should take it for granted. If its

45

experts are called philosophers or market

researchers or historians, we shouldnt
care. We are the consumers and the last
law makers. So finally, Id buy it.
But the question of a best buy

50

Id like to leave until I get

the competitive product you said youd send.
Peter Porter

59

Pessimism for Beginners

When youre waiting for someone to e-mail,

They do not want to gouge out your eyes!

Young or old, gay or straight, male or female

You feel neither abused nor rejected

Dont assume that theyre busy, thats all.

What a stunning and perfect surprise.

Dont conclude that their letter went missing

This approach Im endorsing will net you

Theyve decided youre venal and vile,

Now and then you might not be proved right.

That your eyes should be pecked by an eagle.

Sophie Hannah

Oh, to bash in your head with a stone!

Be they friend, parent, sibling or lover

Or your most stalwart colleague at work,
Dont pursue them. Youll only discover
That your once-irresistible quirk
Is no longer appealing. Far from it.
Everything that you are and you do
Makes them spatter their basin with vomit.
They loathe Hitler and herpes and you.
Once you take this on board, life gets better.
You give no one your hopes to destroy.
The most cursory phone call or letter
Makes you pickle your heart in pure joy.

60

A small portion of boundless delight.

Keep believing the worlds out to get you.

Theyve no choice but to leave you alone.

20

30

Think instead that theyre cursing and hissing

But since this is unfairly illegal

15

Its so different from what you expected!

When youre waiting for someone to call

Or they must be away for a while;

10

25

Collection D

Solitude
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
5

Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost in the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;

10

Grieve, and they turn and go;

They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,

15

There are none to decline your nectared wine,

But alone you must drink lifes gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

20

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

61

No Problem
I am not de problem
But I bear de brunt
Of silly playground taunts
An racist stunts,
5

I am not de problem
I am born academic
But dey got me on de run
Now I am branded athletic
I am not de problem

10

If yu give I a chance
I can teach yu of Timbuktu
I can do more dan dance,
I am not de problem
I greet yu wid a smile

15

Yu put me in a pigeon hole

But I am versatile
These conditions may affect me
As I get older,
An I am positively sure

20

I have no chips on me shoulders,

Black is not de problem
Mother country get it right
An juss fe de record,
Sum of me best friends are white.
Benjamin Zephaniah

62

Collection D

Those bastards in their mansions

Simon Armitage

This poem is not available

in this online version.

63

Living Space
There are just not enough
straight lines. That
is the problem.
Nothing is flat
5

or parallel. Beams
balance crookedly on supports
thrust off the vertical.
Nails clutch at open seams.
The whole structure leans dangerously

10

towards the miraculous.

Into this rough frame,
someone has squeezed
a living space
and even dared to place

15

these eggs in a wire basket,

fragile curves of white
hung out over the dark edge
of a slanted universe,
gathering the light

20

into themselves,
as if they were
the bright, thin walls of faith.
Imtiaz Dharker

64

Collection D

The archbishop chairs the rst session

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
April 1996. East London, South Africa
On the first day
after a few hours of testimony
the Archbishop wept.
He put his grey head
5

on the long table

of papers and protocols
and he wept.
The national
and international cameramen

10

filmed his weeping,

his misted glasses,
his sobbing shoulders,
the call for a recess.
It doesnt matter what you thought

15

of the Archbishop before or after,

of the settlement, the commission,
or what the anthropologists flying in
from less studied crimes and sorrows
said about the discourse,

20

or how many doctorates,

books, and installations followed,
or even if you think this poem
simplifies, lionizes
romanticizes, mystifies.

25

There was a long table, starched purple vestment

and after a few hours of testimony,
the Archbishop, chair of the commission,
lay down his head, and wept.
Thats how it began.
Ingrid de Kok

65

The world is a beautiful place

10

The world is a beautiful place

to be born into
if you dont mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you dont mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they dont sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place

15

20

to be born into
if you dont mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isnt half so bad
if it isnt you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into

25

30

35

66

if you dont much mind

a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to

Collection D

40

45

50

55

60

Yes the world is the best place of all

for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
living it up
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

67

Zero Hour
Tomorrow all the trains will stop
and we will be stranded. Cars
have already been immobilised
by the petrol wars, and sit
5

abandoned, along the roadsides.

The airports, for two days now,
are closed-off zones where dogs
congregate loudly on the runways.
To be in possession of a bicycle

10

is to risk your life. My neighbour,

a doctor, has somehow acquired a horse
and rides to his practice, a rifle
clearly visible beneath the reins,
I sit in front of the television

15

for each successive news bulletin

then reach for the whisky bottle.
How long before the shelves are empty
in the supermarkets? The first riots
are raging as I write, and who

20

out there could have predicted

this sudden countdown to zero hour,
all the paraphernalia of our comfort
stamped obsolete, our memories
fighting to keep us sane and upright?
Matthew Sweeney

68

Collection D

One World Down the Drain

One World Week focused on global warming, with a UN report promising
the direst consequences from the greenhouse effect. However, in the clash
between long-term and short-term interests, the future looks likely to be
the loser.
[26 May 1990]
Its goodbye half of Egypt,
The Maldives take a dive,
And not much more of Bangladesh
Looks likely to survive.
5

Europe too will alter,

Book flights to Venice now.
It wont be there in fifty years
Great City. Pity. Ciao.
But we dont care,
We wont be there,

10

Our acid greenhouse party

Will carry on
Until were gone,
So bad luck Kiribati
15

And all the other atolls

That sink beneath the seas,
The millions who will suffer from
Drought, famine and disease.
The weather map is changing

20

But what are we to do?

Lets have another conference on
The ills of CO2.
Oh global warming
s habit-forming,
But do not rock the boat;

25

Were doing our best,

Although were pressed
(The future has no vote).
Simon Rae

69

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
5

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

10

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

15

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas

70

Collection D

Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
5

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while

10

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Christina Rossetti

71

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:
Poetry on page 2 from Mean Time, Anvil Press Poetry (Duffy, C. A. 1993), Valentine is taken from Mean Time by Carol Ann
Duffy published by Anvil Press Poetry in 1993; Poetry on page 3 and page 60 from Pessimism for Beginners, Carcanet (Hannah,
S. 2007), Carcanet Press Limited; Poetry on page 6 from Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (Nichols, G. 1989), Copyright (c) Grace
Nichols 1989 reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd; Poetry on page 7 from Poems 1960-2000, Bloodaxe Books
(Adcock, F. 2000); Poetry on page 8 from New Collected Poems, Carcanet (Jennings, E.), David Higham Associates; Poetry on page
9 from The Mersey Sound, Penguin Classics (Patten, B. 2007) p. 91, Copyright (c) Brian Patten. Reproduced by permission of the
author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN; Poetry on page 12 from Selected Poems, 1st Edition,
HarperCollins (Edna St. Vincent Millay 1991), Copyright (c) 1923, 1951, by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis.
Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor, The Millay Society; Poetry on page 13 from Five Fields, Carcanet
(Clarke, G. 1998), Carcanet Press Limited; Poetry on page 14 Nettles written by Vernon Scannell from The Very Best of Vernon
Scannell, Macmillan Childrens Books (Scannell, V. 2001), Copyright 2001 Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London, UK; Poetry on
page 15, page 36, page 42 and page 57 from Life for Us, Bloodaxe Books (Hardi, C. 2004); Poetry on page 16 from Selected Poems
and Collected Poems, Penguin (Harrison, T. 1987/2007), by kind permission of the author, Tony Harrison; Poetry on page 18 from
Taking Myself Home, John Murray (McMillan, I. 2008), Copyright Ian McMillan; Poetry on page 20 from Half-Caste and Other Poems,
Hodder Childrens Books (Agard, J. 2005), Half-Caste copyright 1996 by John Agard reproduced by kind permission of John Agard
c/o Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency Limited; Poetry on page 21 and page 44 from Look We Have Coming to Dover!, Faber and
Faber Ltd. (Nagra, D. 2007); Poetry on page 22, Belfast Confetti by Ciaran Carson, with permission from Wake Forest University
Press and by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland, from Collected
Poems (2008); Poetry on page 23 from No Sweetness Here, Feminist Press (de Kok, I. 1995) Ingrid de Kok; Poetry on page 26 from
Collected Poems, Carcanet (Clarke, G. 2007), Carcanet Press Limited; Poetry on page 27 from Leaving and Leaving You, Carcanet
(Hannah, S. 1999), Carcanet Press Limited; Poetry on page 30 and page 63 from Book of Matches, Faber and Faber Ltd. (Armitage,
S. 1993); Poetry on page 32 O What is that Sound, copyright 1937 and renewed 1965 by W. H. Auden, from Collected Poems by W.
H. Auden. Used by permission of Random House, Inc. and Faber and Faber Ltd., Copyright 1934 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted by
permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd; Poetry on page 34, Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Copyright (c) 1934, 1962,
by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor, The Millay Society; Poetry on page
35, August 6, 1945 by Alison Fell, (c) Alison Fell 1987. First published in Kisses for Mayakovsky (Virago). Republished in Dreams Like
Heretics (Serpents Tail). Permission granted by Peake Associates, www.tonypeake.com; Poetry on page 40 from Hotels Like Houses,
Carcanet (Hannah, S. 1996) p. 47, Carcanet Press Limited; Poetry on page 41 from The Fat Black Womens Poetry, Virago (Nichols, G.
1984), Copyright (c) Grace Nichols 1984 reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd; Poetry on page 43 from Seasonal Fires,
Seven Stories Press (de Kok, I. 2006) Ingrid de Kok; Poetry on page 47, A Major Road for Romney Marsh by U. A. Fanthorpe from
Collected Poems 1978-2003, Peterloo Poets, Dr. R. V. Bailey; Poetry on page 51 from Letting Light In, Essence Press (Haggith, M. 2005),
Mandy Haggith; Poetry on page 52 from This Life, This Life: Selected Poems 1970-2006, Bloodaxe Books (Grieg, A. 2006); Poetry on
page 54 from Making the Beds for the Dead, Carcanet (Clarke, G. 2004), Carcanet Press Limited; Poetry on page 56 from Stitching in
the Dark: New and Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Books (Satyamurti, C. 2005); Poetry on page 58, A Consumers Report by Peter Porter,
reproduced by kind permission of the author; Poetry on page 62 from Propa Propaganda, Bloodaxe Books (Zephaniah, B. 1996),
with permission from Bloodaxe Books and Benjamin Zephaniah; Poetry on page 64 from Postcards from god, Bloodaxe Books
(Dharker, I. 1997); Poetry on page 65 from Terrestrial Things, Kwela Books, Snailpress (de Kok, I.), Ingrid de Kok; Poetry on page
66 from Pictures of the Gone World, 2nd Edition, City Lights Books (Ferlinghetti, L. 1986), (c) 1955 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Poetry
on page 68 from Sanctuary, Jonathan Cape (Sweeney, M. 2004), Zero Hour from Sanctuary by Matthew Sweeney, published by
Jonathan Cape. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd; Poetry on page 69 from Earth Shattering Eco Poems,
Bloodaxe (Astley, N. ed. 2004), One world down the drain by Simon Rae, with the authors permission; Poetry on page 70 Do Not
Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas, from The Poems of Dylan Thomas, copyright 1952 by Dylan Thomas. Reprinted
by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. and The Poems, J. M. Dent (Thomas, D.), David Higham Associates.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. Pearson
Education will, if notified, be happy to rectify any errors or omissions and include any such rectifications in future editions.
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