The language of flowers is as old as language itself. In the earliest poetry familiar plants were used to represent simple emotions, ideas, or states of mind: love, hope, despair, fidelity, solitude, beauty, mortality. Over time these associations entwined with myth and legend, with religious symbolism, folk and herbal lore....

For thousands of years humans have variously worshipped trees, made use of them, admired them, and destroyed them— and poets have long chronicled the relationship....

The same inimitable voice and dazzling insights that make Emily Dickinson\"s poems immortal can be found in the whimsical, humorous, and often deeply moving letters she wrote to her family and friends throughout her life....

From Li Bai\"s \"Bring in the Ale\" to Ted Kooser\"s \"Beer Bottle\"; from Robert Burns\"s\" John Barleycorn\" to Carol Ann Duffy\"s \"John Barleycorn\" (no, you are not seeing double), the poems collected here attest to humankind\"s long and joyous (mostly) relationship with the world\"s most popular alcoholic beverage....

Given that insects vastly outnumber us (there are approximately 200 million insects for every human) it is no surprise that there is a rich body of verse on the creeping, scuttling, flitting, stinging things with which we share our planet. Many cultures have centuries-old traditions of insect poetry....

Celebrated in their time and still popular over a century after their deaths, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett had a unique relationship which is reflected in their work. Both were distinguished as poets before they met, and they learnt from one another without ever sacrificing their individuality....

A remarkably diverse treasury of literary celebrations, Books & Libraries is sure to take pride of place on the shelves of the book-obsessed. Books have long captured the imagination of readers everywhere, commanding their love, earning their veneration....

For the poet, even the most minute details of the natural world may be a source of inspiration, and the pages of this collection celebrating the four seasons are brimming with an extraordinary range of observation and imagery. Here are poets past and present, from Chaucer, Shakespeare and Wordsworth to Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Hughes and Amy Clampitt....

The Art of Angling offers a bountiful catch of poems from around the world and through the ages on every aspect of the popular sport....

A comprehensive collection of the best of the villanelle – the first anthology of its kind. The highly structured villanelle is a nineteen-line poem arranged in five tercets and one quatrain in which only two rhymes may be used. Two single-line refrains must be repeated alternately throughout, and drawn together at the end....

Painting and sculpture have inspired great poetry, but so also have photography, calligraphy, tapestry and folk art....

A celebration of fathers and fatherhood, this anthology features the richly varied voices of sons and daughters, and of fathers and grandfathers themselves....

Rom one of the most brilliant and widely read of all American poets, a generous selection of lyrics, dramatic monologues, and narrative poems--all of them steeped in the wayward and isolated beauty of Frost\"s native New England. Includes his......

A Jesuit priest and literary scholar whose life ended prematurely after his exhausting pastoral work among the slums of Liverpool and Dublin, Hopkin\"s poems are dazzling celebrations of God\"s endless creative power, couched in a uniquely expressive poetic diction....

As a child of the Raj, Rudyard Kipling became famous for tales of Indian life, such as Kim and The Jungle Book in which the country is described with a detail, love and colour which have never been surpassed....