A Beginner's Guide to British Poetry Collections

Start with an Anthology, Not a Poet

Most people who decide to get into poetry buy a single slim volume by a writer they have been told is essential, read four pages, and quietly give up. The problem is rarely the poetry. It is the format. A single collection is a conversation with one voice, and if that voice does not suit you yet, there is nowhere to go. An anthology, by contrast, is a room full of people. You can wander, listen in, and leave whenever you like.

Anthologies also suit the way poetry actually works. Verse began as something spoken and heard, long before it was printed, and rhythm is easier to feel in short bursts than over a whole book. Aim for three poems a night rather than three chapters. If one leaves you cold, the next page costs you nothing.

A Few Anthologies to Look For

You do not need a scholarly edition to begin. Any good bookshop or library will have a poetry section with a handful of reliable general anthologies, and a decent secondhand copy costs less than a sandwich. Look out for:

• Broad national anthologies, the kind that gather a few hundred years of British and Irish verse between two covers. These are useful for finding out which centuries your ear prefers — you may surprise yourself by liking the seventeenth century more than the twentieth.
• Twentieth-century selections, which tend to include Hardy, Auden, Larkin, Heaney and Hughes, and will quickly show you which of them you want to read at length.
• Anthologies built around a theme — love, place, family, war, the natural world. Themes give you a reason to keep turning pages and a way of comparing how different poets handle the same subject.
• Contemporary showcases, often published annually, which are the fastest way to find living poets whose work you enjoy.

Two useful habits here: write the date and a single line next to any poem that moves you, and resist the urge to read only the famous names. An anthology's job is to be uneven.

Single-Poet Volumes That Reward Patience

Once an anthology has shown you whose voice you like, buy that person's book. A few beginnings that rarely disappoint:

• Carol Ann Duffy — witty, direct and often very funny, with poems that tell stories as clearly as a short film. Good for anyone who suspects poetry is deliberately obscure.
• Seamus Heaney — rich, physical language about digging, farming, family and memory. Read him aloud; the sounds do half the work.
• Wendy Cope — light verse with sharp edges, formally deft and emotionally serious underneath. Perfect for a commute.
• Edward Thomas — quiet, unhurried poems about walking, weather and roads. They seem slight until the third reading, and then they do not leave you.
• Jackie Kay and Liz Lochhead — Scottish voices with a strong sense of performance, writing brilliantly about identity, humour and family.
• Christina Rossetti — a Victorian who writes with startling plainness about longing, faith and refusal.

Thin volumes are not lesser volumes. A forty-page pamphlet by a new poet is often the cheapest way to test whether you enjoy their work before committing to a collected edition.

Reading Aloud, Slowly: A Practical Method

Poetry is built from rhythm and image, and both are easier to hear than to analyse. Try this sequence with any poem:

• Read it silently once, without stopping to work anything out.
• Read it aloud, slowly — a good deal more slowly than feels natural. Let the line breaks do their work; do not race to the full stop at the end of the sentence.
• Notice one thing: a repeated word, a rhyme, a single image you can actually see. That is usually the poem's door.
• Look up one word if you are unsure of it. One, not twelve.
• Read it aloud again, then leave it alone.

Come back the next day. Most poems that matter take two or three passes, and some take ten years. If a poem still says nothing after three honest readings, put it down — that is not failure, it is editing your own taste.

Making It a Habit

Reading poetry works best as a small daily ritual rather than a project. Keep one anthology by the kettle, the bed or the front door. One poem a day is plenty. Learn a short poem by heart — sixteen lines is achievable in a week, and having a poem in your head is a pleasure that costs nothing and cannot be lost on a train.

Other things that help: reading a poem out loud to somebody else, however badly; keeping a notebook of lines you liked; joining a library reading group; hearing verse performed at a festival or a local open-mic night. Poetry readings are usually shorter than you fear and warmer than you expect.

Where to Go Next

When anthologies begin to feel like a sampler rather than a meal, you are ready to read poets whole: a collected volume, a sequence, a long poem such as Goblin Market. Then go backwards. Read the Romantics, then the Metaphysicals, then something published this year. The gaps close faster than you would think.

Finally, trust your own ear above any list, including this one. Poetry has no entrance exam, no required reading order and no deadline. Buy the book that contains the poem you liked, keep it by the kettle, and read one aloud tonight. That is the whole method, and it has worked for about six hundred years.