Category: Books

I’ve been thinking about doing this type of post for awhile now and I have been trying to keep busy in light of the recent sadness that has befallen our Family this week.

My love for Poetry dates back to my school years and I always enjoyed borrowing Poetry books from the Library but often thought it would be great if I had some on my own bookshelf. I know I can look up the Internet at any time and view some but I’m also a ‘real book’ lover and love to curl up with one. I love the feel, the smell and conciseness of a single book in the hands.

That being said, I also have a couple of Poetry apps on my phone, ‘Poem Hunter’, which provides a daily Poem; ‘Famous Poetry’, which offers the Poetry of 36 different Poets. The apps are for those times when I cannot or do not have a book with me.

I also have a few books on the mechanics of Poetry and how to write them and I thought I would share a list of my Poetry books with you.

• The Australian and Other Verses by W.H.Ogilvie
• Poetical Works of Henry Lawson
• Selected Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon
• The Collins Book of Australian Poetry
• Collected Verse – John Manifold
• The Poet’s Word – An Anthology of English Poetry
• Chaucer to Gray – The Harvard Classics
• The Golden Treasury of English Verse
• Morla el Do (Tomorrow Will Do) – A Collection of Norfolk Island Poems
• William Blake – Selected Poems
• Quatrains of Omar Khayyam
• The Poetical Works of John Keats
• Poetical Works of Mrs Browning Volume 1
• A Book of Poetry – Anthology of English Poetry (Textbook 1961)
• Collected Shorter Poems 1930 -1944 of W.H.Auden
• A.D.Hope – Selected Poems
• Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson
• Leaves From Australian Forests – Poetical Works of Henry Kendall
• Yet More Comic & Curious Verse – The Penguin Poets
• Enjoying Poetry 1 – Silver and Gold
• Matthew Arnold – A Selection Of His Finest Poems
• The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Volume 1
• Seven Centuries of Poetry in English
• The Great Modern Poets – An Anthology of the Best Poets & Poetry since 1900
• Collected Poems of Henry Thoreau
• James McCauley – Collected Poems 1936 – 1970
• The Golden Book of Modern English Poetry – Everyman’s Library – 921
• The Poet’s Pen – A Historical and Chronological Anthology – 13th to 20th Century
• Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass
• Judith Wright – Collected Poems
• Poems and Poets – David Aloian – Headmaster, Concord Academy (Textbook 1965)
• Country Verse – 16th to 19th Century
• Introduction to Poetry: British, American, Canadian
• Writing and Enjoying Haiku – A Hands-on Guide
• The Making of a Poem – A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms
• How To Read A Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry
• Poetry: Tools & Techniques – A Practical Guide to Writing Engaging Poetry
• Mary Oliver – A Poetry Handbook – A Prose Guide to Understanding & Writing Poetry

It would be very hard for me to pick out a favourite Poet or Poem so I’m not going to try. There are some of my favourite Poets missing from the list, though. Some are contained within the anthologies and it would be nice to have them in their own separate books. I know I can go out and purchase brand new books but I prefer to hunt out second-hand books as they have more character than a brand new book and there is something about ‘the hunt’ in a second-hand bookstore that makes it all the more exciting when you ‘uncover some book treasure…’.

Till next time!

Written by David Johnson

28 November 2021