Poetry Anthology GCSE English and GCSE English Literature

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

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, 6–10 Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS (www.cla.co.uk). Applications for the copyright owner’s 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 1

Collection B: Clashes and collisions 19

Collection C: Somewhere, anywhere 37

Collection D: Taking a stand 55

Collection A Relationships

Valentine 2 Carol Ann Duffy Rubbish at Adultery 3 Sophie Hannah Sonnet 116 4 William Shakespeare Our Love Now 5 Martyn Lowery Even Tho 6 Grace Nichols Kissing 7 Fleur Adcock One Flesh 8 Elizabeth Jennings Song for Last Year’s Wife 9 Brian Patten My Last Duchess 10 Robert Browning Pity me not because the light of day 12 Edna St. Vincent Millay The Habit of Light 13 Gillian Clarke Nettles 14 Vernon Scannell At the border, 1979 15 Choman Hardi Lines to my Grandfathers 16 Tony Harrison 04/01/07 18 Ian McMillan

1 Relationships

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 reﬂ ection 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 ﬁ erce 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 ﬁ ngers, cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy

2 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 you’ll never leave Your wife and children. Fine;

When have I ever asked you to? I’d settle for a kiss. Couldn’t you, for an hour or so, 10 Just leave them out of this? A rare ten minutes off from guilty Diatribes – what bliss.

Yes, I’m aware you’re sensitive: A tortured, wounded soul. 15 I’m after passion, thrills and fun. You say fun takes its toll, So what are we doing here? I fear We’ve lost our common goal.

You’re rubbish at adultery. 20 I think you ought to quit. Trouble is, though, ﬁ delity? You’re just as crap at it. Choose one and do it properly, You stupid, stupid git.

Sophie Hannah

3 Relationships

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration ﬁ nds, Or bends with the remover to remove. 5 O, no! it is an ever-ﬁ xèd mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 10 Within his bending sickle’s 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

4 Collection A Relationships

Our Love Now

I said, She said, observe how the wound heals in time, Although the wound heals how the skin slowly knits and appears cured, it is not the same. and once more becomes whole 10 There is always a scar, 5 The cut will mend, and such a permanent reminder. is our relationship. Such is our love now.

I said, She said, observe the scab of the scald, 20 Although the burn will no longer sting 15 the red burnt ﬂ esh is ugly, and we’ll almost forget that it’s there but it can be hidden. the skin remains bleached In time it will disappear, and a numbness prevails. Such is our love, such is our love. Such is our love now.

25 I said, She said, remember how when you cut your hair, After you’ve cut your hair, you feel different, and somehow incomplete. it grows again slowly. During that time But the hair grows – before long changes must occur, it is always the same. 35 the style will be different. 30 Our beauty together is such. Such is our love now.

I said, She said, listen to how the raging storm 45 Although the storm is temporary damages the trees outside. and soon passes, 40 The storm is frightening it leaves damage in its wake but it will soon be gone. which can never be repaired. People will forget it ever existed. The tree is forever dead. The breach in us can be mended. 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. 5 Relationships

Even Tho

Man I love but won’t let you devour

even tho I’m all watermelon 5 and starapple and plum when you touch me

even tho I’m all seamoss and jellyﬁ sh 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

6 Collection A Relationships

Kissing

The young are walking on the riverbank, arms around each other’s 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 It’s their river. They’ve got all day.

Seeing’s 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 other’s 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 won’t 20 notice. They too may have futures.

Fleur Adcock

7 Relationships

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 ﬁ xed on the shadows overhead.

Tossed up like ﬂ otsam 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 they’re old, These two who are my father and my mother Whose ﬁ re from which I came, has now grown cold?

Elizabeth Jennings

8 Collection A Relationships

Song for Last Year’s Wife

Alice, this is my fi rst 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 earth’s 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 body’s as fi rm, you are as alive, as warm and inviting as when they knew you fi rst ... 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

9 Relationships

My Last Duchess

Ferrara

That’s my last duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 5 Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said ‘Frà 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 fi rst Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not Her husband’s presence only, called that spot 15 Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps Frà Pandolf chanced to say ‘Her mantle laps Over my lady’s wrist too much,’ or ‘Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-fl ush 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 heart–how shall I say?–too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er 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 offi cious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace–all and each

10 Collection A Relationships

30 Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men–good! but thanked Somehow–I know not how–as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame 35 This sort of triﬂ ing? Even had you skill In speech–which I have not–to 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 mark’–and if she let 40 Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse –E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt Whene’er 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. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master’s known muniﬁ cence 50 Is ample warrant that no just pretense Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll 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 Relationships

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 ﬁ eld 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 man’s 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 she’d draw all the curtains back for a glimpse 5 of the cloud-lit sea. Her oak ﬂ oors ﬂ ickered 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, she’d 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 Relationships

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 ﬁ erce 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 ﬁ ve 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 Relationships

Lines to my Grandfathers

I Ploughed parallel as print the stony earth. The straight stone walls defy the steep grey slopes. The place’s rightness for my mother’s birth exceeds the pilgrim grandson’s 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’, Queen’s 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 ﬂ at.

He cobbled all our boots. I’ve 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 knuckleduster’s now my paperweight!

Tony Harrison

17 Relationships

04/01/07

The telephone shatters the night’s dark glass. I’m 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 brother’s voice that sounds like mine Gives me the news I already knew. Outside a milk ﬂ oat clinks and shines And a lit plane drones in the night’s dark blue,

And I feel the tears slap my torn face; 10 The light clicks on. I rub my eyes. I’m trapped inside that empty space You ﬂ oat 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 John Agard Parade’s End 21 Daljit Nagra Belfast Confetti 22 Ciaran Carson Our Sharpeville 23 Ingrid de Kok Exposure 24 Wilfred Owen Catrin 26 Gillian Clarke Your Dad Did What? 27 Sophie Hannah The Class Game 28 Mary Casey Cousin Kate 29 Christina Rossetti Hitcher 30 Simon Armitage The Drum 31 John Scott O What is that Sound 32 W.H. Auden Conscientious Objector 34 Edna St. Vincent Millay August 6, 1945 35 Alison Fell Invasion 36 Choman Hardi

19 Half-caste

Excuse me Explain yuself standing on one leg wha yu mean I’m half-caste Ah listening to yu wid de keen half of mih ear Explain yuself 35 Ah lookin at yu wid de keen 5 wha yu mean half of mih eye when you say half-caste and when I’m introduced to yu yu mean when picasso I’m sure you’ll understand mix red an green why I offer yu half-a-hand is a half-caste canvas/ 40 an when I sleep at night 10 explain yuself 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 mix in de sky 45 I half-caste human being 15 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 50 an de whole of yu mind 20 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 John Agard 25 when you say half-caste yu mean tchaikovsky sit down at dah piano an mix a black key wid a white key 30 is a half-caste symphony/

20 Collection B

Parade’s 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 ﬁ re… 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 can’t I escape? Every move is punctuated. Crimea Street. Dead end again. A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkie- talkies. 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

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, 5 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 10 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 15 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 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, 25 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.

30 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, 35 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 ﬂ ares 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 ﬂ ickering 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 fl ights of bullets streak the silence. Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow, With sidelong fl owing fl akes that fl ock, pause, and renew, We watch them wandering up and down the wind’s nonchalance, 20 But nothing happens.

Pale ﬂ akes with ﬁ ngering stealth come feeling for our faces – We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow- dazed, Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed, Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses. 25 Is it that we are dying?

24 Collection B

Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk ﬁ res, 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 ﬁ res burn; Nor ever suns smile true on child, or ﬁ eld, or fruit. For God’s 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 trafﬁ c lights. I can remember you, our ﬁ rst 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 fi ghting You off, as you stand there With your straight, strong, long Brown hair and your rosy, Defi ant glare, bringing up 25 From the heart’s pool that old rope, Tightening about my life, Trailing love and confl ict, 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 they’ve 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 That’s 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 he’s ﬁ nished, doesn’t want to add anything, hands it in just as it is. No change. My Dad did. What? What did his Dad?

You ﬁ nd 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 I’m 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 I’m 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 I’m 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? Don’t I crook me little ﬁ nger when I drink me tea Say toilet instead of bog when I want to pee? 20 Why do you care what class I’m 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 I’m proud of the class that I come from.

Mary Casey

28 Collection B

Cousin Kate

I was a cottage-maiden 25 Because you were so good and pure 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. Call me an outcast thing. 5 Why did a great lord fi nd me out Even so I sit and howl in dust And praise my fl axen hair? 30 You sit in gold and sing: Why did a great lord fi nd me out Now which of us has tenderer heart? To fi ll my heart with care? You had the stronger wing.

He lured me to his palace-home – O Cousin Kate, my love was true, 10 Woe’s me for joy thereof – Your love was writ in sand: To lead a shameless shameful life, 35 If he had fooled not me but you, His plaything and his love. If you stood where I stand, He wore me like a golden knot, He had not won me with his love He changed me like a glove: Nor bought me with his land: 15 So now I moan an unclean thing I would have spit into his face Who might have been a dove. 40 And not have taken his hand.

O Lady Kate, my Cousin Kate, Yet I’ve a gift you have not got You grow more fair than I: And seem not like to get: He saw you at your father’s gate, For all your clothes and wedding-ring 20 Chose you and cast me by. I’ve little doubt you fret. He watched your steps along the lane, 45 My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride, Your sport among the rye: Cling closer, closer yet: He lifted you from mean estate Your sire would give broad lands for one To sit with him on high. 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 drum’s discordant sound, Parading round, and round, and round: To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields, And lures from cities and from ﬁ elds, 5 To sell their liberty for charms Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms; And when Ambition’s voice commands, To march, and ﬁ ght, and fall, in foreign lands.

I hate that drum’s 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 Misery’s hand bestows, To ﬁ ll 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-ﬂ oor. 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 ﬂ ick 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 man’s door.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

34 Collection B

August 6, 1945

In the Enola Gay ﬁ ve 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 Marilyn’s skirts 10 ﬂ y 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 mermaid’s tail

Later she will lie down 20 in the ﬂ ecked 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 they’ll 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 we’ve lost this war before it has begun.

Choman Hardi

36 Collection C

City Jungle 38 Pie Corbett City Blues 39 Mike Hayhoe Postcard from a Travel Snob 40 Sophie Hannah Sea Timeless Song 41 Grace Nichols My mother’s kitchen 42 Choman Hardi Cape Town morning 43 Ingrid de Kok Our Town with the Whole of India! 44 Daljit Nagra In Romney Marsh 46 John Davidson A Major Road for Romney Marsh 47 U.A. Fanthorpe Composed upon Westminster Bridge, 48 September 3, 1802 William Wordsworth London 49 William Blake London Snow 50 Robert Bridges Assynt Mountains 51 Mandy Haggith Orkney / This Life 52 Andrew Greig The Stone Hare 54 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 shufﬂ e by, hands in their pockets. 10 The gutter gargles.

A motorbike snarls; Dustbins ﬂ inch.

Streetlights bare Their yellow teeth. 15 The motorway’s 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 afl ame 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 fl oats into the sunlight fl aps 15 is a swan bird tumbles knows its place as the less fortunate should. In the shadow shade

20 this 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 25 napalmed by that lit up lousy sun.

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. I’m sleeping in a local farmer’s van – it’s great. There’s not a guest house or hotel

within a hundred miles. Nobody speaks 10 English (apart from me, and rest assured, I’m not your sun-and-sangria-two-weeks- small-minded-package-philistine-abroad).

When you’re as multi-cultural as me, your friends become wine connoisseurs, not drunks. 15 I’m 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 mother’s kitchen

I will inherit my mother’s 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 can’t bear throwing away. ‘Don’t buy anything just yet,’ she says, ‘soon all of this will be yours.’

My mother is planning another escape, for the ﬁ rst 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 mother’s 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 yesterday’s blooms, sour buckets ﬁ lled and spilling.

10 And trucks digest the city’s 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 o’er 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. 20 Flicker and fade from out the West.

5 And ringing shrilly, taut and lithe, Night sank: like ﬂ akes of silver ﬁ re 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.

A veil of purple vapour ﬂ owed 25 The darkly shining salt sea drops 10 And trailed its fringe along the Straits; Streamed as the waves clashed on the shore; The upper air like sapphire glowed: The beach, with all its organ stops And roses ﬁ lled Heaven’s central gates. Pealing again, prolonged the roar.

Masts in the ofﬁ ng wagged their tops; John Davidson The swinging waves pealed on the shore; 15 The saffron beach, all diamond drops And beads of surge, prolonged the roar.

46 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 T’DEN, F’STONE, C’BURY)

It is itself, and different. 20 (Nt fr lng. Nt fr lng.)

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 ﬁ elds, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep 10 In his ﬁ rst splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er 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 charter’d street Near where the charter’d Thames does ﬂ ow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

5 In every cry of every Man, In every Infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear:

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry 10 Every black’ning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldier’s sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls;

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot’s curse 15 Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear, And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

William Blake

49 London Snow When men were all asleep the snow came fl ying, In large white fl akes falling on the city brown, Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, Hushing the latest traffi c of the drowsy town; 5 Deadening, muffl ing, stifl ing its murmurs failing; Lazily and incessantly fl oating 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 Paul’s 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 coalﬁ re 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 other’s 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 other’s prevailing; how we connect along our shores, 15 the way we are tidal islands joined for hours then inaccessible, I’ll go for that, and smile when I pick sand off myself in the shower. The way I am an inland loch to you 20 when a clatter of white whoops and rises...

52 Collection C

It is the way Scotland looks to the South, the way we enter friends’ houses to leave what we came with, or ﬂ ick the kettle’s 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 ﬂ y through instead of prayers while in Hoy Sound the fern’s 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 starﬁ sh, feather stars, crinoids and crushed shells 10 that ﬁ ll with calcite, harden, wait for the quarryman, the timed explosion and the sculptor’s hand. Then the hare, its eye a planet, springs from the chisel to stand in the grass, moonlight’s muscle and bone, the stems of sea lilies slowly turned to stone.

Gillian Clarke

54 Collection D

On the Life of Man 56 Sir Walter Raleigh I Shall Paint My Nails Red 56 Carole Satyamurti The Penelopes of my homeland 57 Choman Hardi A Consumer’s Report 58 Peter Porter Pessimism for Beginners 60 Sophie Hannah Solitude 61 Ella Wheeler Wilcox No Problem 62 Benjamin Zephaniah Those bastards in their mansions 63 Simon Armitage Living Space 64 Imtiaz Dharker The archbishop chairs the ﬁ rst session 65 Ingrid de Kok The world is a beautiful place 66 Lawrence Ferlinghetti Zero Hour 68 Matthew Sweeney One World Down the Drain 69 Simon Rae Do not go gentle into that good night 70 Dylan Thomas Remember 71 Christina Rossetti

55 On the Life of Man

What is our life? a play of passion, Our mirth the music of division, Our mother’s 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, that’s 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 I’m a woman. Because I will look like a survivor. 5 Because I can admire them in trafﬁ c 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 children’s 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 wasn’t 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 Consumer’s Report

The name of the product I tested is Life, I have completed the form you sent me and understand that my answers are conﬁ dential.

I had it as a gift, 5 I didn’t feel much while using it, in fact I think I’d 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 it’s difﬁ cult to tell) – although the instructions are fairly large there are so many of them 15 I don’t know which to follow, especially as they seem to contradict each other. I’m not sure such a thing should be put in the way of children – It’s difﬁ cult to think of a purpose 20 for it. One of my friends says it’s 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 don’t 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, it’s waterproof but not heat resistant, it doesn’t keep yet it’s very difﬁ cult to get rid of: 35 whenever they make it cheaper they seem to put less in – if you say you don’t want it, then it’s delivered anyway. I’d agree it’s a popular product, it’s got into the language; people 40 even say they’re on the side of it. Personally I think it’s 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 shouldn’t care. We are the consumers and the last law makers. So ﬁ nally, I’d buy it. But the question of a ‘best buy’ 50 I’d like to leave until I get the competitive product you said you’d send.

Peter Porter

59 Pessimism for Beginners

When you’re waiting for someone to e-mail, 25 It’s so different from what you expected! When you’re waiting for someone to call – They do not want to gouge out your eyes! Young or old, gay or straight, male or female – You feel neither abused nor rejected – Don’t assume that they’re busy, that’s all. What a stunning and perfect surprise.

5 Don’t conclude that their letter went missing This approach I’m endorsing will net you Or they must be away for a while; 30 A small portion of boundless delight. Think instead that they’re cursing and hissing – Keep believing the world’s out to get you. They’ve decided you’re venal and vile, Now and then you might not be proved right.

That your eyes should be pecked by an eagle. Sophie Hannah 10 Oh, to bash in your head with a stone! But since this is unfairly illegal They’ve no choice but to leave you alone.

Be they friend, parent, sibling or lover Or your most stalwart colleague at work, 15 Don’t pursue them. You’ll 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. 20 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 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 life’s 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 ﬁ le 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 ﬂ at 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 ﬁ rst session

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission. April 1996. East London, South Africa

On the ﬁ rst 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 ﬁ lmed his weeping, his misted glasses, his sobbing shoulders, the call for a recess.

It doesn’t matter what you thought 15 of the Archbishop before or after, of the settlement, the commission, or what the anthropologists fl ying 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 simplifi es, lionizes romanticizes, mystifi es.

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.

That’s how it began.

Ingrid de Kok 65 The world is a beautiful place

The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind happiness not always being 5 so very much fun if you don’t mind a touch of hell now and then just when everything is ﬁ ne because even in heaven 10 they don’t sing all the time

The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind some people dying 15 all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn’t half so bad if it isn’t you

20 Oh the world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t much mind a few dead minds in the higher places 25 or a bomb or two now and then in your upturned faces or such other improprieties as our Name Brand society 30 is prey to with its men of distinction and its men of extinction and its priests and other patrolmen 35 and its various segregations and congressional investigations and other constipations that our fool ﬂ esh is heir to

66 Collection D

40 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 45 and singing low songs and having inspirations and walking around looking at everything and smelling ﬂ owers and goosing statues 50 and even thinking and kissing people and making babies and wearing pants and waving hats and dancing 55 and going swimming in rivers on picnics in the middle of the summer and just generally ‘living it up’ 60 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 riﬂ e 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 ﬁ rst 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 ﬁ ghting 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]

It’s 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 ﬂ ights to Venice now. It won’t be there in ﬁ fty years – Great City. Pity. Ciao.

But we don’t care, 10 We won’t be there, Our acid greenhouse party Will carry on Until we’re 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? Let’s have another conference on

The ills of CO2.

Oh global warming ‘s habit-forming, 25 But do not rock the boat; We’re doing our best, Although we’re 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 ﬂ ight, 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 ﬁ erce 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 Children’s 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 Children’s 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 Women’s 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 Consumer’s 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 author’s 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.

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The publisher would like to thank the following for their kind permission to reproduce their photographs:

(Key: b-bottom; c-centre; l-left; r-right; t-top)

Alamy Images: Albaimages 51; Colin Crisford 1; Letterbox Digital 8; Joe Fox 22; Gareth McCormack 53; Melksham Landscape Photography 46; London Photos 45; Bridgeman Art Library Ltd: Canaletto 48; Corbis: Bettmann 25; Colen Campbell 63; Envision 14; Getty Images: Peter Adams 43; ML Harris 68; Jason Hosking 37; Mark Wilson 33; iStockphoto: Simon Alvinge 19; Damian Palus 4; Huseyin Tuncer 55; Photolibrary.com: age fotostock 41; POD - Pearson Online Database: National Archives and Records Administration 35; Photodisc. StockTrek 67

Cover images: Front: Alamy Images: Clandestini Colin Crisford tl; Getty Images: Jason Hosking tr; iStockphoto: Simon Alvinge bl; Huseyin Tuncer br