The Nation's Favourite Poems of Celebration

From celebrating the birth of a baby through memories of childhood recalled in later life, to the joy of friendship and the delight of finding love, there are many moments of happiness to be cherished in our lives. Arranged thematically around significant stages in our lives, poets of every age find cause for celebration in a selection of 100 popular poems: Sylvia Plath marvels at her child in "You're"; Dylan Thomas on his thirtieth birthday finds his heart singing with the joy he felt as a young boy; Shakespeare, John Donne and many others celebrate the power of love; while Walt Whitman and Anne Finch find pleasure in their solitude. Including much-loved classics and humorous, poignant and evocative verse, this delightfully upbeat collection celebrates both those smaller moments of pleasure and those that mark the major stages in our lives.