7 must-have poetry collections to read this National Poetry Day

On the first Thursday of October each year, the nation comes together to share the unique voices, words, and stories that have the power to bring us all closer. National Poetry Day (6 October) encourages families, friends, and colleagues to enjoy poems by sharing, appreciating, and even making them.

At HDA, we’re doing our bit to promote poetry’s most visible annual moment by sharing seven modern classics and recent books of poetry to add to your bookshelf now. 

And remember, once you’ve enjoyed these collections and picked a favourite poem, be sure to share it with loved ones, workmates, or even strangers in the queue for the bus.

1. Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong (2022)

Ocean Vuong is a Vietnamese-American poet and novelist. He released his second volume of poetry, Time is a Mother, in 2022. 

It was the follow-up to his TS Elliot-prize-winning debut, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which was labelled “one of the most important debut collections for a generation”.

Building on the explorations of love, conflict, and desire that made his debut collection so successful, Vuong’s sophomore effort deals partly with the death of his mother in 2019. 

An incredibly personal, yet universal testament to grief and the balancing of loss with the need and desire to move on, the collection confirms Vuong’s position as a young poet at the top of his game.

2. My Darling from the Lions by Rachel Long (2020)

Rachel Long released her debut poetry collection, My Darling from the Lions, in 2020. It was nominated for the Forward First Collection prize.

Taking its name from Psalm 35, this mesmerising collection explores themes such as identity and family, femininity and body politics. 

It’s intimate, raw, and honest poems make it a must-read. 

3. The Luckiest Guy Alive by John Cooper Clarke (2018)

Performance and punk poet John Cooper Clarke has been writing and performing for decades, with albums, poetry collections, and a recent autobiography to his name.

Often seen on TV screens over the last decade or so (appearances on panel shows like Have I Got News For You and 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown), The Luckiest Guy Alive is his first collection in decades.

It collects classic verse from his repertoire, audience favourites, and new poems, all featuring his trademark wit as well as a softer, more romantic side. 

4. The Unaccompanied by Simon Armitage (2017) 

Former Greater Manchester probation officer, Simon Armitage has been the UK’s poet laureate since 2019.

The author of numerous poetry collections, translations of Homeric and Middle English epics, plus travelogues and novels, The Unaccompanied is Armitage’s 11th collection.

In it, the world’s last snowman drifts south while being taunted by stag and hen parties as he melts, the nativity plays out beneath Tinsley Viaduct in Sheffield, and Odysseus takes a hellish trip around a local Poundland.

Set against a post-Brexit-referendum Britain facing recession, growing poverty, late-stage capitalism and increasing social division, the poems catalogue a world on the brink. 

With sly humour, Armitage’s The Unaccompanied amuses while it unsettles, and rallies while it laments.

5. The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy (2011)

Holding Simon Armitage’s current role between 2009 and 2019, Carol Ann Duffy was the first woman to be appointed poet laureate.

From 1985’s Standing Female Nude to The World’s Wife (1999), which took its readers into the lives of the great women behind history’s famous men, Duffy’s poems have been capturing readers’ imaginations for almost four decades.

In The Bees, Duffy’s first collection as poet laureate, the humble bee weaves its way through love poems, elegies, and a lamentation on David Beckham’s achilles heel. 

Other poems deal with war (‘The Last Post’), the power of storytelling and the necessity of finding your voice (‘Scheherazade’), and the death of the poet’s mother (‘Water’).

6. Public Property by Andrew Motion (2002)

Poet Laureate Andrew Motion moves from the Victorian past to his rural childhood and onto contemporary issues in this far-reaching 2022 collection.

Examining the thin veil between the private and the public world of celebrity, his poems are at once universal and deeply personal. This is especially true in part four of Public Property, containing love poems and a series of elegies to lost friends.

7. The Spirit Level by Seamus Heaney (1996)

Irish poet Seamus Heaney won the Nobel prize in literature in 1995 for his “works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past”.

The Spirit Level, Heaney’s 9th collection, was the first he released as a Nobel laureate. It covers themes that have interested the author since his first collection, 1966’s Death of a Naturalist. From family history to the natural world and ancient stories, he deals with the interconnectedness of things through daily experiences and the seemingly mundane. 

You’ll find elegies to departed friends, memories of his late father, and an examination of the Troubles through the lookout Mycenae, watching Agamemnon’s return from the Trojan Wars.