The Dedicated Poetry Bookshop
Poetry Books for... Grumpy Grandads
Not all granddads are grumpy, of course, and even those that seem to be are often just pretending. They'll certainly be less grumpy if they are given one of the fascinating books below that range from the delightful lost world of tea, scones and tennis of John Betjeman to the tragedy and horror of war in the Oxford Book of War Poetry.
Collected Poems, by John Betjeman, John Murray, (ISBN 9780719568503), Paperback, £14.99
When first published in 1958, Betjeman's Collected Poems sold 100,000 copies and has now achieved remarkable sales of more than two million. This expanded edition includes his popular verse autobiography, Summoned By Bells, and boasts an introduction by fellow Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion.
Human Chain, by Seamus Heaney, Faber& Faber, (ISBN 9780571269228), Hardback, £12.99
The brilliant, twelfth collection from the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet, this one echoing the words of its title in its preoccupation with connection and separation. There are newly minted versions of anonymous early Irish lyrics, poems which stand at the crossroads of the oral and written tradition, and other "hermit songs" which weigh equally in their balance the craft of scribe and Heaney's early calling as a scholar.
Oxford Book of War Poetry, ed. John Stallworthy, (ISBN 9780199554539), Paperback, £9.99
A celebrated classic anthology containing 250 poems spanning centuries of the human experience of war. Its range is vast, taking in, amongst others, poems from David's Lament for Saul and Jonathan, Homer's Iliad and the powerful poetry of the First and Second World Wars, as well as much beyond.
Pebble & I, by Professor John Fuller, Chatto & Windus, (ISBN 9780701184919), Paperback, £10
From the sun-baked pebbles and plastic ice-cream spines that bedeck the 'The Jetsam Garden', to the swallows that nest under the eaves of a farmhouse in the Cilento Hills in ‘Stop', Professor Fuller's poems take us from inky, restless seascapes to the warmth of the Mediterranean as they examine the connections between man and "our material cousins" in nature.
The Prodigal, by Derek Walcott, Faber & Faber, (ISBN 9780571226528), Paperback, £9.99
A dazzling odyssey beginning on America's East Coast and journeying restlessly through the European continent, exploring the inheritance of the Old World upon Walcott's native St Lucia, with the poet wondering about his own sense of abandonment, whether to leave a place is to lose it.
More in this series:
Poetry Books for... All Occasions
Poetry Books for... Weddings
Poetry Books for... Funerals
Poetry Books for... Valentine's Day
Poetry Books for... Christmas
Poetry Books for... Lovers
Poetry Books for... Faithful Friends
Poetry Books for... Marvellous Mums
Poetry Books for... Doting Dads
Poetry Books for... Awesome Aunts
Poetry Books for... Favourite Uncles
Poetry Books for... Graceful Grannies
Poetry Books for... Boys
Poetry Books for... Girls
Poetry Books for... Tiny Terrors
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