Author(s): Chris Emery

Poetry

'Hear the voice of the Bard, Who present, past, and future, sees; Whose ears have heard The Holy Word That walk'd among the ancient trees' -William Blake. This unique full-colour anthology gathers together for the first time significant portraits of fifty major British and Irish poets from four centuries along with a classic poem by each writer. It ranges chronologically from Sir Thomas Wyatt born in 1503 to Rudyard Kipling born in 1865, and every poem (like every portrait) has been chosen for its insight, importance and beauty, they can all be repeatedly read, perhaps memorized and certainly treasured. Each poet gathered here offers you an intimate view from their time, dealing with love, loss, grief, hope and mortality, which will find echoes and reverberations in your own.This is the power of poetry, the only art which allows us to look into the heart of the past whilst trying to understand the present and imagining our possible futures. From out of our shared literary and visual history, the history of the British Isles and Ireland, our poetry transcends the generations to offer us the guidance of art and the written and visual life of our island nations.