Reviews

The New Penguin Book of Love Poetry by John Betjeman, Andrew Marvell, George Wither, A.E. Housman, William Barnes, Thomas Hood, Robert Burns, Charles Sedley, Adrian Mitchell, Geoffrey Chaucer, W.B. Yeats, John Fletcher, John Wilbye, Robert Graves, John Keats, Thomas Campion, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Austin Clarke, James Graham, Edmund Spenser, Thomas Carew, Christina Rossetti, Wendy Cope, Dorothy Parker, Edmund Waller, John Suckling, John Donne, Carol Ann Duffy, John Wilmot, Charles Cotton, William Shakespeare, Henry Wotton, Archibald MacLeish, Richard Crashaw, Anthony Hecht, Thomas Randolph, Christopher Marlowe, Henry Carey, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Sophie Hannah, Patrick Macdonogh, Laurie Lee, Abraham Cowley, John Clare, Richard Fanshawe, Roy Campbell, Lord Byron, Robert Henryson, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Moore

francescaguardo's review

2.0

Not sure I’m following why so many of the poems are about virgins, innocence and sometimes rape when there’s probably hundreds of thousands of beautiful poems that aren’t. Also this is predominantly western writings, why? Have they ever read an Arabic love poem, they’re some of the best ever written and I don’t even remember seeing one. Confused by the whole thing.

2 stars cause I was pleased to see my favourite poem ever in there on the last couple of pages so at least it ended on a good note (for me at least)

andiheniii's review

DNF

orangeorge's review

got bored

jcampbell's review

lighthearted medium-paced

4.0

Encompasses a wide range of love poems in various lengths, styles and ages under 8 different 'headings'. There is a real push for older poems and a lack of woman and contemporary writing but a great collection aside from this. 

billypilgrim's review

slow-paced

2.75

lucyevelyn13's review

reflective slow-paced

2.5