The Nation's Favourite Poems

Forty-five of Britain’s best-loved poems, read by John Nettles, Siobhan Redmond, Greg Wise and Emma Fielding.

 

In a national poll conducted to discover Britain’s favourite poem, Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If –’ was voted number one. This unique anthology brings together over forty poems from the poll, including the top ten.

 

Here is poignant war poetry (Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Rupert Brooke’s ‘The Soldier’ and Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘Everyone Sang’ ); romantic verse such as Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?’ and W. B. Yeats’ ‘When You Are Old’; Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear’s great nonsense poems ‘Jabberwocky’ and ‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’, and much more. Classics such as Wordsworth’s ‘The Daffodils’ and Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shallot’ sit alongside contemporary poetry like Allan Ahlberg’s ‘Please Mrs Butler’ and Wendy Cope’s ‘Bloody Men’.

 

Superbly read by John Nettles, Siobhan Redmond, Greg Wise and Emma Fielding, this popular collection includes many of the very best examples ofBritish verse, as chosen by poetry lovers nationwide.

 

The poems included in this collection are:

 

1 ‘If –’ by Rudyard Kipling, read by John Nettles

2 ‘The Lady of Shallot’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson, read by Siobhan Redmond

3 ‘The Listeners’ by Walter de la Mare, read by Greg Wise

4 ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ by Stevie Smith, read by Siobhan Redmond

5 ‘The Daffodils’ by William Wordsworth, read by John Nettles

6 ‘To Autumn’ by John Keats, read by Siobhan Redmond

7 ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ by William Butler Yeats, read by Emma Fielding

8 ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen, read by Greg Wise

9 ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ by John Keats, read by Siobhan Redmond

10 ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ by William Butler Yeats, read by John Nettles

11 ‘Remember’ by Christina Rossetti, read by Siobhan Redmond

12 ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray, read by John Nettles

13 ‘Fern Hill’ by Dylan Thomas, read by John Nettles

14 ‘Leisure’ by William Henry Davies, read by Emma Fielding

15 ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes, read by Greg Wise

16 ‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell, read by Greg Wise

17 ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold, read by John Nettles

18 ‘The Tyger’ by William Blake, read by John Nettles

19 ‘Adlestrop’ by Edward Thomas, read by Siobhan Redmond

20 ‘The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke ,read by Greg Wise

21 ‘Sea-Fever’ by John Masefield, read by John Nettles

22 ‘Upon Westminster Bridge’ by William Wordsworth, read by Greg Wise

23 ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, read by Emma Fielding

24 ‘Cargoes’ by John Masefield, read by Greg Wise

25 ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll, read by Emma Fielding

26 ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, read by John Nettles

27 ‘Ozymandias of Egypt’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley, read by Greg Wise

28 ‘Abou ben Adhem’ by Leigh Hunt, read by John Nettles

29 ‘Everyone Sang’ by Siegfried Sassoon, read by Greg Wise

30 ‘The Windhover’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins, read by Siobhan Redmond

31 ‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night’ by Dylan Thomas, read by John Nettles

32 ‘Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?’ by William Shakespeare, read by Siobhan Redmond

33 ‘When You Are Old’ by William Butler Yeats, read by Emma Fielding

34 ‘Lessons of the War (To Alan Mitchell): Naming of Parts’ by Henry Reed, read by John Nettles

35 ‘The Darkling Thrush’ by Thomas Hardy, read by Emma Fielding

36 ‘Please Mrs Butler’ by Allan Ahlberg, read by Emma Fielding

37 ‘Kubla Khan’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, read by John Nettles

38 ‘Home-Thoughts, from Abroad’ by Robert Browning, read by Greg Wise

39 ‘High Flight (An Airman’s Ecstasy)’ by John Gillespie Magee, read by Greg Wise

40 ‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’ by Edward Lear ,read by Emma Fielding

41 ‘The Glory of the Garden’ by Rudyard Kipling, read by Greg Wise

42 ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost, read by Siobhan Redmond

43 ‘The Way through the Woods’ by Rudyard Kipling, read by Emma Fielding

44 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' by Wilfred Owen, read by Greg Wise

45 ‘Bloody Men’ by Wendy Cope, read by Siobhan Redmond

 

Duration: 2 hours approx.