Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.
Explore Poetry
Not sure where to start? Who to listen to? What to read? The links below will help you - simply search below using names or key words to explore all our poetry recordings, texts, interviews and a huge range of other materials.
Search & Filter
72 results
Sort by:
Poem
by Laura Potts
The Mighty Dead
God’s Grandeur
Read by Simon Russell Beale
The Mighty Dead
Dover Beach
Read by Romola Garai
Poet
Edgar Allan Poe
B. 1809 D. 1849
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. - A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe
Poet
Cilla McQueen
B. 1949
In the face of loss - human, natural, temporal - McQueen finds salvation in language. Often her work is about artistic endeavour itself: the desire to freeze time, the realisation that this is impossible - Sarah Quigley
Poet
David Eggleton
B. 1952
A dynamic reader, Eggleton has a rapid-fire delivery that releases a torrent of images, some startling, ugly, or funny - Greg O'Brien
Poet
Gerard Manley Hopkins
B. 1844 D. 1889
“A great work by an Englishman is like a great battle won by England. It is an unfading bay tree.”
Poet
Andrew Johnston
B. 1963
Rest on memory's sea-bed: we will swim down to thee. - Andrew Johnston, 'The Sunflower'
Poet
Dan Burt
B. 1942
The verse flexes muscle after muscle...The writing...can hover and dance. It has genuine grace. - George Szirtes
Poet
Ezra Pound
B. 1885 D. 1972
Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand. - Ezra Pound
Poet
Sylvia Plath
B. 1932 D. 1963
The blood jet is poetry,/ There is no stopping it. - 'Kindness', Sylvia Plath (written 1st February 1963)
Poet
Kevin Crossley Holland
B. 1941
There is something white stars say to you/and you throw off all the night to hear the sound of falling snow. - 'White Noise', Kevin Crossley-Holland