This year the National Poetry Day team have curated a brilliant selection of new and exciting poetry. The Book Group category is bursting with new adult-aimed poetry collections and anthologies. Thoughtful, topical, and profound, these books make for great discussion at your next book club. 

Mapping the Future edited by Karen McCarthy Woolf and Nathalie Teitler

The Complete Works has become the most successful collective ever formed in British poetry. Mapping the Future is an anthology of new work by all 30 writers the programme has supported.

Poems as Friends edited by Fiona Bennet and Michael Shaeffer

The Poetry Exchange is an award-winning podcast and project that celebrates the role poetry plays in people's lives. In their first anthology, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer draw on ten years of archival material to bring together a collection of poems chosen by readers that know them as friends, presented alongside their personal stories of connection.

Self-Portrait as Othello by Jason Allen-Paisant

Portraiting himself as Othello, Allen-Paisant refracts his European travels and considers the Black male body, its presence, transgressiveness and vulnerabilities.

Material Properties by Jacob Polley

The book is a multi-faceted and vital exploration of the non-human, the elemental and the borders between existences.

Divisible By Itself and One by Kae Tempest

A powerful new collection from our foremost truth-teller Kae Tempest engaged in the big questions and the emotional states in which we live and create for ourselves.

Ambush at Still Lake by Caroline Bird

A bleak but hilarious collection about marriage, lesbian parenthood, addiction and recovery. Her editor welcomed the book in these terms: 'It is bleak, repellent and hilarious in an American Psycho-ish way. Hectic and vivid.'

ISDAL by Susannah Dickey

The much-anticipated debut poetry collection from acclaimed novelist Susannah Dickey, on the subject of our cultural obsession with true crime.

Soul Feast edited by Neil Astley

This is poetry for the soul – a feast of thoughtful poems to stir the mind and feed the spirit. We especially love the broad range of poetry in translation included in this anthology.

And of course, The Forward Book of Poetry 2024.

The newest edition of the Forward anthology, comprising the best contemporary poetry in the UK and Ireland, as seen in the Forward Prizes for Poetry 2024.

You can scroll below to purchase any of the recommended titles, whilst raising much needed-funds for our schools. Buy a Book. Support a School. Make a Difference.

If you are looking for poetry books for children, you can check out the National Poetry Day 2024 poetry book recommendations in the two children's categories over on LoveReading4Kids.

The Children’s category, suitable for ages 0-8, has an array of books that help awaken the playfulness of language through poetry for your little ones. And the Young Readers category (ages 8-14) includes books that brilliantly engage slightly older children, showcasing poetry as an art form, a source of self-expression, and a means of experiencing the world.

@PoetryDayUK