| For World Book Day this year, on 3 March, we are all encouraged to recommend a book, using one of the eight million postcards being distributed round the UK - add your poetry recommendations to our list.
The strength of a friend's glowing recommendation often carries more weight than any newspaper review or bookshop promotion. The Scottish Poetry Library counts itself lucky in its friends and supporters, and in the enthusiasm that its staff and readers have for a wide range of poetry, so we have been holding our own search for poetry recommendations. We're asking borrowers, staff, visitors and reading groups to Crichton's Close to give us a note of the poems, poets and collections they'd heartily recommend to anyone.
Come into the Scottish Poetry Library to pick up some of the World Book Day postcards – while stocks last – and while you are here, please add your own suggestions to the growing pile of recommendation cards. An old favourite or a wonderful new find, we'd welcome your comments. You could even make a new discovery yourself through another reader's enthusiasm.
This is a selection from the suggestions we've received
so far. We plan to add to the list below right up to
World Book Day on 3 March, taking suggestions from the
comment cards in the library, or you can email a recommendation
to lfraser@spl.org.uk.
If it inspires you to try something new, or to revisit
a forgotten pleasure, please check the online
catalogue to browse through the books that we hold
in the collection. If you live outside Edinburgh, remember
you can visit the outlying
collections, or borrow by post.
"A Priest Came On At Merkland Street'
in Intimate Voices: Selected Work 1965-1983
by Tom Leonard
"The Creel' in The Tree-House
by Kathleen Jamie
"The Dead' in Wearing Emily Dickinson's
Clothes by Billy Collins –
"fantastic writer!'
"Favrile' in Sweet Machine by
Mark Doty
Cromwell: A Poem by Brendan
Kennelly
"The Heron of the Snows' in Open
World: Collected Poems 1960-2000 by Kenneth White
Burning Whins by Liz
Niven and Into the Blue Wavelengths: love
poems and elegies by Roderick Watson
- "something for everyone in both, accessible to specialists
and non-specialists, thought-provoking'
'The Cowdenbeath Man' by Willie Hershaw
Almanacs by Jen Hadfield
Anything by Yehuda
Amichai, Thomas
Hardy, or Norman
MacCaig
The World Book Day campaign has special
resources for children and young people. The Scottish
Poetry Library's Education Officer, Lorna Irvine, recommends
these poetry books for the library's youngest readers:
Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus
by Tony Mitton and
Guy Parker Rees
"for 2-5 yr olds. Mitigate
the terror of a visit to the Dinosaurs alive exhibition
at the Royal Museum of Scotlandwith this. Wonderful
humour, noisy rhyme – and these dinosaurs have
got rhythm!'
Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles
Andreae and Guy Parker
Rees
"wonderful atmosphere in this rhyming tale
of Gerald, who triumphs by dancing to the beat of his
own drum'
Soapy Baby and Sleepy Baby,
etc by Colin and Jacqui Hawkins
"birth-2
years. Babies wriggling, giggling, nibbling and dribbling
in rhyme, with beautiful clear illustration. Lovely
first books with mirrors on the last pages for added
giggles.'
Anything by Julia Donaldson and
Axel Scheffler (The Gruffalo, Room on the
Broom, The Smartest Giant in Town etc)
"instant
classics to transform bedtime – anytime"
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