Classic Poetry: An Illustrated Collection

An ideal gift book for children and adults, this beautiful keepsake volume is the essential collection of classic poetry.

Poetry provides the best introduction to the marvels of the English language. This volume, collected by award-winning author Michael Rosen, presents a glorious selection of classic poetry, chronologically arranged from the seventeenth century to modern day—poems by such celebrated poets as William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, Carl Sandburg, and Langston Hughes— complete with biographical sketches of the poets, information on individual poems, and notes on poetic forms. Paul Howard's full-color illustrations illuminate some of the most brilliant poems of the English-speaking world with stunning breadth and beauty. A book to be treasured, Classic Poetry belongs on every shelf—every child should know these poems and keep this book with them as they grow.

Paul Howard decided that his portraits would show the poets to be as young as possible without depicting them as children. The idea, he says, was to demonstrate "that you don't have to be a wrinkly old man to be a poet. It's a common image, but I wanted to make these poets an inspiration to young people, to show that you can be a poet at any age."

Michael Rosen says, "The idea behind this book is to show that great poems have been written by real people who lived in their own time and in their own place — and to offer new insights into poems, poets, and the relationships between them. It offers a springboard to children and adults wanting to find out more and explore the world of poetry."