What were the key poetry titles from the 1980s, the ones no self-respecting ‘poetry nut’ should be without? Here are some suggestions for building your poetry library:
- John Agard: Mangoes and Bullets (Pluto Press, 1985)
- Simon Armitage: Zoom! (Bloodaxe, 1989)
- John Ash: The Goodbyes (Carcanet, 1982)
- John Ashbery: Shadow Train (Penguin, 1981)
- John Ashbery: A Wave (Viking, 1984)
- Neil Astley (ed.): Poetry with an Edge (Bloodaxe 1988)
- Edward Kamau Brathwaite: X/Self (Oxford Poets, 1987)
- John Burnside: The Hoop (Carcanet, 1988)
- Amy Clampitt: What the Light Was Like (Faber 1986)
- Gillian Clarke: Letter From A Far Country (Carcanet, 1982)
- Wendy Cope: Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (Faber & Faber, 1986)
- Fred D’Aguiar: Airy Hall (Chatto 1989)
- Donald Davie: To Scorch or Freeze (Carcanet, 1988)
- Dick Davis: Devices and Desires: New and Selected Poems (Anvil, 1989)
- Dick Davis: The Covenant: Poems 1979-1983 (Anvil, 1984)
- Peter Didsbury: The Butchers of Hull (Bloodaxe, 1982)
- Michael Donaghy: Shibboleth (Oxford Poets, 1988)
- Carol Ann Duffy: Standing Female Nude (Anvil 1985)
- Douglas Dunn: Elegies (Faber & Faber, 1985)
- U.A. Fanthorpe: Standing To (Peterloo Poets, 1982)
- U.A. Fanthorpe: Voices Off (Peterloo Poets, 1984)
- U.A. Fanthorpe: Selected Poems (Peterloo Poets/King Penguin, 1986)
- Roy Fisher: A Furnace (Oxford Poets, 1986)
- Carolyn Forché: The Country Between Us (Harper & Row, 1981)
- Anthony Glavin: The Wrong side of the Alps (Gallery Press, 1989)
- Jorie Graham: Erosion (Princeton, 1983)
- Thom Gunn: The Passages of Joy (Faber & Faber, 1982)
- Robert Hass: Human Wishes (Ecco, 1989)
- Seamus Heaney: Station Island (Faber & Faber, 1984)
- Seamus Heaney: The Haw Lantern (Faber & Faber, 1987)
- Rita Ann Higgins: Goddess on the Mervue Bus (Salmon, 1986)
- Selima Hill: Accumulation of Small Acts of Kindness (Chatto & Windus, 1989)
- Geoffrey Hill: The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy (OUP, 1985)
- Geoffrey Hill: Collected Poems (King Penguin, 1985)
- Michael Hofmann: Acrimony (Faber & Faber, 1986)
- Miroslav Holub: Interferon, or on Theater Field Translation, No 7 (Oberlin College Press, 1982)
- Frances Horovitz: Collected Poems (Bloodaxe, 1985)
- Ted Hughes: Wolfwatching (Faber & Faber, 1989)
- Jenny Joseph: Persephone (Bloodaxe Books, 1985)
- Judith Kazantzis: The Wicked Queen (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1982)
- Judith Kazantzis: Touch Papers, with Michele Roberts and Michelene Wandor (Allison and Busby, 1982)
- Judith Kazantzis: Let’s Pretend (Virago, 1984)
- Judith Kazantzis: A Poem for Guatemala (Bedlam, 1986)
- Judith Kazantzis: Flame Tree (Methuen, 1988)
- Liz Lochead: Dreaming Frankenstein (Polygon, 1984)
- Christopher Logue: War Music (Jonathan Cape, 1981)
- George MacBeth: Anatomy of a Divorce (Hutchinson, 1988)
- Derek Mahon: Courtyards in Delft (Gallery Press, 1981)
- Derek Mahon: The Hunt By Night (Oxford University Press, 1982)
- Derek Mahon: Antarctica (Gallery Press, 1985)
- James Merrill: The Changing Light At Sandover (Simon & Schuster, 1982)
- Edwin Morgan: Selected Poems (Canta/Carcanet Press, 1985)
- Andrew Motion: Secret Narratives (The Salamander Press, 1983)
- Paul Muldoon: Why Brownlee Left (Faber & Faber, 1980)
- Paul Muldoon: Quoof (Faber & Faber, 1983)
- Paul Muldoon: Meeting the British (Faber & Faber, 1987)
- Les Murray: The Daylight Moon (Carcanet, 1988)
- Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin: The Magdalene Sermon (Gallery Press, 1989)
- Mary Oliver: American Primitive (Little, Brown, 1983)
- Fiona Pitt-Kethley Sky Ray Lolly (Chatto & Windus, 1986)
- Sylvia Plath: Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1981)
- Vasko Popa: Homage to the Lame Wolf: Selected poems 1956-1975, translated by Charles Simic (Oberlin College Press, 1987)
- Peter Porter: The Automatic Oracle (Oxford Poets, 1987)
- Tom Paulin: Fivemiletown (Faber & Faber, 1987)
- Craig Raine: Rich (Faber & Faber, 1984)
- Peter Reading: C (Secker & Warburg, 1984)
- Peter Reading: Stet (Secker & Warburg, 1986)
- Peter Reading: Perduta Gente (Secker & Warburg, 1989)
- Christopher Reid: Katerina Brac (Faber & Faber, 1985)
- Adrienne Rich: A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far (W.W. Norton, 1981)
- James Schuyler: The Morning of the Poem (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1980)
- Jo Shapcott: Electroplating the Baby (Bloodaxe, 1988)
- Charles Simic: Selected Poems 1963-1983 (Secker & Warburg, 1986)
- Ken Smith: Fox Running (Rolling Moss Press, 1981)
- Ken Smith: Terra: New Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 1986)
- Anna Swir: Fat Like the Sun, translated by M. Marshment and G. Baran (The Women’s Press, 1986)
- Mona Van Duyn: Letters from a Father (Atheneum, 1982)
- Derek Walcott: Midsummer (Faber & Faber, 1984)
- Robert Wells: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 1986)
- Richard Wilbur: New and Selected Poems (Mariner, 1988)
- C.K. Williams: Flesh and Blood (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1987)
- Clive Wilmer: Devotions (Carcanet, 1982)
