Calling all poetry lovers! Why not treat your loved one to a Poetry Book Society gift membership this Valentine's Day for a thoughtful gift which keeps giving all year around? PBS members receive our PBS Bulletin poetry magazine and lots of lovely books every quarter in the post. Find out more about the different gift membership options here. We've also rounded up a romantic range of books for the poetry lover in your life. Don't forget PBS Members get 25% off their orders.
Love Poems Anthology (Candlestick Press)
Ten tender, fun and flirty perspectives on the longing and pain, delight,. infatuation and lasting happiness that answer to the name of ‘love’. Perfect for Valentine’s Day, wedding or civil ceremony guest ‘favours’, anniversaries or for anyone in love, including poems from Wendy Cope to Shakespeare.
Love Poems by Carol Ann Duffy (Picador)
Whether writing of longing or seduction, passion, adultery, or simple, everyday acts of love, the UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy perfectly captures the truth of each experience. Love Poems contains some of her most popular poems - imaginative, heartfelt and direct.
The Emma Press Anthology of Love
Love is transcendent and love is everyday, found equally in a remembered tune, on the seashore or in a cup of tea. Often awkward, never perfect, romantic relationships have been a key subject for poets for centuries. In The Emma Press Anthology of Love, fifty-six poets speak to what love means to them right here, right now.
Beloved by Hafez (Bloodaxe)
Hafez is among the most celebrated of Persian mystic poets. An ardent mystic and lover, he fuses earthly and divine love with an intense constancy. Few translations of Hafez have matched his beauty, musicality and rich complexity with such sensuality.
A Self Help Guide to Being in Love with Jeremy Corbyn by Jess Green (Burning Eye Books)
After a decade of keeping her Labour membership card firmly at the back of her wallet poet Jess Green suddenly, like most frustrated lefty activists, fell head over heels in love with Jeremy Corbyn and his raw Communist sex appeal. A light-hearted collection for the lefty lover in your life!
Soho by Richard Scott (Faber)
This T.S. Eliot shortlisted collection offers a heartfelt and horny love song to Soho. A homoerotic and deeply moving debut collection which is as powerful and political as it is personal and passionate.
Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda Poems (Bloodaxe)
A stunning collection gathering together previously unknown poems found by archivists in boxes kept at the Pablo Neruda Foundation in Chile in 2014. Neruda's signature love poems and odes are steeped in sensuality as well as the strength and beauty of the people and landscape of his native Chile.
And for the anti-Valentine's Day brigade, why not check out our Spring Recommendation Jane Yeh's Discipline (Carcanet) for the heartfelt hilarity of 'Self Portrait as a Spinster' - "somewhere on the moon, a clanger emits a distant, mournful chirp".
You can also pick up Sophie Hannah's fun and flirty Valentine's Day One Plum Poem Card here. Order your copies today in time for Valentine's Day on Thursday.