Penguin Classics: Lawrence: Selected Poems

Softly in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Talking me back down the vista of years’

From early, rhyming works in Love Poems and Others (1913) to the groundbreaking exploration of free verse in Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923), the poems of D. H. Lawrence challenged convention and inspired later poets. This volume includes extensive selections from these and other editions, and contains some of his most famous poems, such as ‘Piano’, a nostalgic reflection on lost youth and love for his mother; ‘Snake’, exploring human fear of the natural world; the short cutting comment on sexual politics of ‘Can’t Be Borne’; and the quiet philosophical resignation of ‘Basta!’ Using revised poems, but in the order in which they appeared in their original collection, this selection offers a fresh perspective that reveals an innovative poet who gave voice to his most intense emotions.