Poetry Recordings: Anthologies

‘Truly fine poetry must be read aloud.’

– Jorge Luis Borges, short-story writer and poet

Professional recordings of well-loved poetry to breathe life into study and fully engage students with the subtle complexities of the art form. Provided on CD, these readings can be played in class or uploaded onto a VLE.

  • Familiarise students with key aspects of poetry including metre, rhyme and rhythm
  • Beautifully read aloud by experienced West End actors!
  • Recordings include female and male readers and Scottish, English and American accents where possible.

Superior sound quality.

M McPherson, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer

Excellent quality. We ordered this because we wanted to introduce high quality readings to our pupils.

C Tardios, English Teacher & Customer

Authentic voice!

P Metcalf, English Teacher & Peer Reviewer


2015 Specifications

Love Poetry Through the Ages (A Level AQA A Selection)

14 poems, 20 minutes on one CD:
  1. 'Whoso List to Hunt' by Thomas Wyatt
  2. Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare
  3. 'The Flea' by John Donne
  4. 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvell
  5. 'The Scrutiny' by Richard Lovelace
  6. 'Absent from Thee' by John Wilmot by Earl of Rochester
  7. 'The Garden of Love' by William Blake
  1. 'Ae Fond Kiss' by Robert Burns
  2. 'She Walks in Beauty' by Lord Byron
  3. 'Remember' by Christina Rossetti
  4. 'The Ruined Maid' by Thomas Hardy
  5. 'At an Inn' by Thomas Hardy
  6. 'La Belle Dame sans Merci' by John Keats
  7. 'Non sum Qualis eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae' by Ernest Dowson

John Keats Selected Poems (A Level AQA B Selection)

4 poems, 98 minutes on three CDs:
  1. 'Lamia'
  2. 'Isabella'
  3. 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'
  4. 'The Eve of St Agnes'

Scars Upon My Heart (Selection for A Level AQA A)

18 poems, 30 minutes on one CD:
  1. 'From A Trench' by Maude Anna Bell
  2. 'Drafts' by Nora Bomford
  3. 'A Volunteer' by Helen Parry Eden
  4. 'The Wykehamist' by Nora Griffiths
  5. 'Convalescence' by Amy Lowell
  6. 'The Cenotaph, September 1919' by Charlotte Mew
  7. 'May, 1915' by Charlotte Mew
  8. 'June, 1915' by Charlotte Mew
  9. 'In A Restaurant, 1917' by Eleanour Norton
  1. 'The Minority: 1917' by May O'Rourke
  2. 'SALL, (In Aid of the Wounded Horses)' by Inez Quilter (Aged 11 years)
  3. 'Y.M.C.A.' by C. A. L. T.
  4. 'Spring in War-Time' by Sara Teasdale
  5. 'There will come soft rains' by Sara Teasdale
  6. 'The Broken Soldier' by Katherine Tynan
  7. 'A Girl's Song' by Katherine Tynan
  8. 'Joining the Colours' (West Kents, Dublin, August 1914) by Katherine Tynan
  9. 'Autumn, 1914' by Mary Webb

The Oxford Book of War Poetry: Poetry Recordings (Selection for A Level AQA A)

34 poems, 62 minutes on two CDs:
  1. 'Men Who March Away' by Thomas Hardy
  2. 'In Time of The Breaking of Nations' by Thomas Hardy
  3. 'Peace' by Rupert Brooke
  4. 'The Dead' by Rupert Brooke
  5. 'The Soldier' by Rupert Brooke
  6. 'Into Battle' by Julian Grenfell
  7. 'In Flanders Fields' by John McCrae
  8. 'All the hills and vales along' by Charles Sorley, read in an English accent
  9. 'All the hills and vales along' by Charles Sorley, read in a Scottish accent
  10. 'When you see millions of the mouthless dead' by Charles Sorley, read in an English accent
  11. 'When you see millions of the mouthless dead' by Charles Sorley, read in an Scottish accent
  12. 'Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries' by A E Housman
  13. 'An Irish Airman Foresees His Death' by W B Yeats
  14. 'In Memoriam' (August 1915) by Edward Thomas
  15. 'The Cherry Trees' by Edward Thomas
  16. 'Rain' by Edward Thomas
  17. 'As the Team's Head Brass' by Edward Thomas
  1. 'To His Love' by Ivor Gurney
  2. 'Ballad of the Three Spectres' by Ivor Gurney
  3. 'The Silent One' by Ivor Gurney
  4. 'On Receiving News of the War' by Isaac Rosenberg
  5. 'August 1914' by Isaac Rosenberg
  6. 'Break of Day in the Trenches' by Isaac Rosenberg
  7. 'Dead Man's Dump' by Isaac Rosenberg
  8. 'Returning, We Hear the Larks' by Isaac Rosenberg
  9. 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' by Wilfred Owen
  10. 'Dulce et Decorum est' by Wilfred Owen
  11. 'Exposure' by Wilfred Owen
  12. 'Insensibility' by Wilfred Owen
  13. 'The Send-Off' by Wilfred Owen
  14. 'Futility' by Wilfred Owen
  15. 'Strange Meeting' by Wilfred Owen
  16. 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard' by G K Chesterton
  17. 'Epitaphs of the War' by Rudyard Kipling

Legacy Specifications

Alfred Tennyson: Poetry Recordings (A Level AQA B Literature Selection)

6 poems, 40 minutes on one CD:
  1. 'The Lotos-Eaters and the Choric Song'
  2. 'Ulysses'
  3. 'Tithonus'
  1. 'Godiva'
  2. 'The Lady of Shalott'
  3. 'Mariana'

Lyrical Ballads

4 poems, 10 parts, 85 minutes on two CDs:
  1. 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (in seven parts)
  2. 'Goody Blake and Harry Gill' by William Wordsworth
  3. 'The Thorn' by William Wordsworth
  4. 'The Idiot Boy' by William Wordsworth

Pre-1800 Pastoral Poetry

10 poems, 64 minutes on one CD:
  1. 'The Garden' by Andrew Marvell
  2. 'The Mower, Against Glow Worms' by Andrew Marvell
  3. 'The Mower's Song' by Andrew Marvell
  4. 'The Mower to the Glow Worms' by Andrew Marvell
  5. 'Damon the Mower' by Andrew Marvell
  1. Paradise Lost Book IX Lines 192-269 by John Milton
  2. 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' by Thomas Gray
  3. 'Ode to Evening' by William Collins
  4. 'The Deserted Village' by Oliver Goldsmith
  5. 'Tintern Abbey' by William Wordsworth

Up the Line to Death

60 poems, 92 minutes on two CDs:
  1. From 'Men Who March Away (Song of the Soldiers)' Thomas Hardy
  2. 'Happy is England Now' John Freeman
  3. 'The Call' W N Hodgson
  4. 'England to her Sons' W N Hodgson
  5. 'Peace' Rupert Brooke
  6. 'Officer's Mess' Harold Monroe
  7. 'No One Cares Less Than I' Edward Thomas
  8. From an Untitled Poem ('Light-lipped and singing...') C H Sorley, read with an English accent
  9. From an Untitled Poem ('Light-lipped and singing...') C H Sorley, read with a Scottish accent
  10. Untitled ('All the hills and vales along...') C H Sorley, read with an English accent
  11. Untitled ('All the hills and vales along...') C H Sorley, read with a Scottish accent
  12. 'Magpies in Picardy' T P Cameron Wilson
  13. 'Soliloquy' Francis Ledwidge
  14. 'Before Action' W N Hodgson
  15. 'The Aisne' Alan Seegar
  16. 'Rendezvous' Alan Seegar
  17. 'A Listening Post' R E Vernède
  18. 'Before the Summer' E A Mackintosh
  19. 'Into Battle' Julian Grenfell
  20. 'Chemin des Dames' Crosbie Garstin
  21. 'This is no Case of Petty Right or Wrong' Edward Thomas
  22. Untitled ('When you see millions...') C H Sorley, read with an English accent
  23. Untitled ('When you see millions...') C H Sorley, read with a Scottish accent
  24. 'To Germany' C H Sorley, read with an English accent
  25. 'To Germany' C H Sorley, read with a Scottish accent
  26. 'The Dead' Rupert Brooke
  27. 'The Anxious Dead' John McCrae
  28. 'In Flanders Fields' John McCrae
  29. 'An Irish Airman foresees his Death' W B Yeats
  30. 'On the Wings of the Morning' Jeffrey Day
  1. 'Outward Bound' Nowell Oxland
  2. Untitled ('I saw a man this morning...') Patrick Shaw-Stewart
  3. 'Mesapotamia' Rudyard Kipling
  4. 'Bombed in London' Rudyard Kipling
  5. 'The War Films' Sir Henry Newbolt
  6. 'The Verdicts (Jutland)' Rudyard Kipling
  7. 'Nineteen-fifteen' John Drinkwater
  8. 'In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations' Thomas Hardy
  9. 'From the Somme' Leslie Coulson
  10. 'Kismet' R. B. Marriott-Watson
  11. 'In Memoriam' E. A. Mackintosh
  12. 'To My Daughter Betty' T M Kettle
  13. 'How Long, O Lord?' Robert Palmer
  14. 'Returning, we hear the Larks' Isaac Rosenberg
  15. 'The Dying Soldier' Isaac Rosenberg
  16. 'Break of Day in the Trenches' Isaac Rosenberg
  17. 'A Death-bed' Rudyard Kipling
  18. 'Recruiting' E A Mackintosh
  19. 'Home Thoughts in Laventie' E W Tennant
  20. 'The Mad Soldier' E W Tennant
  21. 'Louse Hunting' Isaac Rosenberg
  22. 'Dead Man's Dump' Isaac Rosenberg
  23. 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' Wilfred Owen
  24. 'Exposure' Wilfred Owen
  25. 'The Sentry' Wilfred Owen
  26. 'Strange Meeting' Wilfred Owen
  27. 'Dulce et Decorum est' Wilfred Owen
  28. 'A Dead Statesman' Rudyard Kipling
  29. 'Here Dead we Lie' A E Housman
  30. 'Common Form' Rudyard Kipling