This second edition of our popular mini-anthology calls at every stop on love’s roller-coaster journey – from the first dizzy declarations of passion, to the clear-eyed devotion of a couple in old age. In one of the most celebrated of modern love poems, we sense the boundless optimism of love at full tilt:

“…you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you”

from ‘i carry your heart with me’ by ee cummings

Along the way there’s also humour and warmth in the form of a battered straw hat that has come to symbolise what it means to be together for the long haul. These are poems that capture all the light and shade of love; poems to make you think and feel.

The selection is edited and introduced by Lorraine Mariner, a poet and librarian who works at the National Poetry Library in London.

Poems by Fleur Adcock, John Ashbery, ee cummings, Tishani Doshi, Lorraine Mariner, Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, Sinéad Morrissey, Peter Sansom, Alfred, Lord Tennyson and RS Thomas.

Cover illustration by Sara Boccaccini Meadows.