The ring of words - Roger McGough

Roger McGough's The Ring of Words is a perfect introduction to the pleasures of poetry. His selection is wonderfully varied, drawing on classic and contemporary poets, and illustrates, if there were any doubters, just how relevant poetry is to our lives. The poems are, in one way or another, about growing up: placing ourselves in the world around us and discovering the imaginative world in our own heads. There are poems of exhilaration and poems of sadness, poems that ambush us with the unexpected (and make us think about something all over again) and poems that make us laugh out loud. Whether about secret passions or shared enthusiasms, dreams of escape or longing for home, each of the poems has its own ring of truth which will resound in readers of all ages. The book has been beautifully illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura, whose distinctive and quirky style makes the book a feast for the eye as well as the ear.