Catching life by the throat : how to read poetry and why

This book is an anthology of poems by WH Auden, TS Eliot, Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, Rudyard Kipling, Sylvia Plath and W B Yeats, introduced by Josephine Hart and accompanied by a complimentary 80 minute CD featuring a selection of the actors' readings. 'The idea is simple, ' says Josephine Hart as she introduces the poets and takes us through their life and writings, 'an understanding of the life and philosophy of the poet illuminates the poetry and therefore makes the experience of reading or listening to each poem more intense.' 'This book will, I hope, bring the magic of the events to a much greater audience.' Whether you believe, like Robert Frost, that poetry is a way of catching life by the throat or, like Eliot, it is one person talking to another, nobody does it better than the poets whose work and life will feature in this publication.