The Language of Flowers: Poems

by Jane Holloway (Editor)

A uniquely international anthology--in a beautiful pocket-sized hardcover--that explores the richly symbolic expressiveness of flowers through poems from around the world and through the ages. AN EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY POCKET POET.

Floral symbols adorn the earliest poetry, and over the centuries they became increasingly entwined with myth and legend, with religious symbolism, and with herbal folklore. By the early nineteenth century the "Language of Flora" was an elaborately refined system, especially in England and America, where books listing flower meanings and illustrating them with verse were perennial bestsellers.

Transcending the charm of its Victorian predecessors, this anthology creates an extended, updated, and more robust floral anthology for the twenty-first century, presenting poets through the ages from Sappho, Shakespeare, and Shelley to Ted Hughes, Mary Oliver, and Louise Glück, and across the world from Cuba to Korea, Russia to Zimbabwe. Eastern cultures, rich in flower associations, are well Tang poems celebrating chrysanthemums and peonies, Zen poems about orchids and lotus flowers, poems about jasmine and marigolds from India, and roses and narcissi from Persia, the Ottoman empire, and the Arabic world. The most timeless human emotions and concepts--love, hope, despair, fidelity, grief, beauty, and mortality--find colorful expression in The Language of Flowers.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Nature, Anthologies

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 2017

Reviews

[Sara]

88 pages in and I think I’ll dnf it for now. Someday I’ll enjoy poetry… someday

[Stephen Wong · Rating 5 out of 5]

A companion for the arrival of spring, it had its ways of worming in
A book of poems to kinds of flowers, which you pick and which arrange;
How some even as blossoms blossoming, others wilt in their display
What they in their calyces hide, what vestiges of petals and of style:
A meaning coy in the telling is left unsaid, but for a lei or the bouquet.

[soulady__ · Rating 5 out of 5]

favourites:
• “frankly i wish that i were dead” ; sappho
• “azaleas” ; kim sowol
• “mock orange” ; louise gluck
• “red peonies” ; buson
• “rosebud in the heather” ; j.w von goethe
• “madonna of the evening flowers” ; amy lowell (my favourite)
• “the first jasmines” ; rabindranath tagore

[Mariam Farooq · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT EVER!
It’s like this was compiled for me…🥲

[Regitze Xenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to read more poetry again and this was a really fine collection. With collections like these, I always favour some poems over others but generally I enjoyed reading this book.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely anthology about flower themed poems. If it's a flower, there's a poem and quite a few of them are in this cute book, part of the Everyman's Library. However, there not enough tulip-related poems ;)

[Rachel Earling-Hopson (Misse Mouse) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all poems, but the one of flowers and gardens and death come full circle to me. Enjoy the beauty for soon it will be gone and withered away.

[Sarah Dunmire · Rating 3 out of 5]

The organization and formatting of this book wasn’t as clean/logical as usual for the Everyman’s Pocket Poetry series. Many of the poems did not draw me in. However, the list below did! Also, I learned about flowers I didn’t know before and looked them up to understand the poem better. There’s also a cool language of flowers glossary like the Victorian flower language.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Sonnet LX: To an amiable girl
Oh See How Thick the Goldcup Flowers
So Has a Daisy Vanished
A Daisy
Peonies at Jixing Temple
On a Rosebud Sent to her Lover
Among His Books
Gardeners All
Sonnet LXIV
The Lily’s Delusion
Sheltered Garden
The Chrysanthemums in the Eastern Garden
The Blue Bell is the Sweetest Flower

[Matthew Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful anthology. I bought it for my mother as a birthday present but gave it to her late because I enjoyed reading it so much myself.

The collection has been extremely well thought out, and includes old favourites alongside poems and poets I've never heard of before. Poems from different periods and styles are placed together according to themes. This led me to look at many poems I thought I knew with fresh eyes.

I should also say that the book is beautifully produced and presented and fits perfectly in your pocket. Ideal for carrying around with you. I loved it (and so did my mum when she eventually received it).

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable little book. Not only are the poem selections quite good, but even the pattern of the jacket, the deep green color of the cover and the texture of the pages are satisfying. I would have appreciated a little heavier representation of East Asian and Middle Eastern poets, but I did enjoy the selections presented.

[Katy Ellison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this story so very much!

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, despite the beautiful cover, this was a boring collection. Only enjoyed a handful of the poems. Really disappointed…

[Aby Joyner · Rating 4 out of 5]

good cute little poetry book. really enjoyed.

[arjen k. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a cute collection of poems! I am super judgmental of English poems, so there was nothing I absolutely loved. I will check out the Turkish ones later and read them in my own language.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cute concept!

[Matthew Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful anthology. I bought it for my mother as a birthday present but gave it to her late because I enjoyed reading it so much myself.

The collection has been extremely well thought out, and includes old favourites alongside poems and poets I've never heard of before. Poems from different periods and styles are placed together according to themes. This led me to look at many poems I thought I knew with fresh eyes.

I should also say that the book is beautifully produced and presented and fits perfectly in your pocket. Ideal for carrying around with you. I loved it (and so did my mum when she eventually received it).