Little Poems

From Sappho and Li Bai to Sandra Cisneros and Ocean Vuong: a pocket-sized treasury of tiny, jewel-like poems from around the world and through the ages

“A lovely pocket-sized volume. . . . I read it cover to cover, speeding through the centuries.” –Elisa Gabbert, The New York Times Book Review

Short poems have been popular for centuries, from the famous fragments of Sappho in ancient Greece to the traditional haiku of Japan, from the Imagist poems of Ezra Pound and H. D. to the witty couplets of Dorothy Parker and Ogden Nash, from lyrical gems by Shakespeare and Rumi to modern classics by W. H. Auden and Margaret Atwood. This collection brings together brief poems—defined as fewer than fourteen lines—from a wide range of poetic traditions. Together they make for enjoyable reading and easy memorizing and provide a wealth of appropriate lines ready-made to copy into a card or an email.

For any poetry lover—and anyone short on reading time—Little Poems offers a generous supply of verses that surprise, amuse, move, and delight. 

Everyman’s Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.