Collected Poems

An expanded edition from the most popular British poet of the late 20th century, “perhaps as completely original a writer as has ever existed” (The Times Literary Supplement).

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough

To get it ready for the plough.

The cabbages are coming now;

The earth exhales.

—from “Slough”

When the beloved English poet John Betjeman’s Collected Poems first appeared in 1958, it made publishing history and has now sold more than two and a half million copies to a steadily expanding readership. Betjeman is that rare poet whose work appeals equally strongly to those who love poetry and to those who rarely read it. No particle or player of a local life was too small to figure at the center of his poems, and, as for his friend Philip Larkin, a formal conservatism was the foil for some of the most pointed and memorable commentaries on his age.

This volume includes a new introduction by Britain’s poet laureate, Andrew Motion, as well as the modern classic Summoned by Bells—the verse autobiography that endeared Betjeman to generations of readers.

“John Betjeman has succeeded better than most of his contemporaries in narrowing the gulf between poetry and the public. In his own province of feeling he has established a personal regency over all contemporary taste.” —The Times (London)

“A poet whose work appealed as much to casual readers as to the literary establishment.” —Herbert Mitgang, The New York Times