The Map and the Clock

Book excerpt: Curated by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke, the National Poet of Wales, this new anthology gathers from centuries of essential poems. The editors have drawn on the rich languages of these islands, starting with the very first poets whose names we know - Taliesin and Aneirin, who composed in Welsh and Old Brythoneg in what is now Scotland - 'to begin at the beginning', to explore the poetry of Ireland and the British Isles in order to tell our story across the ages in this beautiful, vital treasury.