The Gathering: Collected Poems

People, places, things and ideas dominate this collection of poems from Valerie Mendes, whose first offerings were published when she was six years old.

Here is her choice of her Top Seventy poems. They take us from her London childhood to her years spent in Oxford and Woodstock, with a special section about birds in woods, farms and on the coast, to others dedicated to the gardens surrounding Blenheim Palace and the special magic of Oxfordshire’s Wytham Woods.

Polished, shining, short, pithy and true, this delightful collection marks the end of the pandemic and celebrates the dawning of a new creative day.