Dementia-friendly, vision-friendly illustrated classic poetry for poetry lovers who struggle to concentrate.

My dear late mum loved poetry, but there came a point when she found it hard to read her old poetry books. Then as I read aloud to her, I was reminded how sad and mournful many classic poems are…

I decided to create some collections of cheerful or inspiring verses from classic English poems, in extra large print, with gorgeous photographs of the English countryside. (As I’ve continued and extended the series, I’ve included gorgeous photographs from other English-speaking countries!)

The quest for positive or uplifting verses, around 10 lines maximum, does mean that there are familiar poems that you won’t see in these books. (The boy stood on the burning deck, etc). However, I’ve tried to include a mix of poems that may be familiar from school days, and some that may be new but have the same quality and charm.

Just an alert – I’ve called each book ‘An Anthology’, but because of the needs of this group, the books are actually slim, light and easy to handle… not a great thick tome!

There are now 10 titles:

• Illustrated Nature Poetry
• More Illustrated Nature Poetry
• Illustrated Love Poetry
• Illustrated Garden Poetry
• Illustrated Poetry of Awe and Wonder
• Illustrated Read-Aloud Poetry
• Illustrated Christmas Poetry
• Illustrated Irish Poetry
• Illustrated Australian Poetry
• Illustrated Nature Poetry from Canada

The audience for these books is older adults who have been poetry lovers, but are now living with vision problems, mild cognitive loss or confusion, or are simply ‘too tired to read’.

There have been studies on the value of poetry and of shared reading for dementia, which I’ve included in the ‘Useful info’ section of this site.