More poetry, please?

Pronouncing poetry dead is a yearly ritual for literary journalists—and one easily backed up by sales figures which suggest that, if you're not Seamus Heaney or dead, you'd be better off photocopying pages and handing them out to your relations than trying your luck out on the shelves. But what to make of the bizarre fact that not one but two national newspapers—theGuardian and the Independent—are currently running booklets on great poets as their cover-billed special offers?

Wisdom from our advertising department has it that the coincidence is a ghastly mistake rather than a sinister plot driven by the dark forces of international poetry. But the poetical word does seem to be making something of a comeback as far as newspapers are concerned. For a while now, the Times2 has been publishing a regular poetry column from Frieda Hughes, while the TLS offers its online audience a "poem of the week" in a slightly less vernacular vein. Even the Sun has been getting in on the act. Are books of modern poetry going to start flying off the shelves? I wouldn't hold your breath. But if poetry's your bag, you could do a lot worse than check out a few here.