Leyshon, Thyrza ref1

Lorde, Audre ref1

Lowell, Amy ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

McNish, Hollie ref1

Mahfouz, Sabrina ref1

Mansfield, Katherine ref1, ref2

Mew, Charlotte ref1, ref2

Millay, Edna St Vincent ref1

Mistral, Gabriela ref1

Mitchell, Elma ref1

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley ref1

Moore, Virginia ref1

Morgan, Elin Llwyd ref1

Morgan, Esther ref1

Morgan, Michaela ref1

Nelson, Portia ref1

Nichols, Grace ref1

Patel, Sheena ref1

Petit, Pascale ref1

Piercey, Rachel ref1

Plath, Sylvia ref1

Pope, Jessie ref1

Pugh, Sheenagh ref1

Quraishi, Shazea ref1

Ridge, Lola ref1

Roberts, Michèle ref1

Rooney, Rachel ref1

Rossetti, Christina ref1

Rukeyser, Muriel ref1

Runner, Olive ref1

Sappho ref1

Satyamurti, Carole ref1

Seward, Anna ref1

Sexton, Anne ref1

Shikibu, Izumi ref1

Shuttle, Penelope ref1

Sinclair, May ref1

Sitwell, Edith ref1

Smith, Maggie ref1

Smith, Stevie ref1, ref2

Södergran, Edith ref1

Spencer, Anne ref1

Steel, Ellie ref1

Sute-Jo, Den ref1

Swenson, May ref1

Teasdale, Sara ref1

Tempest, Kae ref1

Thakur, Sophia ref1

Tiwo, Michelle ref1

Towers, Katharine ref1

Urban, Vivien ref1

Wakeling, Kate ref1

Wheatley, Phillis ref1

Wickham, Anna ref1

Wiggins, Ella May ref1

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler ref1

Williams, Chrissy ref1

Wylie, Elinor ref1

Yün-feng, Sun ref1

Zhawi, Belinda ref1

Acknowledgements

An enormous and heartfelt thank you to every poet who has given permission for us to include their work in this book. I’m extremely star-struck around poets, because they are magic. Thank you all for writing such extraordinarily brilliant work and sharing it with us. I’m also immensely grateful for all the women from centuries past for writing and publishing despite everything that was stacked them. I hope you’ll find new homes in the hearts of new readers who pick up this book.

Thanks always to wonderful Gaby Morgan: you are a brilliant publisher and I feel extremely lucky to have you as my editor. Huge thanks also to design genius Rachel Vale, Publicity and Marketing dream team Amber Ivatt and Maria Higgins, to Simran Sandhu and Charlie Selvaggi-Castelletti for their tenacity in tracking down even the most obscure of permissions and to the whole Macmillan Children’s team for all their hard work getting this book into readers’ hands.

Special thanks to the fast fingers of Charlie Selvaggi-Castelletti, Rachel Petty, Arub Ahmed and Cate Augustin for typing up the manuscript during lockdown. Thanks, finally, to my daughters, Sophie and Laura, for occupying themselves with a minimum of howling and fighting as I completed this book during lockdown and my husband Mark, for being so supportive despite his firm belief that the rude limerick is the only true poetic form.

The compiler and publisher would like to thank the following for permission to use their copyright material: