Ten Sexy Poems

This intoxicating selection of poems – a mini-anthology to complement our ever-popular Ten Poems about Love – captures the extraordinary power of desire, from Neil Rollinson’s tenement building stirred by the passion of loving couples on St Valentine’s night, to DH Lawrence’s painterly celebration of a beautiful woman as she washes in early morning sunshine.

Elsewhere, beds become roiling vessels for lovers with “persistent hands”:

“We are bare. We are stripped to the bone
and we swim in tandem and go up and up
the river…”

from ‘December 11th’ by Anne Sexton

There are poems that evoke passion’s intensity, alongside others in which the sensuality is more obliquely expressed – an apple bitten to expose surprising pink flesh or a shipwright rhapsodising over the alluring curves of his ship.

Roses, oysters, chocolate – even a pungent cheese – stir the senses and capture the heady urgency of erotic love. These poems are seductive, and irresistible.

Poems by Kim Addonizio, Jo Bell, Wayne Burrows, Hilary Davies, DH Lawrence, MR Peacocke, Shazea Quraishi, Neil Rollinson, Anne Sexton and James Sheard.