This Companion provides new ways of reading women's poetry.The book offers insights on a century of writers, drawing out the special function of poetry and the poets' use of language, experimental poetics, war, history, landscape, cultural identity or 'confessional' lyrics. The chapters cover well established and less familiar poets, from Edith Sitwell and Mina Loy, through Stevie Smith, Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Jennings to Anne Stevenson, Eavan Boland and Jo Shapcott. They also include poets at the forefront of poetry trends, such as Liz Lochhead, Jackie Kay, Patience Agbabi, Caroline Bergvall, Medbh McGuckian and Carol Ann Duffy. With a chronology and guide to further reading.