Well, no one is responding much to these, but plenty are reading them, so I'll post the other two...

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Building a poetry library

In the second part of this series, Roddy Lumsden recommends Selected and Collected volumes by living British and Irish poets...

In days gone by, the appearance of a book of Selected Poems was a landmark for a poet, conferring status following half a dozen slim volumes. A Collected Poems was a brick-sized tribute in the dotage of a celebrated poet, or came about posthumously. These days, with changes in bookselling, and when poetry is carefully marketed, things are different (a friend has just published his Collected at the age of 47). It is not easy to keep single volumes readily available, so Selecteds often appear after three books, especially from those poets whose appeal is wide, or who have attracted notice from the overseas market.

The downside of a Selected volume is that you lose the unified mood of a single book, which builds when you read a group of forty poems which a poet has written over a few years. Many single volumes will contain set pieces – satires, poems for occasions, topical poems, and these tend to get cut for the Selected, along with the poems which now make the poet grimace. However, such an anthology can offer a wide-ranging introduction to a poet who has passed you by.

Now aged 86, Edwin Morgan is Scotland's foremost poet, and has overseen a few round-ups of his work, including a masterful Collected Translations. A good starting point is his New Selected Poems (Carcanet). The breadth of Morgan's spirit and wit is shown in the fact that he appeals equally to children and to modernist academics. Though known for traditional, lyric verse, including moving poems of love and war, Morgan has reached into all corners, penning sci-fi verse, concrete poetry, 'scratch' and sound poetry and poems supposedly written by computers, fruit and the Loch Ness monster. If this sampler is not enough for some, there is also a 600 page Collected to dip into, without a single dud page.

Selima Hill has published ten poetry collections since the early 1980s. Many of the more recent ones are book-length sequences, but Trembling Hearts In The Bodies Of Dogs (Bloodaxe) - wonderfully named after a surreal drawing - selects from her first four books. Hill's strength is in matching formal poetry (she is a great lover and stretcher of the basic pentameter line) with extravagant subject matter – dreamlike, charming, often disarming. Animals make regular appearances in Hill's racy and tangential poems, as do men, by turns feckless and boundless. A supreme stylist, she has often been copied, but not yet matched.

Given the strength of Irish poetry in recent decades, it's no surprise to now see a number of weighty retrospectives from Irish writers. The recently published Collected Poems (Cape) of Michael Longley is a prime example. Prolific in the 60s and 70s, Longley was quiet for a decade before returning with two immaculate books in the 90s. His poetry – tender work whether his subject is Irish landscape, foreign travel or the politics of country or family – is always careful, and its honed structures and economy are fine lessons for aspiring poets. Meanwhile, New Selected Poems 1968-1994 (Faber) is the best place to start with Paul Muldoon, often named as the 'poet's poet' bar none. Muldoon's style – lyric narratives packed with arcane lore, striking imagery and offbeat rhymes – has been an influence on many poets in recent decades. His poetry since the late 80s is often complex but rewarding. Other readers will enjoy the more approachable and charming poems from Muldoon's earlier collections. A plumper Faber selection (Poems 1968-1998) is also available.

Many readers enjoy humorous poetry, so I'd like to recommend The Colour of Black and White (Polygon) by Liz Lochhead, whose spiky, musical poems and performances have been entertaining readers and audiences for many years. Paul Durcan's A Snail In My Prime (Harvill Press) selects from several books of capricious and cunning poems, many of them satires on Irish society, which range from the outrageously comic to the deadly serious. Also, try the new Selected Poems (Penguin) from Sophie Hannah, a still-young poet whose formal ease is contrasted with witty takes on modern society.

Those wishing to explore less traditional strands of British poetry are recommended to start with the handsome Selected Poems (Reality Street) from Denise Riley who mixes the vibrant language of politics and popular culture with the busy surface and unusual syntax of innovative poetry. John James, whose Collected Poems is published by Salt, is a poet aligned to the formidable Cambridge School, often renowned as difficult, but James's work, though unusual, is lighter: sparky and distinctive stuff.

Too many poetry readers stick to anthologies and miss out on the pleasures to be derived from getting to know individual poets. As with music, individual pieces tend to open up the rest of the package, allowing you to appreciate style and persona as well as the music and meanings of single poems – and these are crucial aspects to grasp if you are planing to write your own poems. Most books of Selected and Collected Poems are very good value for money – a half hour spent browsing in a bookshop with a generous poetry section is bound to pay rewards.