At the time of writing there’s 23 hours of poetic content throughout the two seasons of The Poetry Show. Through this time there has been 21 different poets/writers featured on the show and a whopping 247 poems have been performed, so we’re doing the dirty work for you — we’ve chosen 10 poems from The Poetry Show you should listen to right now! (It’s worth noting that this list is random and you should also listen to the 237 other poems because they are incredible too.)

10. Jennifer29 Goes Quiet
This is from The Poetry Show’s resident rap poet, Laurence O’Reilly and it was featured on the first ever episode, Love. This poem takes a look at how dating websites and is more of a frustration poem than a love poem. Listen to the poem now.

9. The God Squad
This is a poem by Rose Drew that featured in the Religion episode. It was written about a time when she had just got out of hospital a few years ago. Listen to the poem now.

8. Red Handed, Pants Down
This poem is also from season one’s Religion episode. Charli Goodfellow tells this one and lets us know that it is from the point of view of a women caught in adultery. Listen to the poem now.

7. Plane Beat
This is a poem from Alan Gillott that takes the boringness of travelling but spins it on it’s head and talks about the romanticism of travelling via the night train and having the wind go through your hair when on a ship. Listen to this poem now from the Travel episode.

6. Tidal Repairman
This poem (from Laurence O’Reilly) takes a look at how some school teachers get poetry wrong, sometimes souring poetry for you. This is from the Not What You Learned In School episode. Listen to the poem now.

5. Shy People (YouTube Closed Captions)
From the Technology episode, this poem takes Laurence O’Reilly’s Shy People but it is rewritten by YouTube’s closed captions system, which creates a very funny poem. Listen to it now.

4. Small Girlfriends
This is a poem from one of the shows very special guests, Kate Fox. This was one of the first performance poems she wrote. She dedicates this poem to anyone that is under 5’3″. This is a very funny poem from a very funny poet, writer and comedian. Listen to it now.

3. My Cell
We’ve got another poem from Alan Gillott making the list. This poem is about a post-911 world, where Alan had to leave America and only just managed to get a single room to live in and that was it. Listen to the poem now.

2. The Test Tube Of Things And Stuff
This is a great, funny poem from special guest poet Damian O’Connor. He cobbled this poem up just a couple of days before he came in to record the show, so yeah, it’s an exclusive. Listen to the poem now.

1. Pygmalion
This is a poem from Kit Marshall that was featured on the Mythology episode. This poem is a feature of Kit’s experiences in modern society; how women are treated and how appearance is somehow the be all and end all. Anyway, listen to this poem now.

Did you enjoy these poems? Let us know! And also let us know if you would like another list of amazing poems from The Poetry Show to be conjured up!