Penguin Modern Poets was a series of 27 poetry books published by Penguin Books in the 1960s and 1970s, each containing work by three contemporary poets (mostly but not exclusively British and American). The series was begun in 1962 and published an average of two volumes per year throughout the 1960s. Each volume was stated to be "an attempt to introduce contemporary poetry to the general reader".[1] The series added up to a substantial survey of English-language poetry of the time.
Penguin Modern Poets was the first venture on the part of Penguin Books to offer contemporary poetry. Although at the time, most poetry was published in expensive hardbound editions, Penguin Modern Poets offered the public samplers of modern verse in inexpensive paperbacks. No. 27, the last of the original series, appeared in 1979.[2]
The outstanding success of the series was No. 10, which, unlike the others, had its own title (The Mersey Sound) and which, with sales of over 500,000, has become one of the best-selling poetry anthologies ever.
A second Penguin Modern Poets series, of at least thirteen volumes on the same pattern, was launched in the 1990s. A third Penguin Modern Poets series was launched in 2016.