10 Poems About Swimming

There’s something at once elemental and child-like about moving through water – whether we paddle like a dog or can manage an elegant crawl.

These delightful poems explore the many joys of swimming in pools, rivers and oceans. We travel all the way from a child learning to swim at home on a piano stool to a swimmer in a public baths which become suddenly splendid:

“the pool spread like a sunken ballroom,
marbled with the winter sun and here,
the deep end’s edge
where I hang breathless,”

from ‘What I Think About When I’m Swimming’ by Hannah Lowe

Swimming is a pleasure and a privilege, and these poems remind us that when we take to the water it is not just our bodies that are changed.

Poems by Vievee Francis, Paul Henry, Ranjit Hoskote, Hannah Lowe, Nicholas Murray, Katrina Naomi, Jay Parini, Katherine Pierpoint, Stevie Smith and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch.