Prozac has side effects, drinking gives you hangovers, therapy's expensive. For quick and effective relief -- or at least some literary comfort -- from everyday and exceptional problems, try a poem. Over the ages, people have turned to poets as ambassadors of the emotions, because they give voice and definition to our troubles, and by so doing, ease them. No matter how bad things get, poets have been there, too, and they can help you get over the rough spots.

This is the first poetry anthology designed expressly for the self-help generation. The poems listed include classics by Emily Dickinson, Lord Byron, Ogden Nash, and Lucretius, to name just a few, along with newer works by such current practitioners as Seamus Heaney and Wendy Cope. This book has a cure or consolation for nearly every affliction, ancient or modern. And no side effects-except pleasure.

Daisy Goodwin studied nineteenth-century history at university and has been using it ever since. She has written two bestselling novels set in the Victorian era, My Last Duchess and The Fortune Hunter, as well as the screenplay for Masterpiece's Victoria on PBS. She has three dogs, two children, and a husband.