The Poetry Book Society, which supplies this week's chart, is an Arts Council-funded mail-order book club specialising in the best new poetry. Members receive a quarterly bulletin and a 25 per cent discount on every book they buy. The PBS is actually the largest single unit retailer of poetry books in the country, but because some of its operations are as a book club, its sales do not figure in regular sales indices. It was founded in 1953 by T S Eliot, C Day Lewis and other poets of the time, and poets today continue to make the selections to be offered for sale to members. The current selecters are Kathleen Jamie and Maurice Riordan. With chain bookshops currently stocking less poetry than at any time in the past 20 years, the PBS is a kind of essential ship-to-shore between poets and readers. All books in this chart are available post-free (UK only) from the PBS on 020-8870 8403.

1 Electric Light by Seamus Heaney (Faber, £8.99)

2 If I Don't Know by Wendy Cope (Faber, £7.99)

3 Dead Redhead by Tracey Herd (Bloodaxe, £7.95

4 Soft Sift by Mark Ford (Faber, £7.99)

5 Selected Poems by John Montague (Penguin, £8.99)

6 Poems 1968-1998 by Paul Muldoon (Faber, £12.99)

7 Collected Poems by R S Thomas (Phoenix, £6.99)

8 The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson (Cape, £8)

9 Learning Human by Les Murray (Carcanet, £7.95)

10 In Cinnamon Shade by Dom Moraes (Carcanet, £7.95)

Information supplied by the Poetry Book Society: www.poetrybooks.co.uk