There's no "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways", or "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" here: instead, a new list of the 50 greatest love poems ranges from Maya Angelou to Vikram Seth and from Pakistan to Nigeria.

Chosen by poetry specialists at the Southbank Centre, instead of focusing on more traditional options by the likes of Barrett Browning and Shakespeare, the selectors looked at work written over the last 50 years to come up with their list. The American Angelou was chosen for her lyrical plea, Come, and Be My Baby, in which the poet writes: "you sit wondering / What you're gonna do. / I got it. / Come. And be my baby", while Indian author Seth makes the list for the mournful All You Who Sleep Tonight – "Know that you aren't alone / The whole world shares your tears".

The poets come from 30 countries, from Saint Lucia to Iraqi Kurdistan, but some well-known British names also make the cut. The late Adrian Mitchell is included for the short but perfectly formed Celia, Celia – "When I am sad and weary / When I think all hope has gone / When I walk along High Holborn / I think of you with nothing on" – as is Scottish poet Jackie Kay for Her. "I had been told about her," writes Kay. "How she would always, always. / How she would never, never. / I'd watched and listened / but I still fell for her."

Michael Donaghy was chosen for The Present – "Make me this present then: your hand in mine, / and we'll live out our lives in it", and Edwin Morgan for Strawberries . "There were never strawberries," writes the late Scottish poet, reminiscing, "like the ones we had / that sultry afternoon."

The poetry team at the Southbank Centre has worked on the list for the last year, drawing on the expertise of its Saison Poetry Library to come up with what head of literature and spoken word James Runcie called "a truly international and stylistically diverse selection of what we see as the best 50 love poems of the past 50 years – from young poets such as the first Young Poet Laureate for London, Warsan Shire, to world greats such as Chinua Achebe and Ted Hughes".

"It was tough restricting ourselves to just 50 poems, but I think we've come up with a wonderfully rich and varied offering of some of the world's greatest love poems," said Runcie.

So Achebe's Love Song (For Anna), in which the Nigerian author writes "Bear with me my love / in the hour of my silence", nestles alongside Frank O'Hara's Having a Coke With You, and Ted Hughes's Lovesong sits beside to Margaret Atwood's Variations on the Word Love. South Korea's acclaimed poet Ko Un was selected for Snowfall, Pakistani writer Faiz Ahmed Faiz for Before You Came – "Now everything is like my heart, / a colour at the edge of blood" – and Norwegian poet Annabelle Despard for Should You Die First, which opens "Let me at least collect your smells / as specimens".

The poems will be read on 20 July at what the Southbank Centre is calling an "unprecedented event", which will see 50 readers, from actors to poets, taking on one poem each from the list. Celia Hewitt, the subject of Mitchell's Celia, Celia, will read the poem she inspired, and Donaghy's widow Maddy Paxman will read The Present. There will be readings in Arabic, Turkish, Macedonian and Tamil, with English translations, while Don Paterson and Linton Kwesi Johnson will read their own poems, My Love and Hurricane Blues.

The event will be bookended by a prologue – Langston Hughes's The Dream Keeper – and an epilogue, Derek Walcott's Love After Love, a poem which the Southbank Centre described as "the most iconic love poem". The celebration is part of the Festival of Love and biennial Poetry International festival, which was set up by Ted Hughes in 1967.

The list of the 50 greatest love poems of the last 50 years in full:

Michael Donaghy (USA) – The Present

Naomi Shibab Nye (Palestine) – Shoulders

Philippe Jaccottet (France) – Distances

Tadeusz Rozewicz (Poland) A Sketch for a Modern Love Poem

Billy Collins (USA) Night Club

Nazim Hikmett (Turkey) Things I didn't know I loved

Margaret Atwood (Canada) Variations on the Word Love

Mutsuo Takahashi (Japan) Dove

Anna Swir (Poland) Thank-you, My Fate

Lawrence Bradby (England) - If Your Faith in Me Should Fail

Mary Oliver (USA) – Wild Geese

Anat Zecharaya (Israel) –A Woman of Valour (Trans Hebrew)

Karlis Verdins (Latvia) – Come to Me (Trans Latvian)

Doina Ioanid (Romania)The Yellow Dog (Trans Romanian)

Ana Ristovic (Serbia)– Circling Zero – (Trans Serbian)

Katharine Kilalea (South Africa)You were a bird

Ted Hughes (England) Lovesong

Kim Addonizio (USA) – You Don't Know What Love Is

Kim Hyesoon (Korea) – A Hole (Trans from Korean)

Choman Hardi (Iraqi Kurdistan) Summer Roof

Carolyn Kizer (USA) Bitch

Nina Cassian (Romania) Lady of Miracles

Ashjan Al Hendi (Saudi Arabia) In search of the Other

Don Paterson (Scotland) My Love

Edwin Morgan (Scotland) – Strawberries

Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) Love Song (for Anna)

Muriel Rukeyser (USA) Looking at Each Other

Linton Kwesi Johnson (England/Jamaica) Hurricane Blues

Tracy K Smith (USA) Duende

Warsan Shire (England/Somalia) for women who are difficult to love

Frank O'Hara (USA) – Having a Coke With You

Adrian Mitchell (England) Celia Celia

Jackie Kay (Scotland) – Her

Maya Angelou (USA) – Come. And Be My Baby

Kutti Revathi – (India) Breasts

Sujata Bhatt (India) – Love in a Bathtub

Annabelle Despard (Norway) Should You Die First

Alice Oswald (England) – Wedding

Valzhyna Mort (Belarus) Love

Nikola Madzirov (Macedonia) - When Someone Goes Away Everything That's Been Done Comes Back

Iman Mersal (Egypt) – Love

Sinead Morrissey (Ireland) Forgive Us Our Trespasses

Kei Miller (Jamaica) Epilogue

Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Pakistan) Before You Came

WS Merwin (USA) In Time

Arundathi Subramaniam (India) Prayer

Yves Bonnefoy (France) A stone

Ko Un (South Korea) Snowfall

Amjad Nasser (Jordan) A Song and Three Questions

Vikram Seth (India) All You who Sleep Tonight