Customer Reviews

The 100 Best Poems of All Time

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What this little book might have been called in manuscript was something like "100 Representative Poems of 100 of the Most Popular Poets of All Time." Not a bad title, and it is consistent with editor Leslie Pockell's popular choices and her[?] intent to include no more than one poem by any poet. But the unmitigated gall of the title actually chosen--The 100 Best Poems of All Time--makes for a little fun, and probably will increase the sales of the book. As Pockell writes in the short Introduction, "Well, at least we attracted your attention."

You did. And for fun I am responding with some reaction to the selections. But first I should mention Pockell's criteria for the selections. The book needed to be short, a mix of "high art" and "popular culture" was desired, and the selections ought to be "inclined toward poetry that is best appreciated when recited or read aloud." Fair enough. And for the most part I think Pockell did an admirable job.

The excellent choices include, the King James version of the Twenty-Third Psalm, Poe's "The Raven," Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (although it seems weird to select just one of his sonnets; I prefer "That time of year thou mayst in me behold" or "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"), Donne's "Go and Catch a Falling Star," Shelley's "Ozymandias," Keat's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (although again, how to choose just one!) Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," Housman's "When I Was One-and-Twenty," Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," (ditto the last two asides), Eliot's "...Prufrock," etc.

Poor selections include, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (a stirring song, but a "best" poem?), Basho's "An Old Pond" (there are better English renditions than the one given, for example, "In the old stone pool/a frogjump:/splishhhh." Pockell gives, "Old pond-/A frog leaps in-/Water's sound."; and Basho wrote many better haiku), "Casey at the Bat" (uh...never mind), and several others that I fear to name. Also to choose out of all of Alexander Pope's work, his epigram about the dog at Kew, seems almost anti-poetic.

A howler is "Ancient Music" by Ezra Pound. If Pockell wanted to show the less than charming side of Pound, perhaps Pound's "The Garden" which includes the line, "...the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor" might have been presented. (Then again, perhaps not.)

A creative choice is e e cummings's "Buffalo Bill's," which reflects not only cummings's love of typographical form, but his playful wit along with his famous word play and his often missed irony. (The typographical form of the poem represents a tomahawk: "[H]ow...[DO] you like your blueeyed boy[,] Mister Death"?)

Langston Hughes's "Harlem" ("What happens to a dream deferred?") is obviously a politically correct choice, and also a very good little poem, but I would have preferred his "Mother to Son" ("Well, son, I'll tell you:/Life for me ain't been no crystal stair...") or the breath-taking simplicity of "Friend." Sylvia Plath's dark and brutal "Daddy" is also PC, but with its inclusion there is no need for Margaret Atwood, a fact for which we can be thankful. The choice from Sappho, with its nice turn from "a god" that sits "beside you" to the poet herself, is of course de rigueur, but a good choice nonetheless.

Pleasant surprises include W. H. Auden's "Funeral Blues," and Pablo Neruda's "Poetry." Some old favorites are Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much with Us," and the powerful "Incident" from Countee Cullen.

It is good that Pockell includes some poetry translated from other languages; however that just makes the presumption of her title all the more absurd. Just how would one presume to pick the best from such an incredible array? However, the choices made really are very good although they reflect the artistry of the translator nearly as much as the original poet. Middle Eastern people might object to the choice of a quatrain from "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" ("The Moving Finger writes...") translated by Edward FitzGerald, which is almost as much English as it is Persian, preferring a more ethnic rendition.

I can't quibble with the poets left out, although missing are John Crow Ransom, Archibald MacLeish, Theodore Roethke, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Lowell, Rita Dove, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and of course of necessity many others. One of my favorite poems and poet not to appear is "Patterns" by Amy Lowell.

Pockell gives a terse, but felicitous introduction to each poem usually including a word about the poet. But I have one question, who is Leslie Pockell? There is not a biographical word anywhere in the book to give a hint. And should I have used a masculine or a feminine pronoun?

Leslie Pockell must be the worst, most careless editor ever. Never mind the audacious and ridiculous title. She puts lines in the wrong stanzas of poems. She gets titles and words wrong. She fails to specify when she's only presenting part of a poem as opposed to the entire thing. Some simple double-checking could have prevented these problems. Ms. Pockell must be a very lazy woman.

I disagree with the assumption that they are 100 of the best poems ever written but they are certainly worthy of review. I found the selection interesting.

Description from the book dust jacket:

A portable treasure of poems for every mood ... Whether you're a poetry lover who cherishes the beauty of verse or a confirmed fiction fan who hasn't read a poem in years, you'll enjoy this popular collection that features 100 unique expressions of love and devotion, joy and sorrow, courage and faith. It's filled with the best-loved and best-known works of poets from William Shakespeare and Emily Bronte to e.e. cummings and Maya Angelou.

This book is wonderful! I'm a student, that loves literature and poetry, so I decided to buy this at my local bookstore. I like to collect poetry collections, and this one seemed perfect. As soon as I read the first few poems, I fell in love with it.
Several of my favorite poems are in this book, such as "The Highwayman" by Alred Noyes, "The raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, "Still I rise" by Maya Angelou and also "Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats. This delightful collection also had my Fifth Grade favorite- "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I was thrilled.
I also found many new soon-to-be favorites such as "Tyger!Tyger!" by William Blake and "First Fig" by Edna St. Vincent Mallay.

I was a little annoyed when someone who reviewed this book said that it didn't say when it was jsut part of a poem. It does- It says "From" before the title of thepoem, to subtly let the reader know that it's not the whole thing. The reviewer must not have have read this book carefully, if he/she did not catch it.

I would reccommend this book to any lovers of poetry, or even first-timers. It's extra-helpful because of the index of both titles and authors, and also the first line of the poem! It really is a wonderful collection.

Pockell's selection of poems are the best collection I've seen in one book, and I teach poetry at all levels between middle and high school. I liked it so much I ordered it for all of our high school students. And I enjoy reading it for my own pleasure just to be reminded of what makes great poetry.

This is a great collection, spanning over 2500 years, and the editor does a nice job of providing a brief, but unobtrusive introduction. I am sure everyone will be satisfied that one of their own favorite authors is included (I was glad to see Garcia Lorca), will be mad that one of their own favorites is missing (What no Delmore Schwartz!), but will perhaps find new favorites (for example, Rilke's "The Panther" for me). Roughly arranged chronologically, there are some interesting neighboring poems - like "To Jeoffrey His Cat" is near Blake's "The Tyger" and Anne Sexton's "Wanting to Die' is next to "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath. There are also some American favorites, that may not often be thought of as poems "A visit from St. Nicholas", "Casey at the Bat" and "This Land is Your Land (and don't forget the verse "By the relief office I seen my people; .. Is this land made for you and me?"). The book ends on an uplifting note with Maya Angelou "Still I Rise".

Leslie Pockell's collection brought back memories from school, church, college, previous poetry collections and moments in history not soon to be forgotten. Who could ever forget the first time they heard "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats or "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore. These are almost engrained in our culture, as much as "Amazing Grace" by John Newton and "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe.

Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise" sings from the page:

"Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries."

Many of the poems in this collection carry with them this similar fire, this beautiful tenacity and statement of individuality within a complex world where poets often reject the daily call to conform, listening instead to their own heart's desire.

"I'll walk where my own nature would be leading--
It vexes me to choose another guide--
Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding,
Where the wild wind blows on the mountainside."
~ Emily Bronte's "Often Rebuked, Yet Always Back Returning"

As I was reading, I could not help but hear the beautiful singing in many poems, now part of our heritage in the American songbook. Then there is another type of singing, the singing of words as they create fascinating rhythms as displayed in "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes. "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie should literally sing to you from the page as does Julia Ward Howe's poem.

Poems by William Shakespeare, John Donne, Li Po, Sappho, Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rabindranath Tagore, Robert Browning, Emily Bronte, Thomas Gray, Omar Khayyam, Virgil, Catullus, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Elizabeth Barrett Browning all dance on the same stage.

Some of my all-time favorites also appear:

Sea Fever by John Masefield
The love Song of J. Alred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
Fog by Carl Sandburg
Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
Tyger! Tyger! By William Blake
Ozymandia by Percy Bysshe Shelley
She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron
Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

"Poetry" by Pablo Neruda captures some of the energy and fusion in this book:

"And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind."

~The Rebecca Review

What type of multicultural goo is this?
It's that and nothing more,
Although many are authors of words worth rich,
most are just a bore!