Customer Reviews

100 Essential Modern Poems

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This is an enjoyable and engaging poetry anthology containing the work of 80 poets. Joseph Parisi, former editor-in chief of Poetry magazine calls these 100 poems "essential in that they deal with the most fundamental issues everyone eventually faces. They express in unforgettable ways the deepest experiences that make us human: love, friendship, family bonds (and frictions), longing and loss, dreams and disappointments, anxiety, suffering, joy, faith, the search for meaning, and our relation to nature."

The book includes poems written from the mid 1800's to the present. Poets include William Butler Yeats, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, T.S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Bishop, Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, Linda Pastan, Mary Oliver, and Kay Ryan.

Parisi provides 1-3 page introductions about the lives of each poet as well as 1-3 poems from each poet. His insightful writing makes the poems come alive for the reader and he well knows how to make poetry accessible to a wide audience. I am glad that I discovered this book and look forward to reading the passages and poems again and again.

Joseph Parisi presents a terrific selection of poems from some of the best poets of the modern era. And, he offers well written biographies on each poet. To be able to read about the life of the poet followed by an example of their work is an exceptional pleasure! I found myself marking the poets I liked best and then searching out their works for futher reading. Thank you Mr. Parisi for your love of poets and poetry!

Joseph Parisi is former longtime editor of Poetry magazine, so is in a better position than most to select the most influential and memorable of modern poetry in 100 Essential Modern Poems, a survey of the finest written in English over the past century. Works by Philip Larkin, Frank O'Hara, W.D. Snodgrass and many others are personally selected by Parisi and provides particularly inspired works which are classics.