Customer Reviews

The Poetry Anthology, 1912-2002

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The Poetry Anthology presents works from the 90-year span of America's premier poetry magazine. This book contains gems by the acknowledged masters of the Twentieth Century (including every American figure you could likely name from that period), all of which appeared in Poetry's pages for the first time. Best of all, you shall find in this book countless remarkable specimens of the first rank by a host of lesser-known artists, many of whom are scarcely less deserving of accolades than Stevens, Moore, Pound or Eliot.

But one can only read so much. The editors of Poetry must be thanked for wading through the vast sea of mediocrity that constitutes the world of verse, and bearing back this hard-won treasure for us.

This collection is a pleasure to read and an affirmation of the great capacity of poetry to inspire, illuminate, and nourish that which is alive within us. Along with "The Rattle Bag", it is one of the finest poetry anthologies I own.

Almost every poetry collection I have ever seen has clear personal preference and bias. This is like the 'Smithsonian' of poetry, though, from classically styled, to beats to avants and those indescribable
individuals who stand alone. If there is work from a type I have trouble with, at least it is the most
talented and cunning of its type, and I have expanded my preferences with this volume. The indexing is
great and I can follow the years, follow a poet through the years, or look for themes handled differently.
There are so many "best of" collections that only dig a narrow tunnel. This shows a long commitment to
sampling all over the map, and picking those who make a strong case for their style even among others.
I have been able to find different spirits that cut across time and types here, and gain insight into
areas I wouldn't have had the time to wade into otherwise. With an open mind (from either the structured
or the chaotic side) you can find a lot to enjoy in this thick volume. If you don't like the stanza or
the arrangement of things, I find the lines and coined phrases are always sharp and individual. Check it
out. There is a love of the art that cuts across this collection. I pop it open for a surprise often.
I have piles of less surprising stuff around. This is shelf space well-spent, for me. It's not the
'ultimate', but it has a great sense of what's happened, what's similar and different across the range
of poetry. My top pick for "a giant book of poetry" as regards the 20th century - plus.

THE POETRY ANTHOLOGY gathers works from Poetry Magazine, providing the greatest poems of the last century from Yeats and Eliot to Millay, Hughes, and many more famous names. These are some of the greatest works by the greatest contemporary poets: if only one representative poetry anthology were to be part of a lending collection, make it Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young's THE POETRY ANTHOLOGY. The fact that its editors are also editors of Poetry Magazine only lends further authority to their selection choices.

Any poetry anthology is merely a reflection of the tastes of the editor. I must state the qualification that I am not an academic, and am very selective in my appreciation of poetry. I much prefer the anthologies by Czeslaw Milosz or even Garrison Keillor. Much of our poetry has become too abstract and introverted, and that would be my criticism of the selections in this anthology. In nearly 500 pages I found only 50 poems that could move me. Meaning, the emotive content or creative structure made me want to read it twice. The challenge of a good poem is that in a minimum of words must be conveyed a thought or emotion that shakes the world. Few of the selections found here fit that category.