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towardinfinitybooks's review against another edition
4.0
Excellent collection of poems selected from 100 years of Poetry magazine (40,000+ poems in all).
I like this long-ish quote from co-editor Christian Wiman in the introduction - it explains why poetry draws me in and why this collection worked for me:
sorrows by Lucille Clifton
On Visiting a Borrowed Country House in Arcadia by A.E. Stallings
Meditation on a Grapefruit by Craig Arnold
Night by Louise Bogan
On Leaving the Bachelorette Brunch by Rachel Wetzsteon
I like this long-ish quote from co-editor Christian Wiman in the introduction - it explains why poetry draws me in and why this collection worked for me:
"You don't need to know a thing about quantum entanglement, wherein one atom can affect another even though they are separated by tremendous distance, to have some sense that our lives are always larger than the physical limitations within which they occur. We exist apart from our existences, you might say; we are connected to the world and to other people in ways we will never be able to fully articulate or understand - and we assert our iron wills and ravenous hungers at our own peril. There is such a thing as a collective unconscious. There is such a thing as a spirit of place, and it reaches beyond geography. And poetry, which is a kind of quantum entanglement in language, is not simply a way of helping us to recognize the relations we have with people and places but a means of preserving and protecting those relations. For many people, true, poetry will remain remote, inaccessible, and on the same plane of perception as that Arctic refuge. But who knows by what unconscious routes poetry is reaching into lives that seem to have nothing to do with it? Who knows what atomic energies are unleashed by a solitary man or woman quietly encountering some arrangement of language that gives their being - shunted aside by chores and fears and who knows what - back to them?"As I read this collection, I added quite a few poets' names to my running want-to-read list. But the poems that especially struck me in this collection were:
sorrows by Lucille Clifton
On Visiting a Borrowed Country House in Arcadia by A.E. Stallings
Meditation on a Grapefruit by Craig Arnold
Night by Louise Bogan
On Leaving the Bachelorette Brunch by Rachel Wetzsteon
juiesmei's review
5.0
Lovely selection of poems through the ages, across different styles and subject matter. The ones with staying power for me were definitely "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, "In the Naked Bed, In Plato's Cave", "On Visiting a Borrowed Country House in Arcadia" and "Rendezvous".
kevinchu's review
5.0
This collection was my gateway introduction to contemporary poetry. It is always a pleasure to return to this basket of poems over the years. Experiencing James Wright's "A Blessing" alone was a revelation.
oeolson's review
5.0
I am yours. If you feed me garbage,
I will sing a song of garbage.
This is a hymn.
I will sing a song of garbage.
This is a hymn.
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