Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10499 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Sunday Times, June 23 2002
[Staying Alive] is a relvelation. Buy it. Leave it around the house. Give it to friends. It could keep them alive.

Review
This eye-catching and well-presented anthology of 20th-century poetry bears cover plaudits by distinguished literary figures from Jane Campion to Philip Pullman. The faintly apocalyptic title gives the book a sense of urgency and importance that is fully justified by the outstanding contents. Divided into 12 sections with titles such as 'Body and Soul', 'Growing Up' and 'Disappearing Acts', the poems included cover every area of physical and emotional life and are thoughtfully and subtly arranged. They range from old favourites like Robert Frost's 'Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening' and Jenny Joseph's 'Warning' through works made famous through films and songs - Auden's 'Funeral Blues', recited in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', is the most famous example - to less well known but equally appealing pieces such as Sujata Bhatt's 'White Asparagus'. Many have been brilliantly translated from other languages, such as Wislawa Szymbroska's clear-eyed and moving 'The End and the Beginning', about rebuilding after war, and Janos Pilinszky's touching snapshot of life, 'On the Back of a Photograph'. All are accessible, by turns merry, sorrowful and thought-provoking, and always full of truth and life. This is an anthology for everyone, and a glorious celebration of the vitality of modern poetry. (Kirkus UK)

Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate
Everyone who cares about poetry should own this book.

Customer Reviews

Dumbed down for an American audience
Clearly aimed at the not-so-bright American who likes to think he/she is cultured. Many American poets and spellings. The cover of a miserable girl is off putting enough!

You are better off with Penguin's "Poetry for Life".

truly alive
a brick packed dense with all that is valuable; thought, beauty, nature, humanity, love, friendship, redemption.

This book is an escape door.

Beautiful...
My boyfriend bought me this book as he loved it. I've not really got in to poetry before, and wasn't aware of many poets names or styles etc. This book opened up a new interest for me, and therefore recommend this to everyone else out there.. If anyone is looking for a good gift for someone??