Product Description

Since becoming Poet Laureate in 1999, Andrew Motion has been tireless in his efforts to raise the profile of poetry. In this anthology, he has brought together a wide range of poems, exemplifying his belief that, if we let it, poetry has a unique power to enrich our lives as it diversifies them. The poems are arranged in a series of ten concentric rings: "Self", "Home", "Town", "Work", "Land", "Love", "Travel", "War", "Belief" and "Space". Each section is distinct but seeks out resemblances and echoes elsewhere, creating the impression of an endlessly expanding universe. From Wallace Stevens to Stevie Smith, Joseph Brodsky, to Jo Shapcott, Bob Dylan to Dylan Thomas, Ben Jonson to Benjamin Zephaniah, this anthology should provide the perfect introduction for new readers and offer surprising connections and revelations to those who are already well-versed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6300 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
'A thoroughly illuminating anthology...a welcome treasure trove.' Times Educational Supplement"

Customer Reviews

A jorney to outer space, accompanied by a martian and a reaper
I dip in and out of this book quite regularly, looking for poems I might have missed, looking for poems in forms I'm trying to write in, and I continue to find little gems.

Those people who don't like Motions own poetry need not worry about buying this book, because there are no works by him.

There are 10 sections, which he's called ten rings, echoing out, expanding, but maintaining a theme. They are: Self, Home, Town, Land, Work, Love, Travel, War, Belief, and Space. So from Louis MacNeice's Prayer before Birth to Henry Vaughan's The World. He's restricted the sections so that a poet would not have more than 1 poem in each section, and no poet has more than 5 entries (except that old joker Anonymous).

Some of my favorite poets are here, like Plath, Heaney, Blake, and of course the big man, WS. But thankfully the anthology is not overrun with people like WS and Wordsworth, like so many anthologies are, because he's restricted them. There are ALOT of poets put into this anthology, which many anthologies don't bother with because they're not big names. But for readers of poetry who get bored of the same old stuff, there's new life in this one.

I've been pleased with this treasure trove anthology and it will certainly be on my shelf for many years to come.

One of the Best
This is one of the most imaginative and stimulating poetry anthologies available at the moment: the organisation of the poems selected is intriguing [and you'll have to buy a copy to find out about that] - the range of poems is splendid, with a well-nigh perfect balance struck between the conflicting claims of familiarity and freshness, tradition and contemporaraneity. Forty-two out of ten [just to annoy purist mathematicians, who might benefit quite a lot from this book, anyway].