Product Description

An anthology of poetry published in Britain and England in the half-century since World War II. Poets include Edwin Muir, Kate Clanchy and the American-born T.S Eliot and Sylvia Plath.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #743281 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Customer Reviews

This Be (most of) the Verse
Poetry anthologies are frustrating things. Few have the unpredictability and dash of `The Rattle Bag` or the marvellous `Rag-and Bone Shop of the Heart` (the latter disgracefully hard to find in Britain), and all contain old chestnuts, some of which are rotten and stinking with over-exposure. The culprits here are Larkin`s inevitable `This Be The Verse` (it`ll be a cold day in hell before I need to read that again) and - well actually, that`s the only one that made me groan. `Not Waving But Drowning` and `Fern Hill`, say, one expects in a comprehensive list such as this. And it`s good to see something by Jenny Joseph other than `Warning`! The great Gillian Clarke is here; also present and correct are samples of Kathleen Raine, Christopher Logue, Peter Redgrove and George Mackay Brown - all superb poets under-represented elsewhere.
It`s a shame the two editors haven`t included something of their own, and there is, to my mind, one unforgivable omission in the late Frances Horovitz, a poet of rare precision and originality.
And whither Brian Patten? Logue and McGough could have been given more space, too.
What we have is an intelligent, artful and well-presented guide to the poetry of the last half-century. It is less of a mish-mash than Bloodaxe`s contemporaneous `Staying Alive` (that too felt it had to have the dread Larkin poem - grr!) and has just enough balls to be inspiring.
This is a timely anthology, which should adorn most poetry lovers` bookshelves.