Product Description

This collection brings together a wealth of innovative poetry styles that have flourished in the 20th century, whether in the witty modern-day sonnets of Wendy Cope, the nonsense poems of Spike Milligan, the prose poems of T.S. Elliot, or the rhythmic and vibrant outpourings of Benjamin Zephaniah.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67548 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 204 pages

Amazon.co.uk
In his foreword to The Nation's Favourite Twentieth Century Poems, Griff Rhys Jones writes that this book gathers together a comprehensive selection of the finest verse of the last hundred years. Indeed, this is a marvellous salute to the poetry of our times, from the dark, despairing days of war and the onset of the nuclear age, to a celebration of life land and everyday events.

Even the same subject can be seen from a quite different perspective. The end of the world may be at the heart of Yeats' "The Second Coming" and Roger McGough's "At Lunchtime", but, oh my, what a difference in approach!

This is an anthology for everyone who has ever appreciated a poem, from the connoisseur to those who may only vaguely recall a distant verse from long-forgotten studies. The collection is the result of a poll undertaken by The Bookworm in 1999 to find the nation's favourite modern poem. While there are few surprises in the nation's choice of favourite poets--Philip Larkin leads the vote with eight entries, closely followed by Sir John Betjeman with seven; Dylan Thomas with five and Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Roger McGough and WB Yeats with four apiece--the winning poem is certainly a surprise. Apparently even Jenny Joseph was taken aback by the nation¹s choice of "Warning", her wry rhyme on the freedoms of old age.

While there is some debate on the popularising of certain poems through modern media--films, advertisements, merchandising and so on--WH Auden has done particularly well from the big and small screen. "Stop All the Clocks" (fifth-favourite modern poem in the poll) was given a superlative rendering in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral, and who can have forgotten a certain rail company ad that made excellent use of "Night Mail"? If more people are brought to poetry via such means, who's to scoff?

However you have come to poetry, whether Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou or Benjamin Zephaniah appeal more than Walter de la Mare, TS Eliot or Rudyard Kipling, you'll find much here you¹ll want to read, again and again and again. --Carey Green

Customer Reviews

Fantastic!
For any lover of poems, this is a must have collection! It has such a wide variety of some of the best poems ever written that it makes enjoyable reading no matter what your mood.

The biggest names are all there from Frost to Yeats, Kipling to Heaney, Larkin to Thomas. Some of the poems are absolutely delightful such as The Diary of a Church Mouse and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening to the more thought provoking works like What If, Still I Rise, and Warning.

There is a poem for every occasion in here, poems that have endured the test of time and will be forever classics!

Declan Mullan.

Being a foreigner
I perhaps look at this collection with fresher eyes and a more tolerant mind as I haven't been dragged through it in school!
I find an astonishing number of deeply sensitive poems, describing settings and situations, thoughts and reflections that put me wonderfully at ease in that special hour just before bedtime.
Some people have that rare gift of beautifully compressing weeks of toil into a seeming flash of insight, making observations that strike your very core, with layers of meaning that only gradually are discovered or felt, a few lines having more importance and substance than countless books on religion or philosophy. I wish I quite knew why reading Hugo Williams's "Tides" makes me so inward-looking.
I think I'll be having my library of "Selected poems by ..." seriously enhanced one of these days.



The evening advances, then withdraws again
Leaving our cups and books like islands on the floor,
We are drifting you and I,
As far from one another as the young heroes
Of these two novels we have just laid down.
For that is happiness: to wander alone
Surrounded by the same moon, whose tides remind us of ourselves,
Our distances, and what we leave behind.
The lamp left on, the curtains letting in the light.
These things were promises. No doubt we will come back to them

poems for any aspect
this book has a poem for every mood, and each one is as beautiful as the next. i picked this book up and i couldnt put it down as all off the poems are very good