Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #212294 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-27
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1200 pages

James Wood, The Guardian
'Keegan makes us picaros of poetry, and this very exciting, bold new book becomes our happy carriage.'

Anthony Thwaite, The Sunday Telegraph
'This big book is welcome: serious, wide-ranging, and sometimes surpassing.'

Helen Dunmore, Observer
'The reader is very much at the centre of Paul Keegan's enterprise...[His] decision on chronology is justified by the vibrancy of the connection between one poem and the next...Again and again, the reader comes across such thoughtful, thought-provoking juxtaposition of poems...

Customer Reviews

Wonderful variety, but hardback version would be better.
A wonderfully varied volume, but due to the gross thickness, a sturdier hardback in a larger format at a sensible price would be appreciated. The printing is small and for those persons who need spectacles etc, it is not easy to read and would be better in an Ariel (san serif) font. In a decently sized and priced hardback, this book could be a workable volumem, but as it is, it only makes me wish for something more like Palgrave's Golden Treasury (which can be obtained in differing formats!) This is something that editors ought to consider to attract more buyers!

The page layout is manageable, but a better, more comprehensive index/indices would aid the reader in finding a particular poem. Nevertheless, it has a unique benefit, with the chronological sorting of the poetry, for students and the curious. The ordinary reader may find this unusual layout to be confusing at first, but one gets used to it the more one reads. Overall, as a chronolical anthology of verse, it stands quite proud, but a decent hardback version would make it even more easy to handle. As it is, the paperback binding tends to crack and bend far too easily when handled and one can see this volume quickly falling to pieces when it is used a lot by an enthusiastic poet or poetry lover.

If you are looking for an anthology, I'd recommend this one
I doubt many people will have more than one anthology of poetry, so it makes sense to have a good one.

Having browsed several, this was my favourite for a couple of reasons:

As the minimum, without which there would be no point, it is reasonably complete & comprehensive. Difficult to test (how do you know if it has something you haven't looked up yet?), but so far it does seem to have most of the things I wanted

Secondly, the editor seemed to have an amusing & discursive selection; I came across a wide range of things I'd never seen before, but appreciated.

Finally, and the real thing that is different & attracted me, was the way that it is arranged chronologically. Just like any other collection, you can check the index & find what you are looking for, which is nice. But being able to see how styles & fashions changed with time, or who someone's contemporaries were is a major bonus. Quite literally, this adds a different dimension to the way you can read this book & makes browsing a lot richer - revealing a lot more surprises and "finds".