Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:22 pm
<a name="reading">What's on your bookshelf?</a>
Ninian:
Recently, I was having a discussion about poetry with a friend of mine and we were talking about the different poetry anthologies that each of us owns. It got me thinking that I'd love to know what the people here are reading, and I thought we could share our poetry recommendations here.
One of my well-thumbed anthologies is
20th Century Poetry & Poetics - 4th Edition edited by Gary Geddes.
Published by Oxford University Press Canada (April 1996)
ISBN: 0195410157
This book features a number of poets, many of them Canadian, all fairly contemporary. I find that I can lose an afternoon in this anthology reading old friends and making new discoveries. The latter quarter of the book is given over to essays on the writing of poetry by many of the poets featured in the anthology. Well worth getting.
Palgraves Golden Treasury edited by Francis Turner Palgrave
Published by Oxford University Press England (October 2002)
ISBN : 0192803697
Originally published in 1861, Palgrave's Golden Treasury quickly established itself as the most popular selection of English poems. Today it stands as a testament to the richness of our finest native poetic writing from Spenser, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth, to Tennyson, Yeats, Eliot, and Betjeman. This edition includes a sixth book, prepared by John Press, which covers the post-war years, showing that the lyrical tradition remains strong. Over 90 poets are included, from Dylan Thomas, George Mackay Brown, Ted Hughes, and Philip Larkin to Carol Ann Duffy, Elizabeth Garrett and Simon Armitage.
I have an older edition of this anthology but it is a delight to curl up with and read some really fine lyrical poetry.
The Rattle Bag edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes
Published by Faber and Faber (1982)
ISBN: 057111976
Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes have brought together an inspired and diverse selection, ranging from undisputed masterpieces to rare discoveries, as well as drawing upon works in translation and traditional poems from oral cultures. In effect, this anthology has transformed the way we define and appreciate poetry, and it will continue to do so for years to come.
Unlike other anthologies, The Rattle Bag has organised the poetry in alphabetical order by poem title. This allows poets as diverse as William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Stevie Smith to rub shoulders in the pages of this book.
The Penguin Book of English Verse edited by John Hayward
Published by Penguin Books, Ltd. (1982)
ISBN: 0140420320
This book is a more traditional anthology, listing poets chronologically from around the 1500s to late 20th Century. It features such poets as Dylan Thomas, Edmund Spenser, and Percy Bysshe Shelley along with many other well known poets.
So, what's on your bookshelf?
Review/synopsis information for Palgrave's Golden Treasury and The Rattle Bag, is from http://www.amazon.co.uk/
heinzs:
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
Sailing Alone Around the Room, Billy Collins
The Poetry of Maya Angelou, Random House 1993
Spiral Dance, Starhawk
zero:
i just have one book from the early 70's
The Young American Poets
other than that,
when i was a little kid i kept numerous eap bibliogrophies
or what ever they are called handy, which i found
at the librairy.
i'm heathen. how dare i even try to rhyme in simple
fashion. i'm supposed
to read all the greats first right?
Ninian:
zero:
maybe that 70's book burnt me out on poetry books.
heres what some of the poems are like.
"my love for henry ford"
T_T_T
T_T_T
T_T_T
T_T_T
T_T_T
T_T_T
some of the Ts were upside down and another looked like it
was pulling out of the row. i guess they represent cars and a hyway
confusion complication ect. (so thank you henry ford for
complicating us and pulluting the city)
it made me feel inferior because i couldn't understand it
like i should not be reading or writing.
Ninian:
ummm yeah...experimental stuff....
sometimes in the hands of a really good poet experimental poetry can be interesting....but y'know ;)
Spazway:
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
several different books containing the poetry of John Donne.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature (I forget which edition...I got the book brand new in 1996)
The Norton Anthology of Poetry (again, I forget the edition)
sparklyshellie:
I looked and I have a very new edition of Six women poets. I also have a mahoosive ( ) Norton poetry anthology which I had to buy for my university course and it's full of so many poets it's unreal.
Ninian:
"mahoosive" i love that word!
I have a large Norton as well - English Literature, bought new in 1981. It's mostly the period from about 1350 to the 1900s because that's the period of literature I studied in first year English Lit ;)
Nin
Spazway:
Personally I think the Northon anthologies should be part of any writer's library, whether they're a poet, essayist, playwrite, or other type of writer.
Ninian:
The Nortons are good aren't they? Large selection of wonderful writers and easy to just dip into and read a bit at a time!
Spazway:
One of my favourite books from my university days. I went out and bought the Norton Anthology of Poetry at a used bookstore a few years ago.
Gillian:
Noel Coward - Collected Verse
Dorothy Livesay - The Woman I Am
Anne Carson - Men in the Off Hours
Anne Michaels - Skin Divers
Anne Sexton - The Complete Poems
Ooodles of Leonard Cohen
Elizabeth Smart - The Collected Poems (contains all the poetry Elizabeth Smart herself wished to see preserved)
And more.........
I don't have any Sylvia Plath, in fact I'm not sure I've even read any of her poetry apart from the one or two that were posted on the Pages sometime ago.
Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Smart and of course Sylvia Plath it could be said led tortured lives - maybe that's why I relate!
I was trying to ask someone today some questions about why I can't seem to write any more - of course there's more to it than just that. When I got their reply I felt as if my question hadn't been heard in its' entirety. Or perhaps it was just one of those misunderstandings when you're writing to someone rather than talking face to face. Anyway, this communication I was attempting made me think of a certain poem by Elizabeth Smart. It's not in the book I've mentioned above, but I copied it down from a book of her diaries.
"I want to be a poet, I said
But even as I said it I felt the round softness of my breasts
And my mind wandered and wavered
Back to the earthly things
And the swooning warmth of being loved.
Bright and hard and meticulously observant
My brain was to be
A mirror reflecting things cut in eternal rightness
But before I could chisel the first word of a concrete poem
My breast fell voluptuously into my hand
And I remembered I was a woman."
Elizabeth Smart - November 18, 1934
___________________________
I think what Elizabeth is writing about here is the surety she had that she wants to be a poet, perhaps to the exclusion of her womanhood. It wasn't easy in 1934 to be a poet, one had to be conscious that what was expected of her was to be a woman and all that that entails. In my mind she's having this struggle within herself between being a poet, and being a woman, which she thinks are opposing forces.
Ninian:
I like the poem by Smart, Gillian. I'm also envious of some of your books! Shame you didn't live close by and I could come over for a read :)
nin
Ven:
I have a large collection of poetry books most concentrating on single authors but I do have a few anthologies .. In the bookcase in my sitting room I have;
"The Nations Favorite Poems"
and
"The Nations Favorite Comic Poems" both of which are excellent anthologies published by the BBC.
101 Poems Against War.
A collection of Second World War poems.
"Never Such Innocence" ~ Poems of the First World War.
"She Wields a Pen" ~ American Women Poets of the 19th Century.
One Hundred and One Great Books in Haiku ~ A flippant attempt to re-write and condence famous works into three lines. I HATE IT !
Actually, I feel bad saying I hate it without providing some samples of its content. Read the following and make your own mind up. If anyone wants this book they can P.M. me their address and I'll post it to them.
Examples;
Paradise Lost
O'er and o'er God warned
"Eat not th' apple! Man dids't and
God Ballistick went.
War and Peace
Guns roar, Russia burns.
Where's Audrey ? Who is Petra ?
Confused, France retreats.
Little Women
Snowdrops hang like tears.
Shy, sweet, saintly Beth has died.
One down, three to go.
.. and last but by no means least I have;
"Poetry Pages ~ A collection of Voices from around the World"
Volumes 1 & II
Ninian:
Nin
Spazway
100 Best-Loved Poems - Philip Smith
Selected Poems - Emily Dickinson (publisher: Dover Publications, release date: July 1990)
The Odyssey - Homer
sparklyshellie:
I had never seen such a huge book of poetry until I laid eyes on the Norton Anthology. Do you reccommend any good poems from it?
Spazway:
It depends, I think on which edition you have. I think it also depends on what poets and poetry you like. Personally I recommend anything by John Donne. Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth (sometimes also titled Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting The Banks Of The Wye During A Tour. July 13, 1798) is another excellent piece.
Ninian:
I totally forgot to mention that I received the most wonderful gift from someone very dear to me - a copy of Wendy Cope's book of poetry Serious Concerns. I absolutely love her work and I was thrilled to receive this gift :)
If you're interested in her work, there is a site here Wendy Cope Poetry Archive that features some of her work read by her and a bit of a biography of her. She's fierce about copyright and many websites that have done a "tribute" to her have been asked by her lawyers to remove her poetry. As a result, I shan't be posting any of her work!
ninian
<a href="http://www.poetrypages.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 1746">Back to the index</a>
Ninian:
Recently, I was having a discussion about poetry with a friend of mine and we were talking about the different poetry anthologies that each of us owns. It got me thinking that I'd love to know what the people here are reading, and I thought we could share our poetry recommendations here.
One of my well-thumbed anthologies is
20th Century Poetry & Poetics - 4th Edition edited by Gary Geddes.
Published by Oxford University Press Canada (April 1996)
ISBN: 0195410157
This book features a number of poets, many of them Canadian, all fairly contemporary. I find that I can lose an afternoon in this anthology reading old friends and making new discoveries. The latter quarter of the book is given over to essays on the writing of poetry by many of the poets featured in the anthology. Well worth getting.
Palgraves Golden Treasury edited by Francis Turner Palgrave
Published by Oxford University Press England (October 2002)
ISBN : 0192803697
Originally published in 1861, Palgrave's Golden Treasury quickly established itself as the most popular selection of English poems. Today it stands as a testament to the richness of our finest native poetic writing from Spenser, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth, to Tennyson, Yeats, Eliot, and Betjeman. This edition includes a sixth book, prepared by John Press, which covers the post-war years, showing that the lyrical tradition remains strong. Over 90 poets are included, from Dylan Thomas, George Mackay Brown, Ted Hughes, and Philip Larkin to Carol Ann Duffy, Elizabeth Garrett and Simon Armitage.
I have an older edition of this anthology but it is a delight to curl up with and read some really fine lyrical poetry.
The Rattle Bag edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes
Published by Faber and Faber (1982)
ISBN: 057111976
Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes have brought together an inspired and diverse selection, ranging from undisputed masterpieces to rare discoveries, as well as drawing upon works in translation and traditional poems from oral cultures. In effect, this anthology has transformed the way we define and appreciate poetry, and it will continue to do so for years to come.
Unlike other anthologies, The Rattle Bag has organised the poetry in alphabetical order by poem title. This allows poets as diverse as William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Stevie Smith to rub shoulders in the pages of this book.
The Penguin Book of English Verse edited by John Hayward
Published by Penguin Books, Ltd. (1982)
ISBN: 0140420320
This book is a more traditional anthology, listing poets chronologically from around the 1500s to late 20th Century. It features such poets as Dylan Thomas, Edmund Spenser, and Percy Bysshe Shelley along with many other well known poets.
So, what's on your bookshelf?
Review/synopsis information for Palgrave's Golden Treasury and The Rattle Bag, is from http://www.amazon.co.uk/
heinzs:
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
Sailing Alone Around the Room, Billy Collins
The Poetry of Maya Angelou, Random House 1993
Spiral Dance, Starhawk
zero:
i just have one book from the early 70's
The Young American Poets
other than that,
when i was a little kid i kept numerous eap bibliogrophies
or what ever they are called handy, which i found
at the librairy.
i'm heathen. how dare i even try to rhyme in simple
fashion. i'm supposed
to read all the greats first right?
Ninian:
no rule that says you must read certain poets before writing, but reading good poetry can only improve your own writing...most writers are also readers ;)zero wrote:i'm supposed
to read all the greats first right?
zero:
maybe that 70's book burnt me out on poetry books.
heres what some of the poems are like.
"my love for henry ford"
T_T_T
T_T_T
T_T_T
T_T_T
T_T_T
T_T_T
some of the Ts were upside down and another looked like it
was pulling out of the row. i guess they represent cars and a hyway
confusion complication ect. (so thank you henry ford for
complicating us and pulluting the city)
it made me feel inferior because i couldn't understand it
like i should not be reading or writing.
Ninian:
ummm yeah...experimental stuff....
sometimes in the hands of a really good poet experimental poetry can be interesting....but y'know ;)
Spazway:
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
several different books containing the poetry of John Donne.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature (I forget which edition...I got the book brand new in 1996)
The Norton Anthology of Poetry (again, I forget the edition)
sparklyshellie:
I looked and I have a very new edition of Six women poets. I also have a mahoosive ( ) Norton poetry anthology which I had to buy for my university course and it's full of so many poets it's unreal.
Ninian:
"mahoosive" i love that word!
I have a large Norton as well - English Literature, bought new in 1981. It's mostly the period from about 1350 to the 1900s because that's the period of literature I studied in first year English Lit ;)
Nin
Spazway:
Personally I think the Northon anthologies should be part of any writer's library, whether they're a poet, essayist, playwrite, or other type of writer.
Ninian:
The Nortons are good aren't they? Large selection of wonderful writers and easy to just dip into and read a bit at a time!
Spazway:
One of my favourite books from my university days. I went out and bought the Norton Anthology of Poetry at a used bookstore a few years ago.
Gillian:
Noel Coward - Collected Verse
Dorothy Livesay - The Woman I Am
Anne Carson - Men in the Off Hours
Anne Michaels - Skin Divers
Anne Sexton - The Complete Poems
Ooodles of Leonard Cohen
Elizabeth Smart - The Collected Poems (contains all the poetry Elizabeth Smart herself wished to see preserved)
And more.........
I don't have any Sylvia Plath, in fact I'm not sure I've even read any of her poetry apart from the one or two that were posted on the Pages sometime ago.
Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Smart and of course Sylvia Plath it could be said led tortured lives - maybe that's why I relate!
I was trying to ask someone today some questions about why I can't seem to write any more - of course there's more to it than just that. When I got their reply I felt as if my question hadn't been heard in its' entirety. Or perhaps it was just one of those misunderstandings when you're writing to someone rather than talking face to face. Anyway, this communication I was attempting made me think of a certain poem by Elizabeth Smart. It's not in the book I've mentioned above, but I copied it down from a book of her diaries.
"I want to be a poet, I said
But even as I said it I felt the round softness of my breasts
And my mind wandered and wavered
Back to the earthly things
And the swooning warmth of being loved.
Bright and hard and meticulously observant
My brain was to be
A mirror reflecting things cut in eternal rightness
But before I could chisel the first word of a concrete poem
My breast fell voluptuously into my hand
And I remembered I was a woman."
Elizabeth Smart - November 18, 1934
___________________________
I think what Elizabeth is writing about here is the surety she had that she wants to be a poet, perhaps to the exclusion of her womanhood. It wasn't easy in 1934 to be a poet, one had to be conscious that what was expected of her was to be a woman and all that that entails. In my mind she's having this struggle within herself between being a poet, and being a woman, which she thinks are opposing forces.
Ninian:
I like the poem by Smart, Gillian. I'm also envious of some of your books! Shame you didn't live close by and I could come over for a read :)
nin
Ven:
I have a large collection of poetry books most concentrating on single authors but I do have a few anthologies .. In the bookcase in my sitting room I have;
"The Nations Favorite Poems"
and
"The Nations Favorite Comic Poems" both of which are excellent anthologies published by the BBC.
101 Poems Against War.
A collection of Second World War poems.
"Never Such Innocence" ~ Poems of the First World War.
"She Wields a Pen" ~ American Women Poets of the 19th Century.
One Hundred and One Great Books in Haiku ~ A flippant attempt to re-write and condence famous works into three lines. I HATE IT !
Actually, I feel bad saying I hate it without providing some samples of its content. Read the following and make your own mind up. If anyone wants this book they can P.M. me their address and I'll post it to them.
Examples;
Paradise Lost
O'er and o'er God warned
"Eat not th' apple! Man dids't and
God Ballistick went.
War and Peace
Guns roar, Russia burns.
Where's Audrey ? Who is Petra ?
Confused, France retreats.
Little Women
Snowdrops hang like tears.
Shy, sweet, saintly Beth has died.
One down, three to go.
.. and last but by no means least I have;
"Poetry Pages ~ A collection of Voices from around the World"
Volumes 1 & II
Ninian:
I have this one as well as The Nation's Favourite Love Poems. I really like both of them!Ven wrote:"The Nations Favorite Poems"
Nin
Spazway
100 Best-Loved Poems - Philip Smith
Selected Poems - Emily Dickinson (publisher: Dover Publications, release date: July 1990)
The Odyssey - Homer
sparklyshellie:
Heehee. Yeah mahoosive is a fun word.ninian wrote:"mahoosive" i love that word!
I have a large Norton as well - English Literature, bought new in 1981. It's mostly the period from about 1350 to the 1900s because that's the period of literature I studied in first year English Lit ;)
Nin
I had never seen such a huge book of poetry until I laid eyes on the Norton Anthology. Do you reccommend any good poems from it?
Spazway:
It depends, I think on which edition you have. I think it also depends on what poets and poetry you like. Personally I recommend anything by John Donne. Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth (sometimes also titled Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting The Banks Of The Wye During A Tour. July 13, 1798) is another excellent piece.
Ninian:
I totally forgot to mention that I received the most wonderful gift from someone very dear to me - a copy of Wendy Cope's book of poetry Serious Concerns. I absolutely love her work and I was thrilled to receive this gift :)
If you're interested in her work, there is a site here Wendy Cope Poetry Archive that features some of her work read by her and a bit of a biography of her. She's fierce about copyright and many websites that have done a "tribute" to her have been asked by her lawyers to remove her poetry. As a result, I shan't be posting any of her work!
ninian
<a href="http://www.poetrypages.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 1746">Back to the index</a>