The Poetry Anthology: Ninety Years of America's Most Distinguished Verse Magazine

by Joseph Parisi (Editor), Stephen Young (Editor)

Overview

Publishing monthly without interruption since 1912, Poetry has become America's most distinguished magazine of verse, presenting, often for the very first time, virtually every notable poet of the last nine decades—an unprecedented record. Decade by decade, this ninetieth-anniversary anthology from Poetry includes the poems of the major talents, along with several lesser known. Poetry is an American institution. —T. S. Eliot

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566636049
Publisher:	Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date:	08/19/2004
Pages:	572
Sales rank:	736,389
Product dimensions:	5.59(w) x 8.52(h) x 1.58(d)

What People are Saying About This

Midwest Book Review

...If only one representative poetry anthology were to be part of a lending collection, make it Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young's Poetry Anthology.

THE BOOKWATCH

An exceptionally well-rounded treasure...

Harvard Review

...This is a book to reread, umpteen times.

New York Times

...An invaluable retrospective on 20th-century poetry.

Editorial Reviews

For the LOVER of poetry there is much to savor here...

Times-Dispatch - Ron Smith

This modest Chicago monthly has featured not only many of the 20th century's greatest poets, but also many of their famous poems. It is pleasant to think, given everything that Poetry has meant to literature in the last 100 years and everything it may yet mean to generations of readers that it will not have such troubles in the future.

The Philadelphia Inquirer - David Yezzi

Superb and invaluable...comprehensive and thrilling...a veritable history of twentieth-century poetry in English.... A tremendous resource.

Starred Review Booklist

The two kinds of anthology—that of summary and that of advocacy—will suffice to define the type of Parisi's book.

Contemporary Poetry Review - James Matthew Wilson

It is a fitting collection that not only features their work, but helped place them in the pantheon.

The Seattle Times - Richard Wakefield

This anthology makes clear that American poetry is as powerful, diverse, and vibrant as ever.

The San Diego Union-Tribune

A great catch...I so thoroughly enjoyed this book that every time I lay eyes on it I can't help picking it up — even if it is for the hundredth time.

Kliatt

This anthology makes clear that American poetry is as powerful, diverse, and vibrant as ever.

San Diego Union-Tribune

The two kinds of anthology—that of summary and that of advocacy—will suffice to define the type of Parisi's book.
— James Matthew Wilson

Contemporary Poetry Review

For the LOVER of poetry there is much to savor here...
— Ron Smith

Times-Dispatch

It is a fitting collection that not only features their work, but helped place them in the pantheon.
— Richard Wakefield

The Seattle Times

It is a fitting collection that not only features their work, but helped place them in the pantheon.
— Richard Wakefield

Seattle Times

This modest Chicago monthly has featured not only many of the 20th century's greatest poets, but also many of their famous poems. It is pleasant to think, given everything that Poetry has meant to literature in the last 100 years and everything it may yet mean to generations of readers that it will not have such troubles in the future.
— David Yezzi

Philadelphia Inquirer

This modest Chicago monthly has featured not only many of the 20th century's greatest poets, but also many of their famous poems. It is pleasant to think, given everything that Poetry has meant to literature in the last 100 years and everything it may yet mean to generations of readers that it will not have such troubles in the future.

Philadelphia Inquirer - David Yezzi

...Include[s] virtually every significant poet of the twentieth century.

FOLSOM TELEGRAPH

...Give[s] a complex and comprehensive look at the magazine's influence during the last century...

AVATAR REVIEWS

...Feature[s] not only many of the 20th century's greatest poets, but also many of their famous poems.
—PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

David Yezzi

It is a fitting collection that not only features their work, but helped place them in the pantheon.
—SEATTLE TIMES

Richard Wakefield

For the lover of poetry there is much to savor here...
—TIMES-DISPATCH

Ron Smith

While the above collection wisely confines itself to the first 50 of Poetry's ninety years, this anthology tries to take in the whole sweep of the magazine's existence, and ends up playing down its most important early years at the expense of its much less illustrious recent ones. Of the 487 pages of verse here, 94 are devoted to the period 1912-1936, or the term of Harriet Monroe's founding editorship. Readers looking for the entire set of Stevens "Pecksniffiana" poems will find some, but not all of them. T.S. Eliot's print debut, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is here, but Pound's Cantos are not (though "In a Station of the Metro" is). These authors are heavily anthologized though, and what proves most interesting are the years between Moeroe and current editor Joseph Parisi's tenures, particularly the '60s editorship of Henry Rago: Ashbery, Baraka (then Jones), Betjeman, Creeley, Hollander, Lowell, Plath, Rich, Snyder, can be found together, and one suspects the work printed during the period went even further out than represented here. Parisi's introduction includes a short bio of Harriet Monroe (calling her "the aging entrepreneur" as she starts the magazine at 51) and points to a perceived lack of "authentic avant-gardes" as a reason for the magazine's recent reactionary emphasis on traditional verse-craft. Nearly 40% of the poems here come from Parisi's watch, and some are excellent. But they fail to represent the explosive range and variety of poetry in English from the last quarter century. (Oct. 25) Forecast: Poetry magazine currently gets 90,000 submissions a year from all over the world. If even a fraction of those sending in their own work seek out this volume, sales should be notable. Given the lack of a scholarly basis for the selections, campus use may be slight, but expect consistent bookseller sales after a big bump at pub. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Individual voices, fresh perspectives, interesting ideas, verbal panache, striking imagery, and perceptive metaphors: these are the qualities editors Parisi and Young look for when choosing work for Poetry, America's most influential poetry magazine. Here, they've collected 600 poems that best mirror the magazine's standards. A Who's Who of American verse, this landmark collection is arranged in chronological order, opening with a poem by Ezra Pound, adviser to founding editor Harriet Monroe, and closing with one by major 20th-century poet W.S. Merwin. Both poems ably comment on the collection. There's groundbreaking work, which first appeared in Poetry and later became part of the canon (e.g., Wallace Stevens's "Sunday Morning"), as well as work by lesser-known poets (e.g., William Dickey's "The Poet's Farewell to His Teeth"). Readers will also find surprises like Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" from 1913, which has a poetic echo in Tom Disch's "Poems" for Joyce Kilmer from 1978. Including both formal and free verse, these poems range from Chris Wallace-Crabbe's philosophical "The Dead Cartesian" to Billy Collins's playful "Marginalia," which ends "Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love"-a final line suggesting that like the editors, Collins knows a poem when he finds one. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.-Diane Scharper, Towson Univ., MD Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

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