More poetry...

from The Poetry Book Society (UK) (and hence showing a British slant)

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To mark the Poetry Book Society’s 50th birthday we conducted a national survey to discover what your favourite poems, poets and collections have been over the last 50 years. Here are the results.

Favourite Books from the Last 50 Years

1 The Whitsun Weddings Philip Larkin
2 Staying Alive Neil Astley
3 Ariel Sylvia Plath
4 The World's Wife Carol Ann Duffy
5 The Rattlebag Seamus Heaney & Ted Hughes (eds.)
6 Birthday Letters Ted Hughes
=7 Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis Wendy Cope
=7 Mercian Hymns
This particular volume is currently out of print. Hill’s Collected Poems are, however, available. Geoffrey Hill
=9 Death of a Naturalist Seamus Heaney
=9 Elegies Douglas Dunn
=9 Geography III
This particular volume is currently out of print. Bishop’s Complete Poems are, however, available. Elizabeth Bishop

Favourite Poems from the Last 50 Years

1 The Whitsun Weddings Philip Larkin
2 Prayer (from Meantime) Carol Ann Duffy
3 Not Waving But Drowning (from Selected Poems) Stevie Smith
4 Digging (from Death of a Naturalist) Seamus Heaney
=5 A Disused Shed in County Wexford (from Selected Poems) Derek Mahon
=5 Warning Jenny Joseph
7 Aubade (from Collected Poems) Philip Larkin
=8 Daddy (from Ariel) Sylvia Plath
=8 Valentine Carol Ann Duffy
=8 Wild Geese (from Dream Work; US Import) Mary Oliver

I bought JZ Sorcery and Cecelia based on recommendations here from Jilli and Betsy (I think).

I love Sorcery and Cecelia - good present! I bought myself the sequel, The Grand Tour, on Saturday but I'll have to reread S&C first!

Yeah, the Gary Geddes 20th Century Poetry and Poetics is a great anthology for modern and Canadian poets, I still have a well-read copy from first-year college English. It is just English-language poets, no translations of foreign-language poets.

If you want the very best in American poetry from the late Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century I would recommend Joel Connaroe's Six American Poets and the follow-up Eight American Poets. The first one covers Whitman, Dickinson, Williams, Stevens, Frost, and Langston Hughes. I forget who the next one covers but I believe that Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, and Sylvia Plath are in there.

Finally, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: Poems for Men edited by Robert Bly, Michael Meade and James Hillman has some really good (and very eclectic) stuff, including non-English language poets in translation such as Neruda, Rumi, Lorca, and Cesar Vallejo, with poems divided into sections based upon theme. Don't let the title fool you, anyone who loves poetry-and thinking about poetry-will love it.

Just bought The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (40% off). anyone read it?

Ooo, thanks guys. I'm bookmarking posts like mad. Basically I realized that I've got three poetry books - one's the Norton, one is an "Intro to Poetry" textbook I used for teaching, and one is a "how to analyze poetry" from 1963, which still has some good points, but doesn't contain a lot of actual poetry.

I've then got some specific collections, like Byron and Cisneros and Angelou, but I'm looking for a couple reference books, when I want to find a certain poem or just look for one. So these are all great recs!

Are there going to be more books about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell?

Because I've finished my copy and I want Jonathan and his wife to be able to be together again.

I don't believe it's a series, sumi. (Although, me too. I may have gotten teary. A little. Um.)

That's too bad.

Of course, I cannot imagine somebody producing another big giant novel as good as the first one.

I'd love there to be more Jonathan Strange (and less Mr. Norrell!)

Didn't it take her 20 years to write this book? Of course, that's with a full time job as well.