Having thoroughly enjoyed John Carey’s ‘A Little History of Poetry’, I was pleased to be given an advance copy of ‘100 Poets: A Little Anthology’ for review. Thanks to NetGalley and Yale University Press for my book – opinions, as always, are entirely my own.
As the book’s subtitle suggests, this is quite a little book. It features 100 chapters which are quite concise – some are a quick introduction to the poem or poet and a short poem, others feature more commentary or a longer poem/excerpt from a poem. All the expected literary canon poets are here – Homer, Byron, Wordsworth, Yeats, Eliot, etc – although there were a few surprises along the way too.
It needs to be said that this is very much a book of western poetry – there is little beyond the ancient Greeks and Romans, Brits and Americans. That said, it provides an interesting wander through the history of this poetic tradition from the early epic poetry of Homer up to poets who have only recently left us, such as Maya Angelou.
There is an attempt to include women poets – Sappho makes an early appearance, there are a handful of female Victorian poets in there and some 20th and 21st century ones. I really appreciated this effort to make it more than an anthology of dead white guys! Still, ethnic minority poets barely get a look-in here – it’s very much a mainstream book so you probably need to look elsewhere if you want the more offbeat or modern. I was surprised to see no living poets included as there are some I love and who – I think – would warrant a place in this collection.
I’m fairly au fait with poetry in general, having done a traditional English Literature degree that started with Homer and worked forwards! I also teach poetry a lot and was quite familiar with a lot of the writers featured here. In some cases, it was like visiting old favourites – but on the other hand, I was reminded that I hate Walt Whitman’s poetry (wow, that’s a lot of focus on semen!) This is a great book to dip in and out of and an engaging introduction to the poets.
As with any anthology selected by one person, the choices probably say more about the curator than the poets. I was often surprised at the choices made – often pleasantly so as Carey introduced me to some lesser known of the poems. Given the unfamiliarity with some of the material, some more commentary would have been handy in places – I still don’t really get what Ted Hughes was on about! Mostly though, I was happy to be swept along by Carey’s enthusiasm and expertise on the subject, rather than niggling thoughts on whether he picked the best Larkin poem (spoiler – he didn’t!)
There’s lots of great poetry here and tonnes of food for thought. It might help you to discover new writers or learn more about old favourites – the poem introductions and commentary by Carey are often lively and enlightening and enjoyable, even though they sometimes focus too much on the well known writers. I wanted less Wordsworth, more Charlotte Mew, less Robert Burns (I needed a Scots dictionary for that bit!) and more Elizabeth Bishop, less Milton and more Plath.
However, this proves that poetry is all about personal taste – my version of this type of anthology may feature different choices to Carey’s but I totally accept that I’ll never have the breadth of knowledge he does and so it is just lovely to be in the hands of an expert for a while. I’d especially recommend this to those relatively new to poetry as it is a good overview of the history and an interesting introduction to some of the western world’s best poets.
Incidentally, and also very much in my opinion, here are some of the best poems not in the book!
Philip Larkin – ‘An Arundel Tomb’ (so not the romantic poem people often think it is!)
Sylvia Plath – ‘You’re’ (brilliantly imaginative descriptions of an unborn but much anticipated baby)
Carol Ann Duffy – ‘The Kray Sisters’ (organised crime with a feminist twist – and funny!)
If you’d like a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.
Header photo by Clark Young on Unsplash
