Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English, 1500-2001
Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English, 1500-2001

Author: Carolyn Forché

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2014-01-27

Total Pages: 672

ISBN-13: 0393347664

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A groundbreaking anthology containing the work of poets who have witnessed war, imprisonment, torture, and slavery. A companion volume to Against Forgetting, Poetry of Witness is the first anthology to reveal a tradition that runs through English-language poetry. The 300 poems collected here were composed at an extreme of human endurance—while their authors awaited execution, endured imprisonment, fought on the battlefield, or labored on the brink of breakdown or death. All bear witness to historical events and the irresistibility of their impact. Alongside Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, this volume includes such writers as Anne Askew, tortured and executed for her religious beliefs during the reign of Henry VIII; Phillis Wheatley, abducted by slave traders; Samuel Bamford, present at the Peterloo Massacre in 1819; William Blake, who witnessed the Gordon Riots of 1780; and Samuel Menashe, survivor of the Battle of the Bulge. Poetry of Witness argues that such poets are a perennial feature of human history, and it presents the best of that tradition, proving that their work ranks alongside the greatest in the language.

The Best Poems of the English Language
The Best Poems of the English Language

Author: Harold Bloom

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2007-08-07

Total Pages: 1012

ISBN-13: 0060540427

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This comprehensive anthology attempts to give the common reader possession of six centuries of great British and American poetry. The book features a large introductory essay by Harold Bloom called "The Art of Reading Poetry," which presents his critical reflections of more than half a century devoted to the reading, teaching, and writing about the literary achievement he loves most. In the case of all major poets in the language, this volume offers either the entire range of what is most valuable in their work, or vital selections that illuminate each figure's contribution. There are also headnotes by Harold Bloom to every poet in the volume as well as to the most important individual poems. Much more than any other anthology ever gathered, this book provides readers who desire the pleasures of a sublime art with very nearly everything they need in a single volume. It also is regarded as his final meditation upon all those who have formed his mind.

The First Poems in English
The First Poems in English

Author: Michael Alexander

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2008-05-29

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 0141918764

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This selection of the earliest poems in English comprises works from an age in which verse was not written down, but recited aloud and remembered. Heroic poems celebrate courage, loyalty and strength, in excerpts from Beowulf and in The Battle of Brunanburgh, depicting King Athelstan’s defeat of his northern enemies in 937 AD, while The Wanderer and The Seafarer reflect on exile, loss and destiny. The Gnomic Verses are proverbs on the natural order of life, and the Exeter Riddles are witty linguistic puzzles. Love elegies include emotional speeches from an abandoned wife and separated lovers, and devotional poems include a vision of Christ’s cross in The Dream of the Rood, and Caedmon’s Hymn, perhaps the oldest poem in English, speaking in praise of God.

Poetry in English
Poetry in English

Author: Macha Louis Rosenthal

Publisher:

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 1246

ISBN-13: 9780195405705

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This is a teaching anthology arranged chronologically and concentrating on major poets, with a more selective treatment of significant minor writers. Intended for both survey and genre courses in poetry, it provides the basic texts for the study of a poet's work in some depth and establishes maximum interrelations among poems, poets and periods so that it can be used to show changes in genre and mode, as well as historical and literary influences.The anthology presents the key poems for understanding our poetic tradition. Selection is based on the excellence of the poems themselves along with the following considerations: how well they reflect their period, show the development of a genre or mode, illustrate the best aspects of the individual poet's craft, and speak to the twentieth-century sensibility. As a general principle, but not a rigorous one, all selections are complete works. This differs from competing anthologies in providing a liberal selection of Canadian poetry.In addition to headnotes for each poet, the anthology includes a comprehensive fifty-page essay on versification and prosody and an author/title index.

Collected Poems in English
Collected Poems in English

Author: Joseph Brodsky

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2002-04

Total Pages: 565

ISBN-13: 0374528381

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With nearly 200 poems, several of them never before published in book form, this is the essential volume of the Nobel Laureate's work.

An Introduction to English Poetry
An Introduction to English Poetry

Author: James Fenton

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 0374528896

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An introduction to poetry makes use of prisoner's work songs, Broadway show tunes, and the cries of street vendors to introduce readers to the rhythms of poetry.

The Complete English Poems
The Complete English Poems

Author: John Donne

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2004-06-24

Total Pages: 688

ISBN-13: 0141916036

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No poet has been more wilfully contradictory than John Donne, whose works forge unforgettable connections between extremes of passion and mental energy. From satire to tender elegy, from sacred devotion to lust, he conveys an astonishing range of emotions and poetic moods. Constant in his work, however, is an intensity of feeling and expression and complexity of argument that is as evident in religious meditations such as 'Good Friday 1613. Riding Westward' as it is in secular love poems such as 'The Sun Rising' or 'The Flea'. 'The intricacy and subtlety of his imagination are the length and depth of the furrow made by his passion,' wrote Yeats, pinpointing the unique genius of a poet who combined ardour and intellect in equal measure.