It contains many famous and several infamous poems, and it features many of the poems that my generation's parents and grandparents knew and, i some cases, memorized. Our generation may be the last to have any strong connection to any of these poems, so the book is a bit of a museum. ( )

It's an ugly little book, but it's got all the best poems and it's highly portable. Mixed in with all the familiar ones are some really excellent poems that I'd never read before, and each poet gets a short intro and biography. For the man who penned "The Purple Cow," it includes his own parody:

Yes, I wrote the Purple Cow/I'm sorry now I wrote it
But I can tell you anyhow/I'll kill you if you quote it ( )