Geoffrey Godbert

It's the coffee-table version of a poetry anthology; each poems gets its own page, with plenty of space and one column. They give birth and death dates to the authors, but no hint of nationality or biography, and despite that, choose works that need cultural background to explain them. It's a book to show off, but not necessarily to read.

This year I've been trying to read more poetry. It doesn't usually appeal to me. I tend to be on the literal side of things and so poetry can be a struggle for me. I've been reading this collection for months because I wanted to savor each poem, instead of wolfing them down.

This anthology collects 100 poems, the editor's favorite from each of the poets. It was a wonderful way to get a taste of the various styles of different authors without reading an entire collection from them. It show more introduced me to some poets I'd never read and gave me new poems from authors I already loved. Here's a couple great lines...

John Donne - "No more can you judge a woman by her teares, than by her shadow, what she weares."

John Hall - "How real are our fears! they blast us still, Still rend us, still gnawing passions fill; How senseless are our wishes, yet how great! With toil we pursue them, with what sweat!"

I didn't love every poem, but there was such a great variety that it provided the perfect sampler. I would highly recommend this collection to widen your appreciation and knowledge of poetry. show less

This is a fun book, but not one I would recommend for someone new to poetry. The poems were chosen poetlike, by formula, 100 poems by 100 different poets. It is fascinating to see editors' estimation of the most representative poems of an author. The poets are fairly predictable, at least the first fifty, but the poems are not).

Some wonderful translations - some even read aloud well. A good mix from around the world - one after another excellent. The Pedro Salinas poem, "Wake up. Day calls you", is a glorious poem! Friends great to re-visit - one is reminded that every poem changes because you have changed since you read it last.