The Best Poetry Anthologies Every Poetry Fan Should Own
Five of the best collections of English poetry, selected by Dr Oliver Tearle
What are the best English poetry anthologies? And how would one define ‘best’? The answer, of course, is that it’s always going to be subjective to a point. But it’s worth having a go at picking the greatest anthologies from which the poetry fan can choose. The poetry anthology is a great way not only of revisiting old favourites, but of discovering new poets. In this post, we’ve turned our attention to a kind of book that provides a highly valuable service for the poetry-lover. Many of these books can be purchased for the equivalent of the cost of lunch (depending on where you lunch, of course), or, at most, set back the book-buyer no more than a night out in the local pub would. And a volume of poetry can provide a lifetime of pleasure!
The Oxford Book of English Verse. Edited by Sir Christopher Ricks, this anthology is, in our opinion, simply the best one out there. It’s beautifully produced on good-quality paper, presented in clear type, and the selections made by Ricks showcase, not necessarily the most famous poems by a particular poet, but the most moving, thought-provoking, and intriguing. Thus The Oxford Book of English Verse does what a good poetry anthology should do: it gives you a reason to seek out more poems by a writer you might not have read much before. Ricks’s judgment and taste hardly ever errs, so his choices make for an endlessly surprising and satisfying collection.
Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. The Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics (to give it its full title) was first published in 1861 and edited by Francis Turner Palgrave; a subsequent edition was partly selected by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, then Poet Laureate. It’s full of many classic poems from the Renaissance and the Romantic era, but also contains many little-known lyrics which aren’t so widely read or studied nowadays. These obscure gems make it well worth purchasing.
Tottel’s Miscellany: Songs and Sonnets of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Others (Penguin Classics). Published in 1557 as Songes and Sonettes, this was an historically important poetry anthology, since it was the first anthology to introduce the English sonnet to readers. Both Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey had pioneered sonnets in English, and Surrey innovated with the Italian model, in doing so creating the sonnet form that Shakespeare would go on to make world-famous. The 271 poems which appeared in Tottel’s Miscellany had not been published during either Howard’s or Wyatt’s lifetime, and many of them may have been lost if Tottel had not published his anthology.
Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them. The brainchild of a father and his son, Anthony and Ben Holden, this is the most recent poetry anthology on this list. Published in 2014, Poems That Make Grown Men Cry contains 100 poems chosen by famous male figures, from Daniel Radcliffe to Simon Schama. These are, as the title of the anthology suggests, poems that induce that most overwhelming of responses – poems that cause us to shed a tear. There are some great choices here, among them poems by W. H. Auden, Thomas Hardy, and A. E. Housman. And it’s all in the name of raising money for Amnesty International. The companion volume,Poems That Make Grown Women Cry, is also well worth a look.
The Norton Anthology of Poetry. This anthology is pretty comprehensive, running from Cædmon’s Hymn in the seventh century to contemporary poets writing in English. If you want to read the greatest and most celebrated poetry written in English, this is an excellent place to start, as it contains many of the ‘greatest hits’ in English-language poetry (unlike most of the others on this list, it also includes a generous amount of poetry by American poets such as Sylvia Plath and Wallace Stevens), and so provides a great crash course for the poetry fan and student.
I love browsing through anthologies of verse! As a student (a science student – i.e. someone not supposed to take an interest in poetry!) I bought myself the older edition of “The New Oxford Book of English Verse”, and it really did open a new world for me. Some 40 years later, I still have my battered old copy, and I feel very nostalgic about it. Apart from the inexplicable exclusion of Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”, the selection really cannot be faulted. (I have only browsed casually through the later version edited by Christopher Ricks in bookshops.)
The Penguin Book of English Verse, edited by Paul Keegan, groups the poems by date rather than by poet, and throws up some fascinating juxtapositions.
A particular favourite of mine is “Romanticism: an Anthology”, edited by Duncan Wu, and published by Norton. It includes all the usual suspects (including the whole of the 1805 text of “The Prelude”), as well as a whole lot of less familiar poems and poets, and is more than just an overview of what, for me at least, was the most extraordinary period of English poetry. I know – some will prefer Renaissance poetry, some the Metaphysicals, some the modernists: they’re all wonderful, I know, but – can’t help it! – I’m a Romantic at heart! When the BBC finally comes to its senses and invites me on to Desert Island Discs, this one may well be my book choice.
Thanks for the suggestions – I ordered a couple of the anthologies right away.
Come Hither is one that I splurged on when homeschooling and pored over for years, but I had forgotten about, so thank you, ferretpower, for the reminder to look on my own shelf!
No, not them (although I’m doing a series of reviews of those books on my blog. The New Poetry was a collection put together by Al Alvarez with a Jackson Pollock on the cover, and it had Hughes, Plath and the like in it. I wonder if maybe it triggered the idea for the Penguin Modern Poets?
Here to Eternity by Andrew Motion is another great anthology. It has a novel concept, dividing into seven sections starting from the self and the home, and expanding outwards to the universe. Most of all though, it is full of great poems, from a very wide range of poets… At the moment, the anthology I can hardly leave home without is John Williams’ book of English Renaissance poetry – no fan of 16th century poetry should be without it, and Williams’ notes about the ‘native’ and Petrarchan styles in English poetry are very illuminating.
Walter de la Mare’s ‘Come Hither’ – the notes are as good as the poems. And ‘All Day Long’ a collection of poetry for children by Pamela Whitlock, bought long ago when I was young and still loved.
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Tennyson, then Poet Laureate. It’s full of many classic poems from the Renaissance and the Romantic era, but also contains many little-known lyrics which aren’t so widely read or studied nowadays. These obscure gems make it well worth purchasing.
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I love browsing through anthologies of verse! As a student (a science student – i.e. someone not supposed to take an interest in poetry!) I bought myself the older edition of “The New Oxford Book of English Verse”, and it really did open a new world for me. Some 40 years later, I still have my battered old copy, and I feel very nostalgic about it. Apart from the inexplicable exclusion of Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”, the selection really cannot be faulted. (I have only browsed casually through the later version edited by Christopher Ricks in bookshops.)
The Penguin Book of English Verse, edited by Paul Keegan, groups the poems by date rather than by poet, and throws up some fascinating juxtapositions.
A particular favourite of mine is “Romanticism: an Anthology”, edited by Duncan Wu, and published by Norton. It includes all the usual suspects (including the whole of the 1805 text of “The Prelude”), as well as a whole lot of less familiar poems and poets, and is more than just an overview of what, for me at least, was the most extraordinary period of English poetry. I know – some will prefer Renaissance poetry, some the Metaphysicals, some the modernists: they’re all wonderful, I know, but – can’t help it! – I’m a Romantic at heart! When the BBC finally comes to its senses and invites me on to Desert Island Discs, this one may well be my book choice.
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monkey give 100 % highest recommendation to the stuffed owl an anthology of bad verse. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24517.The_Stuffed_Owl
Thanks for the suggestions – I ordered a couple of the anthologies right away.
Come Hither is one that I splurged on when homeschooling and pored over for years, but I had forgotten about, so thank you, ferretpower, for the reminder to look on my own shelf!
Penguin’s The New Poetry from 1962 had a lot to do with forming my poetic taste when I read it at school in the 1970s.
Me too! If you mean the slim volumes; Penguin Modern Poets? Ginsberg, Auden, Silkin, George Barker et al!
No, not them (although I’m doing a series of reviews of those books on my blog. The New Poetry was a collection put together by Al Alvarez with a Jackson Pollock on the cover, and it had Hughes, Plath and the like in it. I wonder if maybe it triggered the idea for the Penguin Modern Poets?
Here to Eternity by Andrew Motion is another great anthology. It has a novel concept, dividing into seven sections starting from the self and the home, and expanding outwards to the universe. Most of all though, it is full of great poems, from a very wide range of poets… At the moment, the anthology I can hardly leave home without is John Williams’ book of English Renaissance poetry – no fan of 16th century poetry should be without it, and Williams’ notes about the ‘native’ and Petrarchan styles in English poetry are very illuminating.
Fantastic – thanks for the suggestions :)
Walter de la Mare’s ‘Come Hither’ – the notes are as good as the poems. And ‘All Day Long’ a collection of poetry for children by Pamela Whitlock, bought long ago when I was young and still loved.
Great recommendations – thanks!
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Earth Shattering by Neil Astley(ED) and Poem for the Day, Ed Wendy Cope!
Great suggestions!
Being Human by Bloodaxe Books and edited by Neil Astley – a fabulous selection of contemporary poems…
Great choice for a sixth title on the list! :)
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