Poem a Day, Vol. 2

Poem a Day #2

by Laurie Sheck (Editor)

The Original Poem a Day has sold more than fifty thousand copies and is still going strong. It is a perennial gift-giving favorite and a word-of-mouth sensation among those who want poetry to be a greater presence in their lives. Like its predecessor, Poem a Day, Volume 2 offers a verse for each day of the year along with brief, often amusing, always interesting anecdotes about the poets and their poems. Laurie Sheck, a prize-winning poet in her own right, carries on the Poem a Day tradition by selecting a wide range of great poems that are short enough to memorize, substantive enough to be read again and again, and accessible enough to be enjoyed and appreciated by a wide readership. On the whole, Poem a Day, Volume 2 is a bit more modern than the original collection, a bit more international. Included are Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, Czeslaw Misloz, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, William Shakespeare, Emily Bronte, Rumi, Bertolt Brecht, Henry David Thoreau, Lewis Carroll, Yusef Komunyaaka, Octavio Paz, Adrienne Rich, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Walt Whitman, Rudyard Kipling, Sharon Olds, Seamus Heaney, Gary Snyder, Sylvia Plath, Tru Vu . . . the varied list goes on and on. Every day is different, a surprise, and an adventure led by a knowledgeable guide whose love of all good verse shines through on every page.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2003

Reviews

[Danielle Palmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some treasures in here, but it takes some digging to find them! The editor included a little snippet at the bottom of each poem with a couple facts on the author’s life (mostly how they died and where they were educated). I would’ve appreciated explanations of some of the more cryptic poems, a guiding hand on what I was supposed to be gleaning from them.

[Steven Belanger · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lesser collection than Volume 1, which is a silly thing to say for a random assortment of poems. I've got a few complaints, though my biggest is that I simply didn't like as many of these poems as I did in the first compendium, collected by a different editor. Take this with (mostly) a grain of salt, because obviously poems are a matter of taste, and mine just didn't swing this way.

Why? Well, you'll see many of the greats here as in the first, and you'll see poems that are not amongst their more well known. Normally that's a good thing, a necessary thing--if you liked the poems. I didn't, but again, that's me. I'm very familiar with Emily Dickinson, for example, but the ones selected here are amongst her least accessible. Good luck with a couple of these! And you'll not find as many of the great's poems here. Some are represented by one or two, while in the first one there were maybe 5 to 7 of them.

You'll also find here poems from all over the world, which is again a good thing. Volume 1, some may so, was too European and American. Perhaps that's true. This one is a lot more open. Again, a great thing, and I liked a lot of those poems. But I didn't like a lot of them, too. Take that with a shrug. To each his own.

Also, there were too many poems here that I just didn't get, or relate to, or find awesome. It's unfair, but when I read poems, I want to be wowed. And some did wow me: "Poor North," by Mark Strand, for example. "Nightsong: City," by Dennis Brutus was, in fact, awesome. And there were many more. Just not as many as the Volume 1.

Lastly, the info provided about the poet was also a bit lackluster. The first volume specialized in the interesting, weird, morbid, famous, infamous, etc. of the poet's life. This one, did, too, sometimes, but many seemed oddly too personal, too inconsequential, too...bleh. And way too many of them were depressives, or were married to them, or were alcoholics and suicidal--but, then again, they're poets. Didn't seem to be as much of that in the first one. And the first volume chose the poems because for some reason that day was important in the life of that poet, or in that poet's publication history. The selections here are truly random, and the whole thing just seems a little less planned and put together than the first.

But this review is, again, more arbitrary than usual for literary reviews. The bios and the randomness won't matter if you like the poems better than I did. And as a caveat, this edition reminded me of the daily poem feed I'd subscribed to, and then cancelled. I wasn't reading the emails, and I didn't like many of those poems, either. To each his own.

[Suzanne Trupin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have these three books and love to slowly work my way though, and back again. There is something about knowing a bit of author story that just fascinates me. Also my time and place in life makes the words seem so different! Sometimes I have to read out loud as it’s harder for me to ‘hear’ the pace and beauty in my head, and it slows me to pay attention to each part. Generally reading poetry is like life itself; all about where and when. Proving that words never stand alone, they only have meaning in context.

[David Lumpkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good anthology volume of poetry in the form of a day book. I read Volume One in the prior year to reading this one. I've thoroughly enjoyed the diverse poems each day and the writing about each poet. Some poets are represented a few times through the year. The selection gives the student of poetry, or lover of the same, a comprehensive exposure to verse. I highly recommend volumes one and two, as I begin volume three for 2024.

[Ryan Geer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like Volume 2 (as compared to Vol.1) had a poorer poem selection with more poems that were completely inaccessible to someone like me. I won't dare to delve into Vol. 3, but will instead go my own way from here on.

[Sage Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent anthology. A swath of poets as wide as the horizon to pick from, including cultural chants, folk songs, and poems for the erudite or the greenhorn.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poems didn't touch me this time like they had upon other reads. I think part of that might be that Poem a Day tends to touch on more modern topics these days--these just didn't compare.

[Christy Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I love them, I find anthologies of any kind notoriously challenging to review by the very nature that they can be so mixed in quality and content. Not having read the first volume of Poem a Day, I can't speak to how this collection compares to the original, but I will say this was very much a mix for me of poems that struck me and got marked for a re-read and poems that almost bored me or to which I had very little emotional response. The collection is highly diverse in terms of time periods from ancient Greek to modern and across parts of the globe from some of the Latin American poets to Japan to European and American and African. There were no particular guiding themes or any sort of semblance that I could discern from day to day. It very much had the feeling of potluck. Each day's poem was accompanied by a few sentences to a paragraph with a bit of biographical information on the poet and/or a bit of commentary on the poem. Again, some of this felt well compiled and at other times just felt random. Overall, worth reading through but not a particular favorite as a collection.

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fairly standard collection of poetry classics; the informational text beneath each poem is useful. But this is for novices who like poetry enough to get a book, but not enough to know where to look.

[Charis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the best collection of poems I have found yet.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

every day