Poems of the Sea

by J.D. McClatchy (Editor)

A gorgeously jacketed hardcover anthology of poems from around the globe and through the ages that pay tribute to the world’s great waters.

Throughout history, poets have felt the ancient pull of the sea, exploring the full range of mankind’s nautical fears, dreams, and longings. The colorful legends of the sea–pirates and mermaids, phantom ships and the sunken city of Atlantis–have inspired as many imaginations as have the realities of lighthouses and shipwrecks, of icebergs and frothing foam and seaweed.

This marvelous collection includes classics old and new, from Homer and Milton to Plath and Merwin. Here are Tennyson’s seductive sea-fairies next to Poe’s beloved Annabel Lee. Here is Coleridge’s darkly brooding “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” alongside the grandeur of Shakespeare’s “Full Fathom Five.” And here is Masefield’s “I must go down to the seas again” alongside Cavafy’s “Ithaka” and Stevens’s “The Idea of Order at Key West.” In the wide variety of lyrics collected here–sonnets and sea chanteys, ballads and hymns and prayers–we feel the encompassing power of our planet’s restless waters as metaphor, mystery, and muse.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Nature, Collections, Anthologies, Maritime, School

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 28, 2001

About the author

McClatchy is an adjunct professor at Yale University and editor of the Yale Review. He also edits the "Voice of the Poet" series for Random House AudioBooks.

His book Hazmat (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002) was nominated for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. He has written texts for musical settings, including eight opera libretti, for such composers as Elliot Goldenthal, Daron Hagen, Lowell Liebermann, Lorin Maazel, Tobias Picker, Ned Rorem, Bruce Saylor, and William Schuman. His honors include an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1991). He has also been one of the New York Public Literary Lions, and received the 2000 Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award.

In 1999, he was elected into the membership of The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in January 2009 he was elected president. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation (1987), the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets (1991). He served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1996 until 2003. (Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Anna P (whatIreallyRead) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another pocket-sized poetry anthology from the series I love. I took it with me on a seaside vacation for a thematic read. It's comprised of ballads, chanteys, anthems, legends, and poems of shipwrecks, seafarers, storms, sea-fever, etc.

THE SHIPWRECK

The tale is different if even a single breath
Escapes to tell it...

It included many popular classics: Dickinson, St. Vincent Millay, Milton, Byron, Rossetti, Plath, Baudelaire, Donne, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Kipling, Melville, Milton, Homer, Whitman, Poe, Frost, Tennyson, etc.

I rather enjoyed it, particularly the chanteys. Many poems were haunting and atmospheric. But as with all anthologies, some are more thematically appropriate than exciting of their own merit. Reading poetry has a calming effect on me, so I make a habit of it.

[Roisin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a brilliant collection of poems inspired by the sea. A mixture of old English and modern poetry, this book is split into themes, e.g. 'The Call of The Deep', 'Ballads', and 'Legends', etc. It features a wide range of poets, such as, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, 'Annabel Lee', which was featured in the film 'Play Misty For Me' by him is here, Sylvia Plath, and a fantastic, wild, stirring poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'A Vision of The Sea'.

A couple of verses are taken from longer poems, but only a few appear like this, so don't let this put you off. There are some fun ones such as, 'Drunken Sailor' too.

Great to see some female poets and good ones. Besides Sylvia Plath, Louise Bogan, Emily Dickinson, Felicia Hemans, among others. It is also good to see different or lesser well known poems by some familiar poets.

At the end the book, sources are given for the poems if you wish those to explore further.

Highly descriptive, sometimes moving and rich in language, do take a look.

[Othy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great run of poetry about the sea. Most of it is English, though there is a few translations here or there. I was particularly impressed to see "The Seafarer" (from the Anglo-Saxon period of English poetry) here as well, as it is frequently overlooked in anthologies. I actually read most of this on my honeymoon after swimming in the sea all day, and I think that doing so helped me appreciate the ocean more and more each day (as well as gave me and my wife more beautiful things to talk about).

[Bumbles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again, as with all anthologies, I start them all and try to read up to halfway, and if I don't like it, I move on unless it's a very short poem. Luckily this anthology had a lot of good poems.
Favorites:
1. From Child Harolds Pilgrimage - Bryon
2. A Calm at Sea - Goethe
3. A Song in Storm - Kipling
4. Father Mapples Hymn - Mellville
5. From Richard the Third - Shakespeare
6. Leviathan - Merwin
7. The Tuft of Kelp - Melville
8. At Melville's Tomb - Crane

I loved many others, but I have made note of them in other reviews and so they are committed from here.

Aside: It is a testament to the production quality of Everyman's volumes, that having spilled 0.7 ml of 100% ambroxan near the last few pages, not even a little bit of ink was displaced. Does it warrant the 25-dollar price tag? I think so.

[Beth Hutto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mean... poetry + ocean, what more do I have to say?

[Charles Bakos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another attempt at poetry for myself. I just can’t seem to fully appreciate it. The positive of this being an anthology though is that I did discover some authors, poets rather, that stood out, and impressed me with their prose. Not giving up on poetry but I just think I’m missing something somewhere, either that or it’s really not for me. That aside reading this by the ocean was a treat and I loved hearing the stories and depictions of the sea.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up because I wanted to discover some poets suited to my tastes. And I certainly did! The collection contains a number of my favorite poems ever: the Convergence of the Twain, Crossing the Bar, and some of Longfellow's; but I also learned of some new-to-me poets. I highly recommend this diverse collection!

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some poetry I loved, some I didn't. Overall, very beautiful and varied.

[Daisy Atkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really superb collection of poems. I would have liked to see some more contemporary/modern poetry about the sea but I think almost every poem included was magical and really made me value living by the sea even more than I already do.

[Halle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning. Such lyrical and moving word of poets of the past that sink deep into the heart of oceanic desire.
I love anthologies as I always find new poets to further read into - Sara Teasdale from this one - but also as it's hard to get your hands on some of these poets, so you can still experience their works within such collections.

[Kem White · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a summer vacation by the sea so I thought I'd bring this little pocket book of "Poems of the Sea." I'm glad I did. As with all poetry, some of these poems really resonated with me such as one by Tennyson from "Ulysses", Longfellow's "Seaweed,"" and especially Masefield's "Sea-Fever." Then there are poems I don't quite understand, even after repeated readings: Merwin's "Leviathan," Melville's "The Tuft of Kelp," and Stevens' "The Idea of Order at Key West." I really liked how the poems are grouped by category such as Storm and Calm, Seafarers, and Legends. I find these Everyman's Pocket Poetry books a nice way to tackle poetry. There aren't a lot of upbeat poems, and some are grim. (After all we are talking about the ocean.) But a small to book to have with you at the shore. Recommended.

[Ryan Denson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent compilation of some sea poetry, which includes many of the famous poets alongside more obscure ones as well as some anonymous songs and chanteys. There are also several excerpts involving the sea from larger works like the Odyssey, Paradise Lost, and Moby Dick, that add a nice touch to the diversity of works in this brief book. The works are arranged in broad categories covering different aspects of the sea from romanticized views of sailing to shipwrecks and sea legends. Overall, it’s a very entertaining read, perhaps even best when read gradually at a pace of perhaps one poem or so a day.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good anthology of concise poetry about, near, on, or remembering the sea. Picked this up on Nantucket and read it there, on Cape Cod, and back here in Iowa. Once the sea touches you, it is forever a part of you.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was given to me by a friend almost 7 years ago, when I was writting my own poem book.
it's an amazing one and I am so thankful I had a great friend to find it for me!

[Diane James · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's nothing better than having a book of poetry laying around to be picked up and read at your leisure! Even better to be poetry about the sea....

[Bartholomew Timm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of some of the finest poems of the sea. My two favorites are Sea-Fever by John Masefield and Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

[Patrick Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poets are just good with storms and water, or it might be my liking for weather and land.

All the Everyman pocket collections are excellent and this is as good as those things usually are. I like it as much as Sleep and Dreams.

How on earth is one to review this? It is like a compounded gem. It is as well to say that the sea itself is the author, every other writer being separated by time, language and space, united only by thought.

It is the sea which has the prime identity and trying to review it is like trying to review the sea. It is a vessel in which to pour our passions, like all subjects. But the sea is the greatest of vessels, the last thing that can still be thought of as a thing, the final object. An object of timelesness, and therefore defining time, and deep time An object that transmutes place into time and time into place as all journeys must, yet is a kind of meta-journey, a journey-of-journeys. A system made of motion, that can only move, and therefore the decider of the fixed. A grave, the deepest and most permanent ever known, that will carry no name. A womb of storms and storehouse of monsters when required. The depth of sleep and savagery of gleeful death.

I still don't really understand what a lot of Louise Bogans poetry is about, I think she might be one of my favourites but I don't understand her.

[TheTaleTellingHeart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was introduced to these Everyman's Libarary Pocket Poets books through this one that I found in a second hand book shop, and I'm so glad for it!
This has a good mix of poets, some well known to me and some I've discovered for the first time from this collection of poetry.

Some poems and their writers that really stood out to me:
Leviathan by W. S. Merwin
Sea Lullaby by Elinor Wylie
Echoes by Walter de la Mare
Sea-Change by Genevieve Taggard

Highly recommend this edition and any of the others from this series!

[Fleur · Rating 3 out of 5]

“As you stand on the shores of this book, you will see beyond its horizon the ocean’s expanse of pleasures and perils. And here are the poets, putting into words an immensity that only the imagination can contain.” Really loved the foreword by McClatchy!

Not my favourite of the Pocket Poets series that I’ve read so far. The final part, Reading the waves, really saved it for me. It’s definitely a versatile collection considering the specific theme but most of it wasn’t really to my taste.

[CaitlynK · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I am too long away from water.
I have a need of water near."
Exiled, Edna St. Vincent Millay

A good and varied selection. The poems are well suited to the stormy, watery mood of November and December, many of them capturing a landlocked person's longing for the sea.

[mwr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best of the topical poetry collections I've been wading through.

I'm not a huge william carlos williams fan, but the final two lines of Seafarer.

It is I! I who am the rocks!
Without me nothing laughs.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emily Dickinson on the lick of a wave. Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabelle Lee.” This lovely and occasionally gruesome book awaited us at an oceanside place in central California—and was savored like a slow sunset.

[Grace Rowland]

I think I’ve given poetry my best effort and it’s just not for me. I thought if I was going to like any collection, it would be this selection of classic poems about the sea. I liked one of the poems and was neutral or disliked the other ~100.

[Colin Quigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up in a coastal city, I read this whenever I feel homesick for the ocean

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book holds an excellent selection of highly sophisticated poems that convey the power of the sea in each and every one.

[Ariane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing overall but I didn't like the really long excerpts from Ulysses and the like. Would have preferred those be replaced by more discrete poems.

[Ramona Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This small book is filled with great poems by great poets. I read a poem a day in 2020; a bit of light reflecting off of a dark year.

[Andrew Nemo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential read for those of us that feel that infinite connection with the water. All the highs and lows

[Sean]

To my surprise, a highlight was Longfellow's "Seaweed."

[Alecia · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s not that the poems weren’t well done, but the choice of what to include, and more importantly, what not to include was perplexing and disappointing. 🫤