A Book of Love Poetry

by Jon Stallworthy (Editor)

From the civilization of the Lower Nile to that of the Lower Hudson, more poets have written more convincingly, more poignantly about love than about any other subject. Jon Stallworthy has here selected some of the most moving, funny, shameless, and erotic love poems in the English language. Representing the work of more than 190 poets, from Sappho to Byron and Browning, from Rossetti to Wordsworth and E.E. Cummings, he offers a startling collection of love poetry down through the ages. Arranged thematically, beginning with the first drawings of young love and ending with the "long look back" of the aged, and revealing love in all its different aspects and perversities, this anthology demonstrates vividly man's changeless responses to the changing seasons of the heart.

"Stallworthy's book of love poetry, ranging across more than twenty centuries of writing about love 'till the stars have run away' establishes beyond the eye-shadow of a doubt that love is, has been and always will be blind."--Christian Science Monitor

"A very thorough job...eccentric and entertaining."--Times Literary Supplement (London)

Genres: Poetry, Classics

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Jon (Howie) Stallworthy (18 January 1935 – 19 November 2014) FBA FRSL was Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Oxford. He was also a Fellow (and was twice Acting President) of Wolfson College, a poet, and a literary critic. From 1977 to 1986, he was the John Wendell Anderson Professor of English at Cornell.

Stallworthy was born in London. His parents, Sir John Stallworthy and Margaret Stallworthy, were from New Zealand and moved to England in 1934. Stallworthy started writing poems when he was only seven years old. He was educated at the Dragon School, Rugby School and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize. His works include seven volumes of poetry, and biographies of Wilfred Owen and Louis MacNeice. He has edited several anthologies and is particularly known for his work on war poetry.

While researching the local history of New Zealand Stallworthy discovered an obscure volume entitled Early Northern Wairoa written by his great-grandfather, John Stallworthy (1854–1923), in 1916. From this book he learned that his great-great-grandfather, George Stallworthy (1809–1859), had left his birthplace of Preston Bissett in Buckinghamshire, England, for the Marquesas as a missionary. This discovery led in turn to him finding family-related letters in the archives of the London Missionary Society. Stallworthy's book A Familiar Tree (Oxford University Press, 1978) is a collection of poetry inspired by events depicted in these documents. Singing School is an autobiography which emphasises Stallworthy's development as a poet.

Stallworthy wrote a short summary of war poetry in the introductory chapter to the Oxford Book of War Poetry (Edited by Jon Stallworthy, Oxford University Press, 1984), as well as editing several anthologies of war poetry and writing a biography of Wilfred Owen. In 2010 he received the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award from the Wilfred Owen Association. In the course of his literary career, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the British Academy.

Reviews

[Cami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now this is a poetry collection!
I love how the different poems are arranged under such nouns as: Intimation, Declarations, Persuasions, Celebrations, Aberrations, Separations, Desolations, Reverberations.
It was this amazing book that introduced me to one of my favorite poets, Pablo Neruda.
Approximately 300 poems and more than 190 poets are encased inside the cover.

[Doll · Rating 4 out of 5]

my comfort book

[MKF]

DNF.
I love poetry but about halfway through it starts dragging and I lost interest and it felt like it would never end. It was a poem by Edmund Spenser where I started losing interests probably because it was so long and I had no clue what he was saying. This was an issue because the author says in the introduction that he was only including short poems yet Spenser's is a couple of pages long. It seems that after that poem he started including more longer poems which didn't help. It's not a book of love poems I would recommend first but other poetry lovers will enjoy that the author includes many lesser known authors and poems.

[Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

such a beautiful collection of love poetry wonderfully compiled indeed. though it is impossible for me to wrap up my whole thoughts as each individual poems bear its own singularity, here’s some of my personal favourites from some of the sections:

INTIMATIONS

• ‘she walked unaware’ by patrick macdonogh
• ‘warming her pearls’ by carol ann duffy

DECLARATIONS

• untitled poem by william shakespeare
• ‘she walks in beauty’ by lord byron
• ‘elizabeth of bohemia’ by sir henry wotton
• untitled poem by anon

CELEBRATIONS

• ‘sick love’ by robert graves
• ‘she’ by theodore roethke
• untitled poem by e.e. cummings
• ‘lullaby’ by w.h. auden
• ‘in paris with you’ by james fenton
• ‘she tells her love while half-asleep’ by robert graves
• ‘the way’ by robert creeley
• ‘to my dear and loving husband’ by anne bradstreet
• ‘last love’ by fyodor tyutchev

ABERRATIONS

• ‘to his mistress’ by ovid
• untitled poem by edna st vincent millay
• untitled poem by a.e. housman
• untitled poem by bhartrhari
• ‘love and life’ by john wilmot, earl of rochester

SEPARATIONS

• untitled poem by lord byron

DESOLATIONS

• untitled poem by sappho
• ‘the definition of love’ by andrew marvell
• ‘love and jealousy’ by william walsh
• ‘never give all the heart’ by w.b. yeats
• ‘mirage’ by christina rossetti
• ‘the sick rose’ by william blake
• ‘one art’ by elizabeth bishop
• ‘talking in bed’ by phillip larkin

REVERBERATIONS

• ‘when you are old’ by w.b. yeats
• ‘unfortunate coincidence’ by dorothy parker
• ‘seduced girl’ by hedylos
• ‘at the dark hour’ by paul dehn
• ‘what i wouldn’t give’ by anthony astbury
• ‘time passing, beloved’ by donald davie
• ‘remembrance’ by emily brontë

[Viktoriya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read the entire book and all the poems yet but I can say it's a nice collection of love poems.

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whew... It has taken me a long time to finish this book. I had to take breaks often and return to it only when I really had the appetite for it. To be sure, A Book of Love Poetry is a high-quality compilation of poems, containing mostly poems originally written in English but also some translated from Hebrew, Greek, French, and other languages. I don’t doubt the taste of the editor of this compilation, but the selected poems were very hit-or-miss for me in terms of enjoyment. Some really delighted me, others exhausted and bored me. However, I think that is just how it goes with poetry, and I overall enjoyed and recommend this compilation as it exposed me to new poets and many, many new poems I’d never read before.

[Library Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not going to pretend that I read every single poem in this collection. However I did read a good chunk of them, and the ones I read I really enjoyed. One of my favorites was "Strawberries".

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

a beautiful collection of poetry xx

[Madilynn Vaughn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never been big on Poetry but I did find one I really liked, a sublanterns love song

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this in the library in high school and it was my first introduction to poets like Ezra Pound and E.E. Cummings. It's an unusual, eccentric collection -- some funny, some bawdy, some moving. Now that I'm older, I have a different perspective on the book, but I still find pleasure in the variety of poems included. High praise to the editor, Jon Stallworthy.

[Tom Menner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from a library years ago, and was fortunate to find it years later in a book store. This collection has been the source of a lot of my favorite love poems, and I enjoy how it is organized into themes organized along love life cycles ("Intimations", "Declarations", "Celebrations", "Separations", etc.).

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this anthology. Stallworthy does an excellent job of not only collecting but categorizing a diverse group of poems that look at love from many perspectives. Neither too sentimental or too cynical, this book examines the emotions of love from a myriad of views.

[Tina Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not the biggest Love Poetry fan but I do love poetry. :) This book is worth owning just have a bunch of these poems individually and it takes up much less room then buying books by lots of different poets just to get 1 poem out of each.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally enjoy love poetry and found this baby for a low price in Long Beach, CA. I was happy with this book and enjoyed the beautiful poetry of love contained inside. Recommended to poetry lovers.

[Trice · Rating 4 out of 5]

i've been able to find a poem in this book to depict any level of love i've felt for anyone...
i refer to it often.

[Quin Herron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Canonical love poetry encapsulated, there is much to appreciate in this volume. It's by no means required reading, but it's nice to have around and it has its hidden gems like any treasury.