Voices: The Second Book

by Geoffrey Summerfield

Genres: Poetry

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

too much doggerel and bad poems from good poets, presumably chosen for their obscurity. There's a lot of good Hardy out there, why select the poor ones? A dated anthology, I'm afraid.

[Bionic Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second of a series of three excellent poetry anthologies edited by Geoffrey Summerfield. Voices: an anthology of poetry with pictures was first published by Penguin in 1968, in three independent parallel volumes. They are larger than average paperbacks, with a canvas effect cover and fine quality paper. The illustrations are monochrome, which I do not usually like, but in this case suit the book perfectly. They include Art photographs, as well as details from paintings, and drawings.

Geoffrey Summerfield edited quite a few volumes of poetry. He raised the bar for this series, as he covers many centuries and cultures that are often ignored in such books. For instance, this one has several Chinese poems in translation.

Not every country is represented, nor every English-speaking country. Poetry from the British Isles features most often, as we would expect. But it is a good cross-section, and not weighted towards Victorian poetry, as many anthologies are. Here there are a few, but there are also poems from the 16th right through to the 20th, as well.

One I enjoyed was “The Sorrowful Lamentation, Confession and Last Farewell to the World of John Lomas”, who was executed at Chester on 24th August 1812 for the Wilful Murder of Mr George Morrey of Hankelow, near Nantwich, in the county of Chester, on Sunday Morning, 12th April 1812. It is a broadsheet ballad. There are also many traditional regional verses included, some which were familiar to me, although I enjoyed some of those I hadn’t come across before just as much. Whenever I set a poll for a Goodreads group, I can be found muttering to myself:

“Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November …” and so on.

So when I came across a similar one here, I was delighted! It isn’t nearly as much use, but here it is:

When to Cut Your Nails

A man had better ne’er been born
Then have his nails on Sunday shorn.
Cut them on Monday,
Cut them for health;
Cut them on Tuesday,
Cut them for wealth;
Cut them on Wednesday,
Cut them for news;
Cut them on Thursday,
A new pair of shoes;
Cut them on Friday,
Cut them for sorrow;
Cut them on Saturday,
See your sweetheart tomorrow.

So we’d better be warned!

There are a few old carols, such as “A Lyke-Wake Dirge” (a famous round from the 14th century), popular music-hall songs/poems e.g. “Baby’s Epitaph” https://allpoetry.com/Biby’s-Epitaph and a short anonymous Christmas Mummer’s play at the end. There are even a few riddles. I liked these, especially when I could guess them!

At the back there is an index of poets, translators and collectors, with the numbers relating to the number of the poem, rather than the page. It is easy to use, as the numbers are in bold. There is also both an index of first lines, and an index of titles, ditto, and a list of illustrations. There are tunes for some poems, and of course the answers to the riddles and puzzles.

Poets I personally enjoyed seeing represented in this volume were sometimes the same as in volume 1, sometimes different, and sometimes new ones to me. Most were represented by more than one poem. Familiar faces were John Clare, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Charles Causley, Emily Dickinson, Robert Graves, A.E. Housman, Ted Hughes, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney. I also enjoyed poems by Langston Hughes, Theodore Roethke, Vernon Scannel, May Swenson and others.

My favourite illustrations were by Hieronymos Bosch, Brueghel the Elder, Gustave Dore (London prison, engraving):



"Newgate Exercise yard" - Gustave Dore, 1872

Charles Le Brun (“Man into Ox” and “Man into Bear”), a Chinese woodcut of a dragon, a painting in wax on an Egyptian mummy 2nd or 3rd century A.D. “Young Girl”, Edvard Munch, Bill Brand (back street in Jarrow, photograph), and William Hogarth.

Here is one which features opposite Charles Causley's famous poem "Timothy Winters"


"Boy with Bat in Wapping, London" - Roger Mayne 1959

However, you would no doubt make a completely different list! Altogether there are 168 poems, and 29 Art works, with themes as diverse as public executions or young love (or both in one, sometimes!) They are roughly grouped although there are no formal sections. This helps, as it means that the sudden change between different poets from different centuries and cultures is an easier transition, because of similar linked themes. Ditto the images, which serve as a little break in concentration. This is one of the reasons this anthology succeeds when other anthologies do not, as they are OK to dip into, but can seem too dense to read.

This is a collection which holds up well today, and which I would happily recommend to anyone over about 15 years of age.