The Zoo of the New: Poems to Read Now

by Don Paterson (Editor), Nick Laird (Editor)

'So open it anywhere, then anywhere, then anywhere again. We're sure it won't be long before you find a poem that brings you smack into the newness and strangeness of the living present, just as it did us' (from the Introduction)

In The Zoo of the New, poets Don Paterson and Nick Laird have cast a fresh eye over more than five centuries of verse, from the English language and beyond. Above all, they have sought poetry that retains, in one way or another, a powerful timelessness: words with the thrilling capacity to make the time and place in which they were written, however distant and however foreign they may be, feel utterly here and now in the 21st Century.

This book is the condensed result of that search. It stretches as far back as Sappho and as far forward as the recent award-winning work of Denise Riley, taking in poets as varied as Thomas Wyatt, William Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, Frank O'Hara, Sylvia Plath and Gwendolyn Brooks along the way. Here, the mournful rubs shoulders with the celebratory; the skulduggerous and the foolish with the highfalutin; and tales of love, loss and war with a menagerie of animals and objects, from bee boxes to rubber boots, a suit of armour and a microscope.

Teeming with old favourites and surprising discoveries, this lovingly selected compendium is sure to win lifelong readers.

Genres: Poetry

467 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 30, 2017

About the author

Don Paterson (b. 1963) is a Scottish poet and writer. He is the author of sixteen books of poetry, aphorism, criticism, memoir and poetic theory. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, three Forward Prizes, the T.S. Eliot Prize on two occasions, and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of St. Andrews, and for twenty-five years was Poetry Editor at Picador MacMillan. He has long had a parallel career as a jazz guitarist.

He lives in Kirriemuir, Angus.

Reviews

[emily]

Why on earth is this so underrated and not read enough? I want to bring this everywhere I go. It's a perfect chunk of book to lug around everywhere and anywhere. To be kept on a bedside table - to be held briefly and read before bed. What a fab collection of poems - I dare say I love most of them - many of them are poems by my favourite poets - Syzmbroska, Hardy, Heaney, Ruefle, Edna St. Vincent Millay (to name a few). I love Don Paterson, and have seen him read (poems) and perform (music/guitar) many times. The last time I saw him was on a rainy evening in London, he ended his reading with a song - and it was such a lush dream. I highly, highly recommend getting a copy of this.

[Rachel]

A lovely little variety pack.

The editors write in their intro: "Its ‘zoo-ness’ consists in the variety and strangeness of the poems, and its newness in the apparently inexhaustible ability of those poems to surprise, delight or shock us, no matter how many times we read them."

This isn't the wildest anthology I've ever read, but it's playful, eclectic and absolutely Enjoys What It's Doing.

Rather than constructing some grand review of literature in English, the anthologists have basically just chosen poems they like; since I liked most of them too, I'm ok with that.

[Katerina]

One of the best collections of poetry I've read!! Each poem feels thoughtfully chosen and the alphabetical organization means you get a diverse range of poem styles and eras on the same page. I got this for a class and I really believe it reinvigorated a love for poetry in me and inspired me to write again.

[Steve Bowbrick]

Eclectic, modern, cheeky, full of joy. A totally splendid collection.

[Alina]

really good collection, some diverse and interesting picks but could have been more varied

[Cooch]

Four and a half stars

This is a very personal choice of poems with many lesser known or less anthologies poems included There are very few duds

[Patrick]

i found 1 i liked in 50 pages

[Raytown]

So much to love, so much to be unnerved or moved by in this anthology. Not everything worked for me, of course, but almost everything had something interesting going for it.

[Stuart Piper]

I am consciously trying to read more poetry, not just in academic preparation - but because while I find it hard to sit still in meditation, I love poetry’s persuasion in slowing me down. You can’t speed read poetry: but savour each word. Picking Atwood to begin, only because I studied at A-Level and she sat on the library shelf in the poetry section, fate lent me a happy hand: for a taster Google “The Poets Hang On by Margaret Atwood” (one of my favourites in the collection).
As a poetic novice, or aged scholar returning from sabbatical (!), I thought I’d also pick up a prominent anthology and found I’m drawn to Plath and, of course, Dickinson.