100 Poets: A Little Anthology

by John Carey

A wonderfully readable anthology of our greatest poetry, chosen by the author of A Little History of Poetry

A poem seems a fragile thing. Change a word and it is broken. But poems outlive empires and survive the devastation of conquests. Celebrated author John Carey here presents a uniquely valuable anthology of verse based on a simple principle: select the one-hundred greatest poets from across the centuries, and then choose their finest poems.
 
Ranging from Homer and Sappho to Donne and Milton, Plath and Angelou, this is a delightful and accessible introduction to the very best that poetry can offer. Familiar favorites are nestled alongside marvelous new discoveries—all woven together with Carey’s expert commentary. Particular attention is given to the works of female poets, like Christina Rossetti and Charlotte Mew. This is a personal guide to the poetry that shines brightest through the ages. Within its pages, readers will find treasured poems that remain with you for life.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Henk · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting springboard for anyone interested in Anglophone poetry
The paths of glory lead but to the grave - Thomas Gray

John Carey his choice to use old English translations from Greek and Latin originals makes the threshold for the modern reader a bit higher than I imagined a-forehand; still 100 Poets: A Little Anthology is an interesting starting point for anyone wanting to get a better feel of poetry.

Love and war are the main topics at first, with some added nature and capital letter God later on in the bundle.

Andrew Marvell his section is almost a mini essay, with quite some background on the perception of nature (nature is a garden) and it’s links to the concept of innocence. It’s the kind of writing I would have liked to seen more in the bundle, just giving a tad more depth to the poets. and Paradise Lost by John Milton is also treated in a similar manner.
Christina Rossetti is my favorite of the first 50 poets, with two poems that are in my opinion very good:

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
         Gone far away into the silent land;
         When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
         You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
         Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
         And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
         For if the darkness and corruption leave
         A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
         Than that you should remember and be sad.

From the antique

It's a weary life, it is, she said:
Doubly blank in a woman's lot:
I wish and I wish I were a man:
Or, better then any being, were not:

Were nothing at all in all the world,
Not a body and not a soul:
Not so much as a grain of dust
Or a drop of water from pole to pole.

Still the world would wag on the same,
Still the seasons go and come:
Blossoms bloom as in days of old,
Cherries ripen and wild bees hum.

None would miss me in all the world,
How much less would care or weep:
I should be nothing, while all the rest
Would wake and weary and fall asleep.

But maybe Edgar Allan Poe, with The Raven being included in full, is the biggest surprise. I only associate him with horror stories but his use of rhythm is almost hypnotic in that poem. Out, out by Robert Frost is harrowing, with a 16 year old dying by a hand cut off. W.H. Davies his social commentary in Sleepers is biting. In general till the First World War poems, history and broader events are hardly to be found in the bundle. Of the later 50 I think I liked Louis MacNeice - Prayer before birth most.

An interesting foray into anglophone poetry, an ideal starting place to explore other sources like: https://www.poetryfoundation.org

Honorable mentions to look into more:
Sappho - best love poems I read in the bundle
Geoffrey Chaucer - time to dust of the Canterbury tales
Christopher Marlowe - all they that not love tobacco and boys are fools
John Dryden - quite harsh satire, like it
John Clare - his I am poem is shockingly modern in being so personal about his asylum stay, and contains the phrase Living Sea of Waking Dreams
Lord Byron - the gladiator poem cleverly inverts sympathy we might feel for the civilized Romans towards the barbarian
Heinrich Heine - the poem gains a lot of poignancy when one knows he was paralyzed
Thom Gunn - with poems from the AIDS epidemic
Seamus Heaney - a poem as directed as an ice pick about his return from school to home with a dead brother

[Lady Alexandrine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very personal and interesting. Some poems selected surprised me and I learned about poets that I haven't heard about before. The information about each poet was only a short mention or one fact from their lives, not enough.

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is, as it states in the introduction, a personal selection of 100 poems that start in the classical world and end somewhere after World War II. It's interesting to me, more for what it says about John Carey than what it says about poetry in general.
I am of an age where my English Literature degree course started with the classics and moved creakingly through to the 20th Century, and I recognise a good 60% of these poems as things I was taught as we moved through the chronology. They are not things I would read for pleasure again, as I have widened my reading broadly since then and am much more interested in women's poetry, performance poetry and poets and poetry which reflects a far more global experience than what is trapped between these pages.
This is a good place to start if you want a very broad overview of poetry from day dot to mid Twentieth Century. I was pleased to see that it does include some women poets and some poets of colour but in large part what you have here is the accepted canon. Some of the biographical notes are interesting and some of the choices of the more well known poets are also interesting.

[scl.ashx · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 stars

"100 Poets: A Little Anthology" by John Carey is like having a pocket-sized guide to some of the greatest poetic voices ever, handpicked by someone who truly loves words.

This book isn’t about overwhelming you with thick stanzas; it’s a perfectly digestible mix of classics and surprises.

Carey has this knack for making even the most intimidating poets feel approachable. I loved the conversational intros, the way he makes each poet feel alive, and how every page feels like a new discovery.

What sticks with me? The reminder that poetry is personal, eternal, and surprisingly fun.

[Nick Soper · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is nicely arranged and presented but I was hoping for a bit more insight into each of the poems. The short introductions are often copy/pasted from his Little History of Poetry which I was reading in parallel - since the books are meant to be complementary, this felt like a lazy move!

Despite the lazy introductions, this still presents some wonderful poets and is a decent place to look if you're interested in finding someone new to read.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mid-Term Break
Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying—
He had always taken funerals in his stride—
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'.
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

------

Prayer Before Birth
Louis MacNeice
I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak to me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems seem such fleeting, transitory things. Yet these short verses of words that carry so much meaning have been with us since people have been able to write things down. The cross over between the spoken word, song and poetry has a long history too.

In this very personal collection by John Cary, he has selected the 100 poets that mean the most to him and he begins the collection with the words of Homer whose words were first written down by others over 2000 years ago. Sappho is his second selection who is thought to have lived from 630 – 570 bc but almost nothing is known of her.

There are the poets that I expected to find in here, Tennyson, Larkin, Plath and Hughes as well as finding that some people I had heard of, Edgar Allan Poe and D.H. Lawrence who had also written poetry.

I thought that this was a solid introduction to the 100 poets that are particular favourites of John Carey. There are of course some that I have heard of and even read before. But there are a large number that I had not come across before and a greater number of poets in here whose work I had bever read before.

I now have a list of others to read at some point soon. I did feel that it was missing contemporary poets who are writing today and creating classics that we will appreciate in years to come.

[bowiesbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! I’m not a big poetry person, so I learnt lots about the backgrounds of the poets and their most famous poems. I had only heard of a handful of them (Shakespeare, Brontë, Dickinson, Plath etc) so it was good to see names I didn’t know of and enjoy their work. I particularly liked the earliest poets and the ancient Greek that was covered. Overall, it was a lot more factual than I had originally thought with only one or two poems by the poets. I did like how Carey added his own criticisms and thoughts about the poems, it definitely added a more thoughtful tone to the book. If you’re looking for something educational and quick to read (and if you’re a big poetry fan) then you’ll love this.

[Liva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too few woman, too few not western people. Feels a bit lazy, and many of the poems are about war or very only manly experiences. Not that they are not important, but balance is important. The Sappho poem though. So beautiful and touching.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this because it really did give the reader an array of authors throughout the ages. Definitely taught me a lot, but would recommend reading this in tandem with another novel… Great in short segments!!

[Kate: The Quick and the Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having thoroughly enjoyed John Carey's 'A Little History of Poetry', I was pleased to be given an advance copy of '100 Poets: A Little Anthology' for review. Thanks to NetGalley and Yale University Press for my book - opinions, as always, are entirely my own.

As the book's subtitle suggests, this is quite a little book. It features 100 chapters which are quite concise - some are a quick introduction to the poem or poet and a short poem, others feature more commentary or a longer poem/excerpt from a poem. All the expected literary canon poets are here - Homer, Byron, Wordsworth, Yeats, Eliot, etc - although there were a few surprises along the way too.

It needs to be said that this is very much a book of western poetry - there is little beyond the ancient Greeks and Romans, Brits and Americans. That said, it provides an interesting wander through the history of this poetic tradition from the early epic poetry of Homer up to poets who have only recently left us, such as Maya Angelou.

There is an attempt to include women poets - Sappho makes an early appearance, there are a handful of female Victorian poets in there and some 20th and 21st century ones. I really appreciated this effort to make it more than an anthology of dead white guys! Still, ethnic minority poets barely get a look-in here - it's very much a mainstream book so you probably need to look elsewhere if you want the more offbeat or modern. I was surprised to see no living poets included as there are some I love and who - I think - would warrant a place in this collection.

I'm fairly au fait with poetry in general, having done a traditional English Literature degree that started with Homer and worked forwards! I also teach poetry a lot and was quite familiar with a lot of the writers featured here. In some cases, it was like visiting old favourites - but on the other hand, I was reminded that I hate Walt Whitman's poetry (wow, that's a lot of focus on semen!) This is a great book to dip in and out of and an engaging introduction to the poets.

As with any anthology selected by one person, the choices probably say more about the curator than the poets. I was often surprised at the choices made - often pleasantly so as Carey introduced me to some lesser known of the poems. Given the unfamiliarity with some of the material, some more commentary would have been handy in places - I still don't really get what Ted Hughes was on about! Mostly though, I was happy to be swept along by Carey's enthusiasm and expertise on the subject, rather than niggling thoughts on whether he picked the best Larkin poem (spoiler - he didn't!)

There's lots of great poetry here and tonnes of food for thought. It might help you to discover new writers or learn more about old favourites - the poem introductions and commentary by Carey are often lively and enlightening and enjoyable, even though they sometimes focus too much on the well known writers. I wanted less Wordsworth, more Charlotte Mew, less Robert Burns (I needed a Scots dictionary for that bit!) and more Elizabeth Bishop, less Milton and more Plath.

However, this proves that poetry is all about personal taste - my version of this type of anthology may feature different choices to Carey's but I totally accept that I'll never have the breadth of knowledge he does and so it is just lovely to be in the hands of an expert for a while. I'd especially recommend this to those relatively new to poetry as it is a good overview of the history and an interesting introduction to some of the western world's best poets.

[Marg · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️: 3.5
📅: 15 May - 15 June 2023

[Cailean McBride · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always had something of a weakness for poetry anthologies and possess way more than I could ever need. Nor do I think I’ve bought my last. They tend to be odd beasts. Too many are just stuffed full of the usual suspects — which is fine as far as it goes, if, for example, it’s one of your first and these poems are new to you.

But after a while, you get tired of seeing not just the same (largely dead white male) names but the same works by them over and over and you want something a little different. You want to dig a little deeper. That’s where the more eclectic, more intelligently curated, anthologies come in — the likes of The Rattle Bag, or Neil Astley’s ‘Alive’ trilogy or Larkin’s still near-unassailable Oxford Book of 20th Century English Verse. These are the ones that eschew the endlessly anthologised usual suspects to give you less well-known works by major writers or, even better, selections from poets you may not have heard of at all. There’s no greater feeling than discovering a new favourite poet or poem.

100 Poets doesn’t belong to either of these classifications. It calls itself an anthology but it isn’t really. Most poets within it are represented with short extracts, some with more than one. These seem to be intended to illustrate Carey’s short commentaries on each writer, rather than give the reader a flavour of the poets themselves. In some cases, they still manage to do this but in others the selections seem too short or disjointed to work as anything other than documentary quotation for the commentaries themselves.

But it’s the commentaries that are the real meat of the book and why you’d really want to read it. Carey is never less than fascinating and he is, for my money, one of those public academics I’d consider more worthy of the appellation ‘national treasure’ than many of the names I’ve seen it attached to. He’s better on some poets than he is on others, of course. He’s great on the Sappho and Dante but surprisingly slight on Shakespeare and his entry on Phillis Wheatley is so negligible that it makes you wonder why it was bothered with at all. His entry on Eliot, however, is excellent and sums up in a few short paragraphs all the disquiet I’ve felt about his poetry for years.

It’s a short book and so each entry is necessarily short and as a whole this makes it feel closer to Carey’s journalism rather than his more serious academic endeavours. Mostly I was reminded of Carey’s similar collection Pure Pleasure, which had the wider remit of the ‘best books of the 20th century’ and which had previously been serialised in The Sunday Times. These mini-essays are similarly so short that they could quite easily find their way into a weekend supplement somewhere.

What is most puzzling is just how it fits with its apparent companion volume A Little History of Poetry. You could perhaps call it a reader for that more straightforwardly historical narrative rather than a complementary anthology as such. The book’s real strength probably comes in the ability to dip into it, to pick it up and put it down relatively easily. It’s an ideal gift for just about any poetry-head or as a pretty undemanding but still astute and informative introduction to the Western poetical canon in general.

[Juli Rahel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry can be challenging, in part because it is so deeply personal. Not every poem, no matter how praised or beautiful, will speak to every person in the same way. This is why I love anthologies like 100 Poets because it allows you to browse through the years, decades, centuries, and see if there is something that does grab your attention. Thanks to Yale University Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Poetry is deeply personal and yet also deeply traditional, which always felt a little paradoxical to me. On the one hand poetry is engaged in the traditions of its genre, either following in previous footsteps or engaging by breaking with established forms of metre or form. Yet on the other hand, every poem springs from personal experience and insight. It is this push and pull that fascinated me and what makes me go back to poems over and over again. (Obligatory link to my favourite poem.) It is also why I keep going back to books like 100 Poets, why I do scour through the pages of poetry on social media. Because I like seeing how people work within the mold, break the mold, share their personal feelings in an attempt to connect with humanity at large.

In 100 Poets John Carrey takes us on a historical tour of poetry, stopping at all his favourite stops. In the end this isn't a collection of poems but a collection of poets. We're meeting the people behind the words, as much as reading the words themselves. It makes complete sense, in a way, that not every poem can be featured entirely. Carey mostly chooses to select short passages from poems, which he then discusses. In some cases, like Sappho, we only have fragments or short poems which can be featured in their entirety. I occasionally was a little saddened by not getting an entire poem, but it still made sense to me. I liked the way in which Carey introduced every poet, how he added his analyses and thoughts alongside the poetry. For some this might be a distraction but even when I didn't agree with his thoughts I enjoyed having them to balance myself against. For those looking to develop an opinion on poetry this can be super useful, because it is hard to form an opinion in a void.

One thing that must be noted is that this collection is very Anglophone, in that it predominantly features English/American poetry. Some poets, like Sappho, are featured in translation, but mostly 100 Poets sticks to the familiar canon. If this is your first real introduction to poetry than 100 Poets will be very valuable. If you've already read through some translations, if you're a fan of discovering something new, then 100 Poets is fun but not ground-breaking. And there is nothing wrong with that! The joy of poetry is that it can be read and read again, and somehow be new each time. So I'm happy to re-read the entirety of Poe's The Raven. I'm happy to have someone else adore Emily Dickinson and to have them explain to me exactly why.

100 Poets is a lovely little book full of poetry, or rather, full of poets! Carey does his best to make us familiar with artists from across all ages, and you're bound to find a poem or three you love.

URL: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/...

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me. I really enjoyed the mini biographies before the poems but most of these poets I had never heard of and they were not to my taste. There was a few exceptions such as Christina Rossetti who is my favourite poet. A few other well known poets including but not exclusive to Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Burns and the more modern day Maya Angelou. I feel this would be a good introduction for anyone wanting to dip their toe into poetry.

[Jane Fudger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book of 100 poets. The selection[some unknown to me] was interesting and I particularly enjoyed John Carey's old English and Greek translations.
I have also read a previous book by Carey called "A Little History of Poetry" and although each book can be read independently[which I did] for someone new to poetry it could be worthwhile reading the history dialogue and then cross reference to the actual poems as they mostly follow each other.
It would help to read the two books together and I intend to do this in due course

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent personal anthology of poems that mean something to John Carey and which he considers worthy of inclusion. Short biographical notes and analysis accompany the poems and I found the collection a real delight. It’s not in any way a guide to the “best” poems and poets, nor an attempt to redefine the canon, but taken for what it is – one man’s choice of poems – I found it an enjoyable and sometimes surprising anthology.

[John Fredrickson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though this book is exactly what it says it is, I found it generally unsatisfying. I think this is mostly because very little material is presented for each poet. For poets I like, there was too little presented, while for other poets, I could not tell why they were selected at all. Carey makes some effort in the book to discuss the relevance of some of the poets (e.g., Milton, Gray), but overall the selection and material did not appeal to me.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dip-into-able anthology
I am not a regular reader of poetry but found the Anthology ver “dip-into-able.”
The short descriptions with each poem are enlightening and informative, the breadth of time showing an interesting divergence of styles. This will be a welcome addition to my bookshelf to browse from time to time

[thewoollygeek (tea, cake, crochet & books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this anthology of poems so much, all selected by John Carey as personal to him, I loved reading works that he feels connected to the most (not necessarily what he considers best) I found it an enjoyable and beautiful anthology one I will return to

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

[Richard Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

About half of the peoms were familiar but almost all were ones I liked. Among the others were many I was delighted to encounter. Carey's brief comments at the beginning of each poet are useful and insightful.

Although I greatly appreciated Carey's selection, I enjoyed Clive James's selection in Fire of Joy even more.

[Shelby Bollen]

An interesting collection of poems that would suit someone who wants to learn a little more about poetry! I liked how the book was set out and I was pleasantly surprised by how factual and informative it was.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

[Joseph Simmonds · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sheer number of poems and poets is overwhelming, but this book offers an accessible introduction. From Homer to Oscar Wilde to Maya Angelou, editor John Carey whets the appetite with his charcuterie board of carefully-chosen poems, accompanied by the crisp commentary of a man who knows what he's talking about.

[Angela DT · Rating 4 out of 5]

100 Posts by John Carey

I've just read this book cover to cover. This is a wonderful poetry book that takes you from poetry from BC to modern day. I liked that it gave each poet a mini biography.
It will be one that you'll want to keep on your bookcase to re-read many times over.

[Jess Best · Rating 3 out of 5]

john milton being blind and having a scribe who wrote down what he would memorise and recite every day is cool. what ISN'T cool is the fact that when she would show up to do her scribey things he'd literally say "I need to be milked"

[Rose · Rating 1 out of 5]

This collection of poems was just not for me, however I think the concept of the book is a brilliant idea to create a collection of 100 poems and add context about the poems and about the authors.

[Keerthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little compilation of poems from 100 poets from Homer to Plath and Angelou. This book has different poems, not the famous works but selected pieces with little notes from the author, from poets ordered almost chronologically. I really enjoyed reading through it, focusing on my favorite poets first and getting to know some new and unknown poems. I would definitely return to this book regularly and seek the pleasure and peace only poetry could offer.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

“it was your birthday. we were drunk and sad”

damn he just like me

[Jim Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Excellent selection of poets (leaning British); choice of poems themselves sometimes eccentric

[Elvis Gregory-sayce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant
Must Read 4 Poets