A Treasury Of The World's Best Loved Poems

by Avenel Books

1980 Avenel Books small HB. Put this volume on your love's pillow!! Poets Shakespeare, Herrick, Marlowe, Browning, Lord Byron, Robert Burns, Walt Whitman an many others. If you can't find the words to express your love, these authors may have already said it.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Reference, Nonfiction, Collections

182 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1961

Reviews

[Meghan John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed a few old favorites that brought me back to Anne of Green Gables: “The Highway Man” and “The Wreck of the Hesperus.”

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like poetry. I don't often read it these days, but as it was National Poetry Month, I thought I'd take the plunge into some classics. I am frequently surprised at our usage of language, and how we often say little bon mots without knowing where they come from. But many come from these classics. I'm thinking of " a loaf of bread , a jug of wine and thou" from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Keats, or "water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink" from the rime of the ancient mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Anyway, it's a great nightstand read.

[Jenny Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the Introduction reminds the reader, "the world's best loved poems" is a pretty subjective concept for a collection. To this book, it seemed to mainly mean British, with a small smattering of American poems. That said, I found most of my favorites inside. Notable absences include Hughes and Angelou.

[Savannalee Hodgkinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me forever to get through this anthology. Personally, there were only a few poems to my taste. Some of these poets have rather lost their marbles, or are on shrooms- I suspect both. I definitely do not think this lived up to its title but alas I have now read more poems from some of the greats such as Wilde and my personal favourite poet of all time, Poe.

[paula curry · Rating 4 out of 5]

just now noticing Goodreads doesn’t have a reread button? or maybe it does I just can’t find it
??? but anyway my every so often reread of this random poetry collection has come to an end. Very enjoyable even if there are some intolerable ones sprinkled among the gems. My day is always just a little bit better after reading a little poem ✨👏

[Linda DiMeo Lowman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy reading poetry and I forget that when I don't read poems for a while. It's a totally different experience, both emotionally and intellectually, than reading fiction or memoir. Most of these poems I've read before, some a long, long time ago and I enjoyed reading them again.

[Victoria Wilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am no great, critical reader of poetry. I don’t even know how this book came to be mine, but I decided to give this a try and found that I loved it. Much of it went directly over my head, but still stirred something within me, much like music.

[Steven Decknick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The anthology felt somewhat uneven in its organization—arranged by author, though not alphabetically, and lacking a clear structural logic. Still, it served its purpose by offering a broad sampling of poets and their work, which I appreciated.

[Fred Donaldson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this volume though selective

[Robin Christophersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've carried this copy with me since it was given to me by my parents in 1977. Wonderful little volume of classic poetry.

[Sally B · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is older. Even so, it is just classical poetry. Nothing new. Mostly seem to be about death or historical events. Very few by women.

[Heather Barker]

This was a book of my grandmother’s that I recently picked up and read again.

[Alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best poetry anthology ever!

[Zee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The selection of poems was really biased. It says the world's best poems, but apparently Dante and Petrarch never existed, the ancient Greeks were illiterate, Asia is still that part of the map that says "here be dragons," and Africa is just a setting for white people to exist in. In fact, they skipped over Yeats--yknow, because he's too Irish and this is a strictly anglocentric work. There's a grand total of one brown author present, and his work is attributed to his translator. There's one female poet hiding at the end as though they were trying to get away with leaving her out and realized someone might notice. Oscar Wilde was the token Irish writer.

So if you like poetry books that only express the views of white men from the UK and US, yeah, it's a great collection. For me? I'm surprised they had the forethought not to include Kipling's "White Man's Burden," since the editors seem to line up with those ideals pretty well.

oh and tangent I'm super disappointed with the selections for Tennyson and Sydney--why no Astrophil and Stella? Why no Lotus-Eaters? And I'm also really annoyed they didn't had Goblin Market included. I guess two female authors in one book is just crazy talk.

[Arliegh Kovacs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Halfway through this collection, I realized that the best way to enjoy it was to read the poems aloud. I was delighted to find many of my favorites included: The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes; The Tyger by William Blake; The World is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth; John Anderson, My Jo by Robert Burns; Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
In middle school (called 'junior high', at the time) and high school we learned snippets of dozens of poems so it was fascinating to find these bits in the beginnings, middles, or ends of entire poems and to get the full impact of them.
I thought the book was great and highly recommend it to anyone wanting to be introduced to some of the most famous poems -- or to those of us who want review.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Keeping because of the adorable inscription found in the front as I bought this at a thrift store (Darling, please read to me, love your sunshine), but other than that it's a tepid collection at best. For a 'World' collection, it only has poets of certain schools, and almost entirely white Western poets. Perhaps a renaming to 'Best Western Classics' would be more appropriate. Most of these poems are already featured in my other more comprehensive collections.

[Linda Lipko · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a smattering of poems, primarily of men
With only Elizabeth Barrett Browning to represent women

With sentences of dying, fighting and of loves lost
I wondered if the authors ever thought about the cost

Of praise heaped high, judged merely for your sex
Forgetting about Dickinson, Parker, Angelou and the rest

[Cws]

821.008

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course I have not read all of these, but I don't want to leave it on my to-read list for eternity!!

[Lily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I guess it was boring to the person who left it to be donated in the first place. I could not really get into it, even when I tried over a few years. It will go to the library for their book salae.

[Jamie Ander · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the poems in here, I found some new ones among well-loved familiar ones. I only wish my copy wasn't so beaten up, the spine is breaking. A great set of poems for anyone.