The Dance

by Emily Fragos (editor)

A delightful anthology that celebrates in verse the silent poetry of dance and the dancer.Chinese dagger dances and Hindu festival dances, belly dancers and whirling dervishes, high-school proms and wedding waltzes, tango, tarantella, mambo, flamenco, reels and jigs, disco and ballet - dances of all kinds move through the poems gathered here, as do some of the world's most famous dancers, from Nijinsky and Pavlova to Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire; from Isadora Duncan, George Balanchine and Martha Graham to Baryshnikov and Bojangles. In the work of more than 150 poets - including Shakespeare, Milton, Hafez, Rumi, Li Po, Rilke, Rimbaud, Lorca, Akhmatova, Whitman, Dickinson, Cummings, Eliot and Merrill - we feel and see the grace, the drama, the expressive power, and the sheer joy to be found in dance, around the world and through the ages.

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with most anthologies, the poems are hit or miss. I did enjoy a good number of them, though.

[Clare Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

New favourite poetry collection 💃 So many gems in here.

[Zanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite good generally as these things go, and features two utterly sublime poems I've never seen elsewhere:

Jazz Dancer by Cornelius Eady
and
from Owl Dancing with Fred Astaire by Sherman Alexie

And also 'The God Who Only Knows Four Words' by Hafiz

Every
Child
Has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who only knows four words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come dance with Me.”
Come
Dance.

[Brent]

I like these anthologies of poetry, and mean to read this one.
Available for a limited time from Carlos Museum Bookshop
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