Status Updates From World Poetry: An Anthology ...

I've just read a bit of 20th century poetry from Africa... And now at last after many years of reading I come to the final section of the book - the one amorphously called 'modern poetry in English'. Geographic locations oddly fall away (for the first time in the book - why?) and now we are simply in the global English-speaking world.

I've just read a bit of 20th century poetry from Africa... And now at last after many years of reading I come to the final section of the book - the one amorphously called 'modern poetry in English'. Geographic locations oddly fall away (for the first time in the book - why?) and now we are simply in the global English-speaking world.

Just read some poetry, tracking from the Philippines, to Indonesia, skipping down to Australia to hear from two Aboriginal poets, then leaping across to Central America for a Zapotec poem, up north for a Cree poem, then down to the West Indies, opening the gateway to the next excursion: Africa.

Just read some Chinese, Korean and Japanese poetry from the 20th century. I liked one by Korean poet Pak Mokwol called Prayer in Four Verses.

Just read a bit of Urdu, Marathi, Hindi, Bengali and Tamil poetry, and some Indian poetry written in English. I enjoyed it.

Just read a bit of 20th century Greek, Armenian, Hebrew and Turkish poetry.

I've just read a bit of French, Walloon, Scots Gaelic and Welsh 20th century poetry. Some really lovely stuff in there.

Just read a bit of 20th century Italian poetry. For some reason there was a disproportionately large amount from a guy called Eugenio Montale... there seemed to be more from him than virtually any other poet in the book so far. I hadn't heard of him before, though I see he won the Nobel Prize.

I've just read a bit of 20th century Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese poetry from Europe and South America. Some names like Lorca, Paz, Neruda, and throughout some lovely turns of phrase, romance and image.

Just read a bit of 20th century Polish, Czech, Serbian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Hungarian and Romanian poetry.

I've just read a bit of 20th century Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian and Ukrainian poetry. The Russian poets usually didn't live to 65, but they had a religious sensibility and a keen sense about the suffering inflicted by their leaders. Long live the poets... maybe Russia should be taking notice.