A decent collection containing some real heavyweight poets. However, I was at a bit of a loss as to why these nine poets were pulled together in this anthology. The editor, E. L. Black, does not identify any common linkage in terms of style or theme between the poets; indeed, he notes in his preface that each of the poets require different approaches from the reader and "different degrees of assistance from an editor" (pg. ix). Nor is the book a 'greatest hits' package: the section on W. H. Auden does not offer us 'Funeral Blues', for example, and 'Dulce et Decorum Est' is absent from the section on Wilfred Owen. So I don't understand why this anthology was birthed.

That said, the poems are good and a bit different from the sort of poetry I usually read, so my mind was broadened by reading Black's anthology. Black's introductions to each poet are helpful, and I got a better appreciation of the works of W. B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas and Ted Hughes in particular (although I didn't take to John Betjeman's poems). All told, one should never turn one's nose up at good poetry, and my response to Black's anthology is a positive one. ( )