Looking for a book with poems from various authors.

Poems may be about.. the ever so specific topic of LIFE!

Haha :). I hope this qualifies the rules of r/suggestmeabook !

Posted Jun 29, 2016, 9:36 PM UTC

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SteadilyTremulous•

Honestly, this is a pretty broad question, akin to asking "can someone recommend me a book" with any specifics. Anyway, usually when people talk about books with poems from various poets, they're talking about anthologies. Already we're at an impasse because of how general your question is. Anthologies generally focus on one grouping of poems or another, be it original language (no translations), region, subject, time period, some combination of those, or just whatever the curator(s) felt like including.

That said, I think it makes sense to start with an English language only anthology. It's on the more expensive side of things, but The Norton Anthology of Poetry is a pretty amazing resource with its 2000+ pages. If you don't mind used books, you can probably nab this thing on Amazon for under $20. It's got everything from Cædmon to Glück, as well as well some useful guides to prosody etc. in the back.

2
wishanem•

For a relatively short book of carefully selected poems I recommend "Good Poems", by Garrison Keillor (an NPR writer/presenter/personality). They're meant for a wide audience so they're not terrible obscure or academic. There's a mixture of classic and contemporary poets, but they're all pretty accessible. Also, if you finish that book and want more like it, Keillor has done a couple follow up poetry collections.

1
iamwhoiamnow•

I loved "The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. It is a collection of poetry that was selected by Caroline Kennedy, who wrote the introduction. The poetry is by a wide variety of authors from Edna St Vincent Millay to Langston Hughes to Kipling and Robert Frost. A lovely book.

1