The Great Modern Poets: The Best Poetry of Our Times [Hardcover]

Here is the perfect introduction to the best poems written since the start of the twentieth century, their authors and their themes. Over 150 essential poems are accompanied by a brief discussion by poetry authority Michael Schmidt that provides insight, observations and the historical context for each poet and their work. 50 English-language poets are explored, including Thomas Hardy, A E Housman, W B Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost, Edward Thomas, D H Lawrence, Ezra Pound, T S Eliot, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, John Betjeman, W H Auden, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Allen Ginsberg, Ted Hughes, Derek Walcott, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and James Fenton. With an introduction that suggests way to appreciate the poems, and a glossary that demystifies the concepts and movements of modern poetry, The Great Modern Poets is an ideal welcome to the pleasures and insights poetry has to offer.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned W B Yeats

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas

In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. T S Eliot

Oh love! For love I could not speak, It left me winded, wilting, weak, And held in brown arms strong and bare And wound with flaming ropes of hair. John Betjeman

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. W H Auden

Reproduced within this book are the essential poems of Thomas Hardy, A E Housman, W B Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost, D H Lawrence, Ezra Pound, T S Eliot, Wilfred Owen, John Betjeman, W H Auden, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Allen Ginsberg, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and many other major poets of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For each, Michael Schmidt has provided an insight into their themes and the background to their work, opening for the reader a greater understanding and enjoyment of these extraordinary poems.