Top Ten Poetry Books of All Time; and the 20th Century
Okay, I bullshitted. Here from the Guardian is Andrew Motion’s list of top ten poetry books of all time
1. Lyrical Ballads by Anon (1798) (Wordsworth and Coleridge)
2. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems by John Keats (1820)
3. Poems, Chiefly Lyrical by Alfred (not yet Lord) Tennyson (1830)
4. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855)
5. North of Boston by Robert Frost (1914)
6. Poems by Edward Thomas (1917)
7. Poems by W.H. Auden (1930)
8. The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin (1955)
9. North by Seamus Heaney (1975)
10. Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop (1983)
2. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems by John Keats (1820)
3. Poems, Chiefly Lyrical by Alfred (not yet Lord) Tennyson (1830)
4. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855)
5. North of Boston by Robert Frost (1914)
6. Poems by Edward Thomas (1917)
7. Poems by W.H. Auden (1930)
8. The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin (1955)
9. North by Seamus Heaney (1975)
10. Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop (1983)
Only missed the two greatest collections of all time: Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Psalms…
1. Collected Poems by TS Eliot (Faber)
Because this book contains The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock as well as the grand major sweep of The Waste Land and The Four Quartets.
Because this book contains The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock as well as the grand major sweep of The Waste Land and The Four Quartets.
2. Poems from the Book of Hours by RM Rilke, translated from the German by Babette Deutsch (Vision Press)
Because their excitements teach me how to silence the clamour made by my own senses.
Because their excitements teach me how to silence the clamour made by my own senses.
3. Poems by George Seferis, translated from the Greek by Rex Warner (The Bodley Head)
Because Seferis’s work makes my hair stand on end.
Because Seferis’s work makes my hair stand on end.
4. Collected Poems by Edward Thomas (Faber)
Because I love his country verse and because he is the best poet of the first world war.
Because I love his country verse and because he is the best poet of the first world war.
5. Collected Poems by WH Auden (Faber)
Because I took this book to Roy Plomley’s desert island and found the poems not merely brilliant but also durable.
Because I took this book to Roy Plomley’s desert island and found the poems not merely brilliant but also durable.
6. Collected Poems by Dylan Thomas (Dent)
Because the music of his words resonates in my mind and will as long as forever is.
Because the music of his words resonates in my mind and will as long as forever is.
7. Collected Poems by Bernard Spencer (Oxford University Press)
Because he was a fine pleasure-giving poet too much neglected.
Because he was a fine pleasure-giving poet too much neglected.
8. Life Studies by Robert Lowell (Faber)
Because the poem’s confessional nakedness is compelling.
9. Collected Poems by Philip Larkin (Faber)
Because his poems with their sharp-eyed images portray the feelings of the man next door.
10. View with a Grain of Sand by Wislawa Szymborska, translated from the Polish by Baranczak and Cavanagh (Faber)
Because Szymborska is the best woman poet of our time and offers us accessible, ironically humorous poems underpinned by her life experience of her country’s marked vicissitudes in the 20th century.
Because the poem’s confessional nakedness is compelling.
9. Collected Poems by Philip Larkin (Faber)
Because his poems with their sharp-eyed images portray the feelings of the man next door.
10. View with a Grain of Sand by Wislawa Szymborska, translated from the Polish by Baranczak and Cavanagh (Faber)
Because Szymborska is the best woman poet of our time and offers us accessible, ironically humorous poems underpinned by her life experience of her country’s marked vicissitudes in the 20th century.
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June 16th, 2009 at 6:39 AM
Nice to see Larkin made both lists. I’ve just finished a post on him which my good wife is proofreading as I type this.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:47 AM
Good to hear from you Jim. Happy to read your post.
Larkin wrote great pithy prose too.
June 17th, 2009 at 3:21 PM
How can either of these list be taken seriously, each has left out Howl.
I get that the majority of Ginsberg’s other poems may not merit this distinction, however Howl, is one of the most descriptive poems about its time that has been written…
June 17th, 2009 at 3:37 PM
Can’t say I’m with you Poetman. While it may have described its time, it isn’t to my mind good poetry. Would better have been called ‘Rant.’
March 26th, 2011 at 3:52 AM
Where are the women poets?
Plath, Sexton, Marianne Moore, Emily Dickinson, Barrett Browning, Carol Ann Duffy, Louise Gluck, Denise Levertov, Mary Oliver, Sharon Olds, Christina Rossetti, Adrienne Rich, Stevie Smith etc etc