The Harvill Book Of Twentieth-Century Poetry In English

Michael Schmidt (ed)

Editions

Review

This brave and sometimes controversial selection includes more than a hundred poets, beginning with Thomas Hardy and finishing with Sophie Hannah (First Of The Last Chances pbk £4.95).  Michael Schmidt identifies Modernism as “the defining movement of the twentieth century”, and it is Modernism from which he takes his “editorial bearings”.  Interesting therefore, that he should choose to offer the reader only two parts of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’, perhaps the most resonant work to emerge from the last century.  That omission is my only real reservation; the introduction is interesting and lucid, lesser-known writers like Langston Hughes, Laura Riding and the poet’s favourite, David Jones, are included, and there plenty of gems to be found (Simon Armitage’s ‘Zoom!’ and Geoffrey Hill’s ‘The Pentecost Castle’ stood out for me).  There aren’t too many good anthologies of twentieth century poetry around, and none so far that looks back on the whole century in the way Schmidt has been able to do here.  Well worth the modest investment. - review by Paul Engles