The Harvill Book of 20th Century Poetry in English
  • Published: 15 April 2000
  • ISBN: 9781860467356
  • Imprint: Harvill Press
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 768
  • RRP: $49.99

The Harvill Book of 20th Century Poetry in English

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'The poets which Schmidt has chosen to include in this volume are worthy to stand up and speak for the art of a century' - Rachel Campbell-Johnson, The Times

Michael Schmidt’s anthology includes the work of more than a hundred poets from every part of the English-speaking world. What links their diverse voices is a common language: each poem, in its own way, adds to the resources of the medium and makes it new.

The poems in this book are allowed to slip free of their moorings in the biography and history of the last century to create new spaces and times. They have been chosen because they are exceptional, profound and unique in what they do to language, regardless of their subject matter or the orientation of the poet. It is a powerful reminder that in the twentieth century poems did what they have never done before, and it provides us with a unique insight into the forces that will shape the poetry of the twenty-first century.
  • Published: 15 April 2000
  • ISBN: 9781860467356
  • Imprint: Harvill Press
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 768
  • RRP: $49.99
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About the author

Michael Schmidt

Michael Schmidt is a poet, critic, and translator. He edits the leading poetry journal PN Review, is the editorial director of the Carcanet Press and director, the Writing Programme at Manchester Metropolitan University and a Professor of Poetry at the University of Glasgow. He was born in Mexico in 1947, and educated at Harvard and Oxford. His Lives of the Poets, a survey of English poetry from the fourteenth century to the present day, 'distinguished him as among the most vigilant of critics' (The Times).

Praise for The Harvill Book of 20th Century Poetry in English

A valuable and brave book... reliably thoughtful and properly controversial. Furthermore, its devotion is always to poetry, not to personality

Andrew Motion

Readers who delight in the sheer diversity of 20th century poetry in English are richly catered for

Spectator

Michael Schmidt is eminently well-suited to take the measure of the changes and vicissitudes that brought poetry to its current modern character

Independent on Sunday

Schmidt is no despiser of popular taste for all his declared modernism, his agenda is elastic and inclusive... I can imagine teaching out of this rich, warm, generous collection for years, without getting bored, limited, or enraged with its editor

Times Educational Supplement

It is hard to see who could have done the job better than Schmidt

Times Literary Supplement

Schmidt gives us a chance to settle down with poets we wish we had known better

Daily Telegraph

A satisfying selection that reminds us that Lawrence didn't just write about animals, Betjeman wasn't always jolly, and Plath is more interesting for her collapsed perspectives than for her self-exposure

New Statesman

The selections from the greats are generous and well chosen

Guardian
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