book excerptise: a
book unexamined is not worth having
Poetry Anthologies: A compilation
There are way too many books of poetry on my shelves. Many of them are
anthologies, where you can discover fresh voices, work that hasn't caught
your eye so far, work you may want to explore further. But all too often,
you are trudging through a lot of deadwood for a few sprouts here and
there.
There are some books that I go back to again and again. Others just sit
there for a long time, gathering dust. But then one day when you pick it up,
you never know what you will find...
My favourites: top 10
Here's my top ten list (completely unbiased and impersonal, of course :).
It's headed - as of Jul 2010 - by the utterly unforgettable
Against
forgetting by Forche. Among Indian poetry anthologies, I fell in love
with
Strangertime, edited in the 70s by Pritish Nandy, for its
unremitting energy - or is it because I'm the only one in the world who's read
it? Other Indian poetry up there is Mehrotra's
Twelve indian poets
(superbly acerbic introductions), and Meena Alexander's
Indian love
poems. Milosz's
Luminous things is rising as I am
getting to like some of the odd styles he has picked up.
Faber modern verse by Roberts and Hall makes it in there because when
I read it first, I fell in love with the disdain for reality - one sudden
juxtaposition after another - but I'm beginning to feel that the surprises
are too contrived at times, and some of this cubist poetry fails to connect
emotionally. Paul Hunter's
Norton Intro to Poetry is just superb,
especially the way they discover and take up the first five poems.
- Against Forgetting: Twentieth-century Poetry of Witness by Carolyn Forche (1993)
behind the kitchen-garden's white wall, graves.
...
- strangertime: an anthology of Indian Poetry in English by Pritish Nandy (ed) (1977)
The anthology is therefore not defensive. It celebrates our success. It
attempts to capture the drama, the intensity, and the sheer vitality of the
...
- The Norton Introduction to Poetry, Eighth Edition by J. Paul Hunter and Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays (2002)
I have carved our lives in secret on this stick
of mountain mahogany the length of your arms
...
- Indian love poems by Meena Alexander (ed.) (2005)
Her lips are like leaves. Mine are full-blown coral.
Don't bite too hard.
...
- The Faber Book of Modern Verse, 3d ed. by Michael Roberts and Donald Hall (ed.) (1965)
One of my favourite poetry anthologies - perhaps the reason I like it so
much is because before this, most anthologies I had encountered were
variants of palgrave.
...
- The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (ed) (1993)
"anthologies are graveyards" - 1
...
- A book of luminous things: an international anthology of poetry by Czeslaw Milosz (1996)
True indeed is that saying of Wise Men
"A hundred years are but a moment of sleep."
...
- When God Is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others by A.K. (tr.) Ramanujan and Velcheru Narayana Rao (tr.) and David Shulman (tr.) and Ksetrayya (1994)
What's there
to be jealous about?
When youth passes,
nothing will go your way,
so grab the cash
...
- The Random House Book of Poetry for Children by Jack Prelutsky and Arnold Lobel (ill.) (1983)
Windrush down the timber chutes
between the mountain's knees --
a hiss of distant breathing,
a shouting in the trees
a recklessness of branches
a wilderness a-sway,
when suddenly
a silence
takes your breath away.
...
- The War Poets by Robert Giddings (1988)
Indian poetry
There is nothing called "Indian literature," [just as] there is nothing
called "Indian food". - Buddhadev Basu
It is surprisingly how many people still do not realize how India, far from
being a monolithic unit, is culturally as diverse as Europe. While one
doesn't often run into an anthologist of "European poetry", how come Indian
poetry anthologies abound? Some, like Dharwadker and Ramanujan, take a lot
of pain over defining what Indian poetry might constitute. Others, with a
more western audience in mind, rule out all the Indian languages, and assume
that "Indian poets" are only those who write in English (e.g. Thayil).
Others talk of Indian poetry in Bengali, Kannada, English, etc., which I
feel, forms a much more legitimate cultural ground for anthologies to sprout
from.
And then there are cross-cutting genres like women's poetry...
- The Oxford Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry by Vinay (ed.) Dharwadker and A.K. Ramanujan (ed.) (1994)
My father travels on the late evening train
Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light.
...
- Modern Indian Poetry in English by Ayyappa K Panikker and various (1991)
- Nine Indian women poets: an anthology by Eunice DeSouza (ed.) (1997)
- Modern poems from Bengal by Surabhi Banerjee (1996)
- When poetry comes: a selection of poems by contemporary Bengali women poets in English translation by Marian Maddern (tr.) (1999)
This too is the night of danger
covered with lotus leaves or washed by tears
...
- The unsevered tongue: translated poetry by Bengali women by Amitabha Mukerjee and hiran mitra (2005)
- We speak in changing languages: Indian women poets 1990-2007 by E. V. Ramakrishnan and Anju Makhija (2009)
- 60 Indian poets by Jeet Thayil (ed.) (2008)
Frost streamed the air. Our blood pulsed thin and shrill.
...
- Hundred Indian Poets: An Anthology of Modern Poetry by Pranab Bandyopadhyay (ed.) (1977)
- 20th century Kannada poetry by Sumatheendra Nadig (1983)
Because I love you
The image of the sun comes down to enter the dew drop.
...
- Modern Bengali Poems by Lila Ray (1999)
Lila Ray was the wife of Annadashankar Ray; she was born Alice Virginia
...
- Yatra 1 by Alok Bhalla and Nirmal Verma and U.R. Ananthamurthy (1993)
- Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Vishnu by Nammalvar and A.K. Ramanujan, (tr.) (1981)
- Poems from the Sanskrit by John Brough (trans.) (1977)
- Speaking of Siva by A. K. Ramanujan and bAsavaNNa and devara dAsimayyA and mahAdeviyakka and allAma prabhu (1973)
- The absent traveller: Prakrit love poetry from the gAthAsaptashati of sAtavAhana hAla by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (tr.) (2008)
- Celebrating the best of Urdu Poetry by Khushwant (tr. ed.) Singh and Kamna Prasad (ed.) (2007)
When my beloved raised her arms to gather up her tresses
A million desires gathered in my heart and got tied up in a tangle
...
- The Penguin Book of Modern Urdu Poetry by Mahmood Jamal (tr.) (1986)
Last night your lost memory
came to me
as spring comes quietly upon a wilderness
...
- In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali by Edward C. (trans.) Dimock and Denise Levertov and Anju Chaudhuri (ill) (1967)
The marks of fingernails are on your breast
and my heart burns.
...
- Indian love poems by Tambimuttu and John Piper (ill) (1967)
- Erotic Love Poems from India: Selections from the Amarushataka by Andrew (tr.) Schelling and Amaru (ed.) (2004)
- The Tenth Rasa: An anthology of Indian nonsense by Michael Heynman and Sumanyu Satpathy and Anushka Ravishankar and Sampurna Chattarji (2007)
Idli lost its fiddli
Dosa lost its crown
Wada lost its wiolin
And let the whole band down.
...
- An anthology of Indian Love poetry, by Subhash Saha (ed.) (1976)
-
Voices from Bengal : Modern Bengali poetry in English translation by Manabendra (eds) Bandopadhyay and Sukanta Chaudhuri and Swapan Majumdar (1997)
-
Poetry with young people by Gieve Patel (ed) (2007)
-
Modern Indian Literature, an Anthology: Surveys and poems by K. M. George and Sāhitya Akādemī (1992)
-
Twenty Indian Poems by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (ed.) (1990)
-
The golden treasury of Indo-Anglian poetry by Vinayak Krishna Gokak (ed.) (1970)
World poetry
World poetry is now on an upswing, with new texts appearing every month
almost, it seems.
- The Poetry of Our World: An International Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Jeffery Paine and Kwame Anthony Appiah (eds) and Sven Birkerts and Joseph Brodsky and Carolyn Forché and Helen Vendler (2000)
- The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry by J.D. McClatchy (ed) (1996)
On the whole though, the quality of the poetry is quite refreshing, and
and the random-page test works well.
...
- World poetry: an anthology of verse from antiquity to our time by Katherine Washburn and John S. Major and Clifton Fadiman (1998)
- The Poetry of Men's Lives: An International Anthology by Fred (ed.) Moramarco and Al Zolynas (ed.) (2004)
the uncollected man in converse with himself,
...
- The Penguin Book of Women Poets by Carol Cosman and Joan Keefe and Kathleen Weaver (1978)
- Ain't I a Woman! : Classic Poetry by Women From Around the World by Illona Linthwaite (ed.) (1987)
-
The Other Voice: Twentieth-Century Women's Poetry in Translation by Joanna (ed) Bankier and Carol Cosman and Doris Earnshaw and Joan Keefe and Deirdre Lashgari and Kathleen Weaver (eds) (1976)
- Longman anthology of world literature by women, 1875-1975 by Marian (ed.) Arkin and Barbara Shollar (ed.) (1989)
Europeans called [Kanhoji Angray] a "pirate", and such in truth he was; but
... what chief, or ruler, or founder of a dynasty was not a robber or a pirate?
...
- The Heinemann Book of African Women's Poetry by Frank Chipasula and Stella Chipasula (ed.) (1995)
- The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, v.1 Modern Poetry by Jahan Ramazani and Richard Ellman and Robert O'Clair (2003)
- The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, v.2 Contemporary Poetry by Jahan Ramazani and Richard Ellman and Robert O'Clair (2003)
- The Longman Anthology of World Literature volume C : The Early Modern Period by David Damrosch and Jane Tylus and Pauline Yu and Sheldon Pollock (2004)
Even in India, vernacular writing - Tukaram, or Basavanna - is little known
...
- Language for a new century: contemporary poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and beyond by Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar (2008)
not more than one in ten poets will be familiar, even to erudite
readers. And the voices are often fresh, so that you yearn for more
...
- The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry: Fourth Edition by Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier (1998)
Because because I do not scream
You do not know how bad I hurt
...
- Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry by Todd Swift and Philip Norton (2002)
-
The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English by Adewale Maja-Pearce (ed.) (1990)
-
Modern Iraqi poetry by Yaseen Taha (ed.) Hafiz and Abdul-Wahid Lu'lu'a (tr.) (1989)
- Haiku: Seasons of Japanese Poetry by Johanna Brownell (2002)
English poetry: USA / UK
- A book of love poetry by Jon Stallworthy (1986)
A treasure-trove. But the dense print and typography of this edition is
somewhat off-putting; doesn't give the poems the visual space they deserve...
- Ploughshares Spring 2008 by B.H. Fairchild (ed.) (2008)
-
The Norton Anthology of Poetry: Shorter by Alexander W. Allison and Herbert Barrows and et al (1983)
-
Tongue's Palette: Poetry by Linguists by Andrew Sunshine and Donna Jo Napoli (2004)
-
A Concise Treasury of Great Poems, English and American: From the ... by Louis Untermeyer (1942)
- Poetry for the Earth by Sara (ed.) Dunn and Alan Scholefield (ed) (1992)
-
Can poetry save the earth?: a field guide to nature poems by John Felstiner (2009)
- Song of Songs: Erotic Love Poetry by Judith Ernst (2003)
Humour
- The Oxford Book of Light Verse by Wystan Hugh Auden (ed.) (1973)
-
Limericks historical and hysterical by Ray Allen Billington (1981)
-
The Penguin Book of Nonsense Verse by Quentin Blake (1994)
-
The dirty song book: American bawdy songs by E.R. Linton (1965)
-
The Penguin Book of Limericks by Parrott,Eric Oakley (1983)
Children's poetry
- The 20th Century Children's Poetry Treasury by Jack: Meilo So Prelutsky (ill) (1999)
- Around the World in Eighty Poems by James Berry and Katherine Lucas (ill) (2002)
- It's a Woman's World: A Century of Women's Voices in Poetry by Neil Philip (ed.) (2000)
-
Children's Treasury: Best Loved Verse by Gallery Books and Margaret Tarrant (ill) (1990)
amitabha mukerjee (mukerjee [at-symbol] gmail.com)
2010 Jul 14