First comprehensive anthology devoted exclusively to 20th century British and Irish poetry.
Presenting a wide-ranging selection of vital twentieth-century work, Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and
Irish Poetry contains over 450 poems by 126 poets, beginning with Thomas Hardy and Gerard Manley Hopkins and ending
with Catherine Walsh and Helen Macdonald. It features ample selections from canonical poets including W.H. Auden,
Basil Bunting, T.S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, D.H. Lawrence, Charlotte Mew, Hugh MacDiarmid,
Wilfred Owen, Edith Sitwell, Stevie Smith, Dylan Thomas, Edward Thomas, and W.B. Yeats. At the same time, this
volume challenges received accounts of modern and contemporary British and Irish poetry by presenting work from
many poets--including Mary Butts, Brian Coffey, Nancy Cunard, Elizabeth Daryush, Ivor Gurney, F.R. Higgins, Mina
Loy, Thomas MacGreevy, Joseph Gordon Macleod, Charles Madge, Clere Parsons, Lynette Roberts, John Rodker, and Sylvia
Townsend Warner--who have never before been represented in this type of collection.
Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry covers many groups and movements--from the Georgians to
the poets of the New Apocalypse and the Auden group and from the Movement to the New Generation--paying special
attention to neglected modernist traditions. It presents a range of post-World War II exploratory poetry by writers
including Tom Leonard, Tom Raworth, John Riley, and Maggie O'Sullivan alongside the work of more established figures
like Thom Gunn, Tony Harrison, Paul Muldoon, and Craig Raine. It includes poetry by "Black British" writers
including James Berry, Jean "Binta" Breeze, David Dabydeen, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jackie Kay, E.A. Markham,
and Grace Nichols, and feminist poetry by Fleur Adcock, Caroline Bergvall, Eavan Boland, Carol Ann Duffy, Denise
Riley, Anna Wickham, and others. It also provides the complete texts or substantial excerpts of several important
long poems. All of the poems are newly and thoroughly annotated, many for the first time. Each poet's selection
begins with a critical introduction providing biographical and bibliographical information along with critical
commentary.
Ideal for general readers and for courses in modern and contemporary British and Irish poetry and literature, this
anthology provides an unprecedented, inclusive portrait of the century's poetry in Britain and Ireland.
Represents both canonical and lesser-known works
Includes works from many poets who have never before been represented in this type of collection
Covers various groups and movements, paying special attention to neglected modernist traditions
Offers poetry by "Black British" writers and feminist poetry
Includes the complete texts or substantial excerpts of several major long poems
Provides new and thorough annotations for all of the poems
Features critical introductions for each poet
Table of Contents
Preface THOMAS HARDY (1840-1928)
Hap
Neutral Tones
The Subalterns
The Darkling Thrush
The Man He Killed
Channel Firing
'I Found Her Out There'
After a Journey
from Satires of Circumstance
II. In Church
VI. In the Cemetery
The Pity of It
In Time of 'the Breaking of Nations'
Snow in the Suburbs
The Harbour Bridge
He Never Expected Much
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (1844-1889)
God's Grandeur
"As kingfishers catch fire"
The Windhover
Pied Beauty
Spring and Fall
Inversnaid
"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day"
"No worst, there is none"
[Carrion Comfort]
Spelt from Sibyl's Leaves
That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection
Justus quidem tu es, Domine
RUDYARD KIPLING (1865-1936)
Gunga Din
Sestina of the Tramp-Royal
from Epitaphs of the War
Common Form
A Dead Statesman
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939)
To The Rose upon the Rood of Time
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Who Goes with Fergus?
The Valley of the Black Pig
September 1913
The Witch
The Peacock
The Dolls
A Coat
The Wild Swans at Coole
Easter 1916
The Second Coming
A Prayer for my Daughter
Sailing to Byzantium
The Tower
Leda and the Swan
Among School Children
Byzantium
Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop
Lapis Lazuli
Under Ben Bulben
The Circus Animals' Desertion
Politics
CHARLOTTE MEW (1869-1928)
The Farmer's Bride
Fame
Arracombe Wood
On the Road to the Sea
Monsieur Qui Passe
WALTER DE LA MARE (1873-1956)
Miss Loo
The Listeners
The Old Summerhouse
FORD MADOX FORD (1873-1939)
The Starling
EDWARD THOMAS (1878-1917)
The Other
Adlestrop
The Wasp Trap
A Cat
Rain
HAROLD MONRO (1879-1932)
Bitter Sanctuary
MINA LOY (1882-1966)
Italian Pictures
from Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose English Rose
Der Blinde Junge
T.E. HULME (1883-1917)
Autumn
The Embankment
Conversion
from Fragments
As a Fowl
ANNA WICKHAM (1884-1947)
Divorce
Self Analysis
Meditation at Kew
D.H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930)
Under the Oak
Pomegranate
Snake
Swan
Willy Wet-Leg
Andraitx.--Pomegranate Flowers
Bavarian Gentians
SIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886-1967)
A Working Party
The Rear-Guard
The General
EDITH SITWELL (1887-1964)
from Facade
4. Ass-Face
6. The Bat
22. Fox Trot
37. Sir Beelzebub
The Canticle of the Rose
ELIZABETH DARYUSH (1887-1977)
Still-life
"Children of wealth in your warm nursery"
News-reel
EDWIN MUIR (1887-1959)
The Old Gods
The Three Mirrors
The Horses
T.S. ELIOT (1888-1965)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Gerontion
The Waste Land
from Four Quartets
Little Gidding
MARY BUTTS (1890-1937)
Corfe
ISAAC ROSENBERG (1890-1918)
The Jew
Break of Day in the Trenches
Louse Hunting
Dead Man's Dump
IVOR GURNEY (1890-1937)
First Time In
La Gorgue
Laventie
The Bare Line of the Hill
The Bohemians
Sea-Marge
HUGH MACDIARMID (1892-1978)
from A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
[Sic Transit Gloria Scotiae]
[The Barren Fig]
[Yank Oot Your Orra Boughs]
On a Raised Beach
from In Memoriam James Joyce
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER (1893-1978)
Nelly Trim
East London Cemetery
King Duffus
Anne Donne
THOMAS MACGREEVY (1893-1967)
De Civitate Hominum
The Six Who Were Hanged
Homage to Hieronymus Bosch
WILFRED OWEN (1893-1918)
Dulce et Decorum Est
Strange Meeting
Arms and the Boy
Disabled
JOHN RODKER (1894-1955)
A Slice of Life
The Music Hall
Hymn to Love
I'd have loved you as you deserved had we been frogs
DAVID JONES (1895-1974)
from In Parenthesis
from Part 7: The five unmistakable marks
from The Anathemata
from I: Rite and Fore-Time
III. Angle-Land
A, a, a, Domine Deus
ROBERT GRAVES (1895-1985)
Warning to Children
The Legs
To Juan at the Winter Solstice
The White Goddess
NANCY CUNARD (1896-1965)
from Parallax
AUSTIN CLARKE (1896-1974)
Forget Me Not
F.R. HIGGINS (1896-1941)
A Plea
Auction!
BASIL BUNTING (1900-1985)
from First Book of Odes
3. "I am agog for foam"
8. "Loud intolerant bells"
15. "Nothing"
17. "Now that sea's over that island"
28. "You leave"
30. "The Orotava Road"
from Briggflatts: I, Coda
from Second Book of Odes:
11. "Boasts time mocks cumber Rome"
12. "Now we've no hope of going back"
STEVIE SMITH (1902-1971)
Souvenir de Monsieur Poop
Not Waving but Drowning
My Hat
The Celts
Pretty
Black March
JOSEPH GORDON MACLEOD (1903-1984)
from The Ecliptic
Cancer, or, The Crab
PATRICK KAVANAGH (1904-1967)
from The Great Hunger: I, IX
Father Mat
Canal Bank Walk
BRIAN COFFEY (1905-1995)
HEADROCK
from Advent: I
WILLIAM EMPSON (1906-1984)
Plenum and Vacuum
Villanelle
Reflection from Rochester
Sonnet
SAMUEL BECKETT (1906-1989)
Enueg I
Enueg II
Ooftish
W.H. AUDEN (1907-1973)
"Bones wrenched, weak whimper, lids wrinkled..."
The Secret Agent
The Watershed
"Consider this and in our time"
A Bride in the 30's
Spain
from Sonnets from China: VI, VII
Musée des Beaux Arts
In Memory of W.B. Yeats
September 1, 1939
In Memory of Sigmund Freud
No Time
At the Grave of Henry James
In Praise of Limestone
from Horae Canonicae: Nones
Ode to Terminus
LOUIS MACNEICE (1907-1963)
An Eclogue for Christmas
Valediction
Snow
Carrickfergus
CLERE PARSONS (1908-1931)
Corybantic
Photogravure
Different
Interruption
DENIS DEVLIN (1908-1959)
Lough Derg
Obstacle Basilisk
LYNETTE ROBERTS (1909-1995)
from Gods with Stainless Ears: IV, V
NORMAN MACCAIG (1910-1996)
High Street, Edinburgh
Nude in a fountain
Celtic cross
Intrusion
SORLEY MACLEAN/SOMHAIRLE MACGILL-EAIN (1911-1996)
The Island
Going Westwards
F.T. PRINCE (b. 1912)
Strafford
CHARLES MADGE (1912-1996)
Obsessional
Delusions I
Delusions III
Delusions V
Delusions VII
Countries of the Dead II
DYLAN THOMAS (1914-1953)
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Our eunuch dreams
To-day, this insect
Over Sir John's hill
C.H. SISSON (b. 1914)
A Letter to John Donne
The Desert
Au Clair de la Lune
Place
DAVID GASCOYNE (b. 1916)
And the Seventh Dream is the Dream of Isis
Baptism
The Rites of Hysteria
The Cubical Domes
NICHOLAS MOORE (1918-1986)
Song
Ideas of Disorder at Torquay
Portman Restaurant
Leap Year
W.S. GRAHAM (1918-1986)
The Nightfishing
A Note to the Difficult One
Language Ah Now You Have Me
TOM SCOTT (1918-1995)
Johnie Raw Prays for His Lords and Maisters
KEITH DOUGLAS (1920-1944)
Simplify me when I'm dead
These grasses, ancient enemies
Mersa
Dead Men
Cairo Jag
Aristocrats
Vergissmeinnicht
How to Kill
BOB COBBING (b. 1920)
[wan do tree]
[LION LENIN LEONORA]
[ALEVIN BARS CAUSAPSCAL]
PHILIP LARKIN (1922-1985)
Church Going
Toads
Nothing To Be Said
Water
The Whitsun Weddings
An Arundel Tomb
High Windows
Going, Going
Homage to a Government
This Be The Verse
The Explosion
DONALD DAVIE (1922-1995)
Hearing Russian Spoken
Rejoinder to a Critic
Rodez
Out of East Anglia
A Conditioned Air
Inditing A Good Matter
JAMES BERRY (b. 1924)
Letter to My Father from London
From Lucy: Englan a University
IAN HAMILTON FINLAY (b. 1925)
Orkney Lyrics
Sea-Poppy I
Sea-Poppy 2
ASA BENVENISTE (1925-1990)
First Words
Georgic
Bird Appeal
Blue Crepe
ELIZABETH JENNINGS (b. 1926)
Choices
Fountain
On Its Own
CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON (b. 1926)
Hearing Elgar Again
The Prose of Walking Back to China
CHARLES TOMLINSON (b. 1927)
Aesthetic
Distinctions
Saving the Appearances
Swimming Chenango Lake
Prometheus
Annunciation
The Plaza
The Garden
THOMAS KINSELLA (b. 1928)
Baggot Street Deserta
Ritual of Departure
GAEL TURNBULL (b. 1928)
George Fox, from his Journals
from Twenty Words, Twenty Days: XVII-XX
Thighs Gripping
JOHN MONTAGUE (b. 1929)
The Trout
A Bright Day
The Cage
This Neutral Realm
The Well Dreams
THOM GUNN (b. 1929)
The Unsettled Motorcyclist's Vision of his Death
Confessions of the Life Artist
Moly
Seesaw
A Sketch of the Great Dejection
Lament
ELAINE FEINSTEIN (b. 1930)
Marriage
Exile
For Brighton, Old Bawd
TED HUGHES (1930-1998)
View of a Pig
Pike
Out
Pibroch
Wodwo
Crow Hears Fate Knock on the Door
from Gaudete
Flounders
ROY FISHER (b. 1930)
from City:
The Entertainment of War
The Poplars
"Walking through the suburb at night____"
From an English Sensibility
from A Furnace:
Introit
II. The Return
JON SILKIN (1930-1998)
Death of a Son
First it was Singing
Dandelion
A Daisy
A Word about Freedom and Identity in Tel-Aviv
ROSEMARY TONKS (b. 1932)
The Sofas, Fogs, and Cinemas
The Little Cardboard Suitcase
The Ice-cream Boom Towns
PETER REDGROVE (b. 1932)
Against Death
Young Women with the Hair of Witches and No Modesty
The British Museum Smile
Mothers and Child
GEOFFREY HILL (b. 1932)
Genesis
Ovid in the Third Reich
September Song
History as Poetry
from Mercian Hymns: I-XIII, XXVII-XXX
from The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy: 4,5
Respublica
from The Triumph of Love: XXIII, XXV, XXXV, XXXIX-XLIV, LV, LXI-LXIV, CXLVII-CL
FLEUR ADCOCK (b. 1934)
Against Coupling
The Ex-Queen Among the Astronomers
Leaving the Tate
TONY HARRISON (b. 1937)
v.
JOHN RILEY (1937-1978)
Czargrad
TOM RAWORTH (b. 1938)
Wedding Day
You've Ruined My Evening/You've Ruined My Life
South America
from Logbook: pages 106, 453
from Sentenced to Death:
"sentenced he gives a shape"
"curiously the whole thing had begun"
"reversals of performance levels"
from Eternal Sections:
"in black tunics, middle-aged"
"brilliance of the orange lily"
"thoughts are in real time"
Out of the Picture
R.F. LANGLEY (b. 1938)
Saxon Landings
Man Jack
CARLYLE REEDY (b. 1938)
The Slave Ship
E.A. MARKHAM (b. 1939)
The Sea
Towards the End of a Century
Grandmotherpoem
The Mother's Tale
JOHN JAMES (b. 1939)
Good Old Harry
Inaugural Address
LEE HARWOOD (b. 1939)
When the geography was fixed
The Blue Mosque
Salt Water
SEAMUS HEANEY (b. 1939)
Bogland
North
Singing School
Oysters
The Toome Road
The Underground
from Station Island: VII, XII
The Mud Vision
PETER RILEY (b. 1940)
from Lines on the Liver: 1, 2, 10, 11, 17
from Excavations, Part One:
from Book I: Distant Points:
"the body in its final commerce"
"folded in river clay"
"carefully dismembered"
from Book 2: This Carol They Began That Hour
"Sing to me"
"Meaning spills"
"Leaving a simple state"
from Book 3: Vacant Thrones:
"Ganesa dances"
"'I arrived at a place mute of light'"
DEREK MAHON (b. 1941)
The Snow Party
A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford
Courtyards in Delft
A Garage in Co. Cork
ANDREW CROZIER (b. 1943)
The Veil Poem
TOM LEONARD (b. 1944)
Six Glasgow Poems
A Priest Came on at Merkland Street
CRAIG RAINE (b. 1944)
An Enquiry into Two Inches of Ivory
A Martian Sends a Postcard Home
EAVAN BOLAND (b. 1944)
The Woman Turns Herself into a Fish
Listen. This is the Noise of Myth
from Outside History
9: In Exile
ALLEN FISHER (b. 1944)
from four novels:
1. African Mission
defamiliarising________*: 38
Mummers' Strut
TOM PICKARD (b. 1946)
A History Lesson from My Son on Hadrian's Wall
Energy
The Double D Economy
PETER READING (b. 1946)
from Stet
Thucydidean
VERONICA FORREST-THOMSON (1947-1975)
Cordelia: or, 'A Poem Should Not Mean, But Be'
LIZ LOCHHEAD (b. 1947)
Mirror's Song
Bagpipe Muzak, Glasgow 1990
TREVOR JOYCE (b. 1947)
The Turlough
Cry Help
Tohu-bohu
DENISE RILEY (b. 1948)
Affections must not
Lure, 1963
When it's time to go
Pastoral
Wherever you are, be somewhere else
Knowing in the real world
BARRY MACSWEENEY (b. 1948-2000)
from Hellhound Memos
BILL GRIFFITHS (b. 1948)
Reekie
BRIAN CATLING (b. 1948)
The Stumbling Block its Index
ALAN HALSEY (b. 1949)
Answering a New Year Letter, 1989
Self-Portrait in a '90s Bestiary
An Essay on Translation
GRACE NICHOLS (b. 1950)
The Fat Black Woman Remembers
The Fat Black Woman Versus Politics
Shanking Englishmen Between Trains
Long-Man
MEDBH MCGUCKIAN (b. 1950)
Tulips
The Seed-Picture
Slips
Aviary
The War Ending
The Albert Chain
TONY LOPEZ (b. 1950)
Brought Forward
MAGGIE O'SULLIVAN (b. 1951)
Starlings
Garb
Hill Figures
PAUL MULDOON (b. 1951)
Quoof
Meeting the British
Incantata
FRANK KUPPNER (b. 1951)
Eclipsing Binaries
GERALDINE MONK (b. 1952)
La Quinta del Sordo
Where?
LINTON KWESI JOHNSON (b. 1952)
Mi Revalueshanary Fren
MAURICE SCULLY (b. 1952)
from Steps:
Fire
JOHN WILKINSON (b. 1953)
from Sarn Helen:
"bayonetted"
"snap crackle & pop"
"You've got some lip"
JO SHAPCOTT (b. 1953)
Phrase Book
The Mad Cow in Love
Mad Cow Dance
MONIZA ALVI (b. 1954)
And If
The Wedding
Grand Hotel
CAROL ANN DUFFY (b. 1955)
Standing Female Nude
And How Are We Today?
Psychopath
Translating the English, 1989
Poet for Our Times
CRIS CREEK (b. 1955)
'stranger'
ROBERT SHEPPARD (b. 1955)
The Materialization of Soap 1947
Internal Exile I
DAVID DABYDEEN (b. 1955)
Coolie Odyssey
from Turner: I, II, XVIII, XX, XXIV, XXV
RANDOLPH HEALY (b. 1956)
Colonies of Belief
from Arbor Vitae: I
JEAN "BINTA" BREEZE (b. 1957)
Riddym Ravings (The Mad Woman's Poem)
Cherry Tree Garden
BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH (b. 1958)
Money
The SUN
JACKIE KAY (b. 1961)
from The Adoption Papers
Chapter 7: Black Bottom
W.N. HERBERT (b. 1961)
The Anxiety of Information
The Postcards of Scotland
CAROLINE BERGVALL (b. 1962)
Les jets de le Poupee
DREW MILNE (b. 1964)
A Garden of Tears
CATHERINE WALSH (b. 1964)
from Pitch: Part Three
HELEN MACDONALD (b. 1970)
Taxonomy
Blackbird/Jackdaw/Turdus/corvus/merula/ monedula
Section VIII
Poem
