Med bidrag af: Kingsley Amis, John Berryman, Arthur Boyars, Iain Crichton Smith, Donald Davie, D.J. Enright, John Fuller, Thom Gunn, Michael Hamburger, Geoffrey Hill, David Holbrook, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, Robert Lowell, Norman Maccaig, Christopher Middleton, Peter Redgrove, R.S. Thomas, Charles Tomlinson og John Wain

Chosen by the American Library Association as a 2012 Notable Book in Poetry. Beauty is a Verb is a ground-breaking anthology of disability poetry, essays on disability, and writings on the poetics of both. Crip Poetry. Disability Poetry. Poems with Disabilities. This is where poetry and disability intersect, overlap, collide and make peace. " BEAUTY IS A VERB] is going to be one of the defining collections of the 21st century...the discourse between ability, identity & poetry will never be the same." --Ron Silliman, author of In The American Tree "This powerful anthology succeeds at intimately showing...disability through the lenses of poetry. What emerges from the book as a whole is a stunningly diverse array of conceptions of self and other."--Publishers Weekly, starred review From "Beauty and Variations" by Kenny Fries: How else can I quench this thirst? My lips travel down your spine, drink the smoothness of your skin. I am searching for the core: What is beautiful? Who decides? Can the laws of nature be defied? Your body tells me: come close. But beauty distances even as it draws me near. What does my body want from yours? My twisted legs around your neck. You bend me back. Even though you can't give the bones at birth I wasn't given, I let you deep inside. You give me--what? Peeling back my skin, you expose my missing bones. And my heart, long before you came, just as broken. I don't know who to blame. So each night, naked on the bed, my body doesn't want repair, but longs for innocence. If innocent, despite the flaws I wear, I am beautiful. Sheila Black is a poet and children's book writer. In 2012, Poet Laureate Philip Levine chose her as a recipient of the Witter Bynner Fellowship. Disability activist Jennifer Bartlett is a poet and critic with roots in the Language school. Michael Northen is a poet and the editor of Wordgathering: A Journal of Poetics and Disability.

Stephen Henderson has edited an anthology of the best of black poetry with an emphasis on the poetry of the 60's. But this anthology differs from others in significant ways. First, the introduction is extensive, giving tentative answers to such questions as: What makes a poem black? Who decides? What criteria does one use? The author's thesis is that the new black poetry's main referents are black speech and black music. Second, the author explores the many forms that black poets use, commenting on what is black technically in the poetry. Third, the poems anthologized include examples from the oral (folk sermon, spirituals, blues, ballad, rap) as well as the literary tradition. -- From publisher's description.

Essays and critical writings on contemporary poetry by Stephen Burt, "the finest critic of his generation" (Lucie Brock-Broido) Stephen Burt's Close Calls with Nonsense provokes readers into the elliptical worlds of Rae Armantrout, Paul Muldoon, C. D. Wright, and other contemporary poets whose complexities make them challenging, original, and, finally, readable. Burt's intelligence and enthusiasm introduce both tentative and longtime poetry readers to the rewards of reading new poetry. As Burt writes in the title essay: "The poets I know don't want to be famous people half so much as they want their best poems read; I want to help you find and read them. I write here for people who want to read more new poetry but somehow never get around to it; for people who enjoy Seamus Heaney or Elizabeth Bishop and want to know what next; for people who enjoy John Ashbery or Anne Carson but aren't sure why; and, especially, for people who read the half-column poems in glossy magazines and ask, ‘Is that all there is?'"

An extensive collection of contemporary Asian and Middle Eastern poetry includes the work of four hundred contributors from a variety of backgrounds, in a thematically organized anthology that is complemented by personal essays.

"David Orr is no starry-eyed cheerleader for contemporary poetry; Orr’s a critic, and a good one. . . . Beautiful & Pointless is a clear-eyed, opinionated, and idiosyncratic guide to a vibrant but endangered art form, essential reading for anyone who loves poetry, and also for those of us who mostly just admire it from afar." —Tom Perrotta Award-winning New York Times Book Review poetry columnist David Orr delivers an engaging, amusing, and stimulating tour through the world of poetry. With echoes of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, Orr’s Beautiful & Pointless offers a smart and funny approach to appreciating an art form that many find difficult to embrace.

This volume presents Diane Wakoski's innovative ideas about contemporary poetry, elsewhere embodied in her own poetic art. The author's critical essays, poem-lectures, and columns from the American Poetry Review are collected for the first time, together with several interviews in which she answers her readers' questions. This gathering of Diane Wakoski's prose writing assembles a unique self-portrait of the poet. Poets on Poetry collects critical books by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation. -- From back cover.

An anthology of twentieth-century American poetry, featuring Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hayden, Gwendolyn Brooks, Derek Walcott, Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, Anne Sexton, and many others.

Winner or finalist in the 'Best Books' National Book Award Poetry Anthology of the Year; Benjamin Franklin Audio Book of the Year; Foreword Magazine Audio Book of the Year; and the Bill Fisher Award for Best New Fiction. Over 750 pages of poetry spanning from 4,000 BC up to the present day and including a broad cross-section of global poetry. Footnotes for each poem specify each poem's form, define unusual or archaic words, and include notes about interpretation. Multiple indexes, including an index by subject, simplify finding exactly the right poem for any situation. The poems were specifically selected to appeal to readers new to poetry, but even experienced poetry readers will find new and enjoyable poems. The poems from the book are also available on audio CD.