71. Guillaume Apollinaire - Alcools
 

I was torn between Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror and this, but it's my last choice, so the Apollinaire has to win. Any number of reprints (including in translation) readily available of course, but worth looking on Abebooks for something attractive. For example Horizon did a nice Choix de Poésies in 1945 with, if I remember rightly, the famous Picasso drawing with the bandage as a frontispiece. Although UK-published it carries only the French text - in the 40s a working knowledge of French was still thought to be a precondition of literacy.
I should be sorry if Mr Eliot should remain represented only by the dreary Four Quartets, but then there's MacNeice's Autumn Journal, Cavafy, well, all the Greeks (where is Alicia Stallings when we need her?) . .
the Russians, Brecht, Celan . . .
I'm sure we could all get to a hundred by ourselves.

Tony - I don't think this point was covered in your original - or revised - 'rules' for this thread, but is it really intended that there should be more than one book of any given poet on the list? Rilke is now in twice and Phillip's last choice is trailing the notion of additional Eliot.. where would this stop? I feel that the spirit of the original, which was about individual books of poetry, is already getting lost with a number of 'collecteds/completes/selecteds' and it is going to be further diluted by adding extra items from well-known 'big' names - with the door now also apparently open to any language in translation. It's your thread so can we have a 'ruling' please?
Nigel

Not to mention the Lithuanians, Albanians, Peruvians, Chinese, Algerians, Ugandans, Maltese... Have to agree with Nigel here: a few more limitations to our area of choice might help. And then afterwards, if we want, we could do the 100 best poetry books in Russian, in French, in Neapolitan dialect...

Frost is also in twice (but so he should be).

I think Gregory is being a bit disingenuous here – I happen to know that he plays an active part in a group that reads aloud in public texts (not necessarily poetic) in as many languages as possible on a set theme once a month (accompanied by Italian translations), from which he will be aware that a degree of engagement with unknown, or partially known foreign literatures can be quite fruitful. Of course we cannot be universally inclusive in this thread, but surely that doesn't mean we should be parochial? – it would be like arguing that because we couldn't be perfect Christians we shouldn't be Christians at all (substitute your own faith or ethic, as appropriate). I would imagine that most frequenters of this site have some degree of competence in at least one foreign language. Wouldn't it be better for our souls to become acquainted (at some level), through them, with the best of someone else's literature in preference to gazing wanly at the logrolling nominations of some second-rate contemporary anglophone practitioners?

Philip - Less of the second-rate assumptions and of the imputations of log-rolling, please. The points of this thread, as I have understood them, are to share insights among members of the site on individual books of English language poetry published in the 20th century, to offer brief comments on why the individual volumes made such an impact on us and to guide each other to the means of acquiring titles thus recommended should we so wish.

All of us will have varying views of the qualities of the work contained in these volumes - some delighting all, and no doubt some delighting only a few; it's the range and ecclecticism of the list which have shown up as the most pleasing aspects of the thread and the fresh focus on the pleasures of individual poetry books. Thus, it is not intended as a critical list of the 'accepted greats' - either of poems or of poets. Should you wish such a thread perhaps you could start one - and we could then all start having critical qualitative arguments for the length of the century still to come!

Best,
Nigel

72. Frederick Turner, Genesis
 

Genesis is the second of Frederick Turner's two science fiction epic poems. First published in 1988, it was re-issued earlier this year. (The New World (1985) was reissued last year.) Turner is an able formalist and a Blakean mythmaker. In his collection The Garden, he creates his own pantheon that provides the underpinning for The New World, which takes place in the 24th century when the "Uess" has dissolved into warring counties and formerly urban "riots."

In Genesis, he comes back to the near future, the later 21st century, in which his scientist/entrepreneur hero has undertaken the terraforming of Mars, outraging the Eco-Theists (led by his ex-wife) who dominate the world government. Mars breaks away, and after a costly civil war, the colonists start a new civilization, on a new soil, with a new politics, economy, and language.

When Amit Majmudar reviewed a recent book by George Steiner, he called him the Last European and asked who aims to synthesize science and religion in poetry, as Dante did. Turner does, and unlike Steiner, his effort is global. (For a very different ride, try his earlier sci-fi novel A Double Shadow -- Mars in the 28th century!) Turner makes a strong statement about where we are, and where we could go, and he does so more comprehensively and accessibly than any other long-poem writer of the 20th century.

I've selected a sample from near the end, where the Sybil develops her theology of beauty for the settlers:

“How do we know the truth,” the Sibyl said,
“Between two explanations, or a thousand,
Each with an equal claim to evidence,
Each with an equal logical coherence?
It is the beauty of that one which marks it
So that the scientist-philosopher
Is in no doubt where our allegiance lies.
And if we would extract the seed, the essence
Of the truth, we must know the ways of beauty.
For beauty is the oneness of the tree
Of life with and within the tree of knowledge,
Its oversapience that makes it spring
To further budding as it mates itself;
And if that branchingness is all that is,
Then beauty is the secret name of being.
Consider how the plants and animals
Blaze to their loveliest expressiveness,
The flower, the paroxysm of their song,
The ritual dance, the flash of scale or feather,
Just at the moment when they pass their being
Over to the following generation;
Thus beauty is continuance of time.
But sex does not produce a printed copy;
The being that is reproduced is neither
Copy nor monster, and the space between
Is what we mean by beauty, beautiful.
Survival thus is nothing but transcendence."

Turner was closely associated with the Expansionist Poetry movement; Dick Allen considers him one of the founders. He is the author of several books of poetry as well as books on aesthetics, culture, economics, and most recently, the epic poem.

Genesis is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Epic-P...turner+genesis

72. A Choice of Kipling's Verse made by T.S. Eliot
I anticipate hoots and jeers for this choice… but the 20th-century poetry I love has its roots in the 19th century. And besides, I love narrative verse, and Kipling is a master. This particular book has the merits of providing a good selection of his work, including many of his great stories (such as "The Mary Gloster"), as well as offering T.S. Eliot's essay on what makes Kipling great.

And you can buy it used on Amazon US, for a cent!

http://www.amazon.com/Choice-Kipling...ling%27s+Verse

Barbara

Andrew,
Thanks for your post on the Anathemata, and thanks for the Auden link. I'm an admirer of In Parenthesis, though it took me a couple of tries, undertaken thanks to the urging of Clive Watkins on this site. I recently took a look at the Anathemata, having set it down years ago under the first impression that it was a Welsh Finnegans Wake, without the jokes. My recent view was no different. If the main point is, life is a mighty, infinitely complex layering, I get that. Auden just says, "It works for me." How much other than a Welsh Finnegans Wake is it, if you wanted to convince someone to undergo the labor involved? Or would you advise the reader of In Parenthesis simply to trust the author of the Anathemata? Best, Bill

Apparently we had two simultaneous postings that therefore have the same number, 72.

Susan

Can I vote for Celan's 1959 Schwelle Zu Schwelle. I do read it in the German to visit the sound of it but I admit than the translations have made it the life changing book that it is for me. Without them it would be lost to me still.

It was a tough call between a few of his books. And depending on the day of the week might easily choose instead Sprachgitter.