Quote:
Originally Posted by Philip Morre
When this thread began it was supposed to list, was it not, the 100 BEST poetry books of the 20th century, rather than 'Here's one I rather like myself'? Is it possible that even their doting mums, that even Mr Whitworth, really believe Wendy Cope, K.Addonizio, G.Shnackenberg, T.Steele to be better poets than Akhmatova, Brecht, Cavafy. . . Lorca, Milosz, Rilke. . . or even, sticking to English, than Basil Bunting, Robert Graves, D.H.Lawrence, Louis MacNeice, Wilfred Owen, Ezra Pound, Dylan Thomas (however patchy you may consider these last two). It may well be that an 'insufficiently esteemed' thread would be more interesting, but it was not the initial premise of this one.
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For what it's worth, Lorca is already on the list [
edit: the book is
Romancero Gitano], but I agree with the root of your argument. I, too, would love to see more international poets, perhaps I will add a Norwegian one to the list (sadly, though, I don't think even poets like Henrik Wergeland and Ibsen are good enough for this list).
Have anyone nominated Weldon Kees yet?
Perhaps we should consider, now that we're starting to get a
few pages to flick through, making a seperate thread where we update the list? One thread, one comment, with the recommendations updated by a single person (Tony if he would like to do it?).
After all, these pages will only get longer. I don't know about you, but I'm already having a hard time remembering the books that have been picked, and we're only on number 44.