[Tony Barnstone]

[i]Hi All,

First off, Barbara, would you please edit your post to make your choice # 73, not 72? That'll help the math.

Second, ,Nigel asks:

- 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?

My feeling is that rules, like rulers, are made to be overthrown when they oppress. If the Spanish king is off in Africa secretly poaching endangered elephants, do away with the silly notion of royalty and let the silly royals go get a job like the rest of us. The same applies to my rules: if a poet is so terrific at crafting books that he or she MUST be in twice, so be it. If a poet in translation is so amazing that the damage the poem suffers in transmission isn't enough to keep him or her from the list, so be it.

I will say that, yes, this thread is meant to highlight great books of poetry, not great poets who perhaps never wrote a great, unified, amazing book (as compared to some wonderful poems thrown in with lots of bathos and junk, so you have to pick the good stuff out of the mess).

Thanks, TB