Poetry Primers: 3 Poetry Anthologies to Get You Going

"I think what I love most about poetry anthologies is how they are bore-proof."

The following three anthologies are a great way into poetry, or a great way of rediscovering some new or classic voices:

• Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry selected by William Sieghart, Founder of The Forward Prizes (Bookmark, London, 2011)

• The Rattle Bag edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes (Faber and Faber, 1982)

• Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times edited by Jo Shapcott and Matthew Sweeney (Faber and Faber, 2004)

I love poetry anthologies. I think what I love most about anthologies is how they are bore-proof. There is no way you can be bored by reading an anthology - if you don’t like the poem you are reading, you can simply flick on a few pages and land on something else. The element of surprise is another reason I go back to anthologies and either discovering a new poet or poem for the first time or rediscovering ones that I haven’t read in ages. 

As part of the work I do as a teacher, I’ve taught a selection of poems from The Poems of the Decade anthology as part of the EdExcel English Literature A Level. This is an excellent anthology for giving you a taste of the best of contemporary poetry in all its diversity from poets still writing today. You might not love every poem (and indeed the anthology does lay bare some of the ticks and formless deficiencies of contemporary poetry), but you will find many you do. I found it noteworthy how many of the poems that stood out to me and stand the test of time, are the poems written with formal constraints such as Alan Jenkins’ ‘Effects’.

The Rattle Bag’s point of difference is that the poems are organised not by poet or in chronological order but in alphabetical order of the titles. This provides a fascinating survey of the ways in which similar titles crop up and also how some of these poems speak to each other such as Edward Thomas ‘Out in the Dark’ and Robert Frost’s ‘Out, Out -’, or how they do not speak to each other such as Frost’s ‘On a Tree Fallen Across the Road’ and Anon’s ‘On Buying A Horse.’ It’s an essential anthology to introduce yourself to the canon in a lively and accessible and, dare I say, fun manner. 

It’s hard to characterise Emergency Kit except to say that it revels exuberantly in a wide range of voices from all over the world and is put together in a random order which makes for very engaging reading. Indeed, the reason it’s taken me so long to write this paragraph is due to the fact I keep stopping, picking it up and reading something by an author whose work I thought I knew or by an author whose work I really should have known by now. Published in 2004 it has definitely retained its freshness and liveliness.

Andrew Jamison is a writer and teacher who has published three poetry collections with The Gallery Press. You can buy signed, first editions of his books in paperback or hardback at his online bookshop, or browse his writing subscription services here.