Rating: 
Summary: A compelling poetical garland
Review: A startlingly accomplished book for readers who care for poetry; more, it may induce a previously unsuspected love of poetry for those willing to browse its pages. I got lost in the world it creates. The extent of the editors' encyclopedic familiarity with the universal range of poetic accomplishment is not a small miracle; sensitivity to the quality of each individual translation is equally miraculous. World Poetry" is rarely equalled in breadth and beauty of execution and design, and goes far beyond what Mark van Doren may have wished to create when he edited his "World Treasury..." 70 years ago. Bruce Whitham (baw@mci2000.com) New York
Rating: 
Summary: World Poetry as seen by a retired person
Review: As a person in their mid to late 60's, I was intrigued by the idea of "World Poetry". I could imagine such a book as what an alien from another planet might want to read to fully understand earth civilization. When I was growing up in the 40's and 50's, it was all pre-computer, and at school, we were taught to memorize a great deal of really excellent poetry. I can still recite from memory a lot of the poems we studied. Unfortunately, very few of those poems made it into the World Poetry book, and after reading all the poems, I can see that poetry is very much a matter of the time one is writing in. That is a pity but a fact of life. A lot of poems I feel are of world class are not in this volume, and I think the authors are wrong not to have included them.
Rating:
Summary: World Poetry as seen by a retired person
Review: As a person in their mid to late 60's, I was intrigued by the idea of "World Poetry". I could imagine such a book as what an alien from another planet might want to read to fully understand earth civilization. When I was growing up in the 40's and 50's, it was all pre-computer, and at school, we were taught to memorize a great deal of really excellent poetry. I can still recite from memory a lot of the poems we studied. Unfortunately, very few of those poems made it into the World Poetry book, and after reading all the poems, I can see that poetry is very much a matter of the time one is writing in. That is a pity but a fact of life. A lot of poems I feel are of world class are not in this volume, and I think the authors are wrong not to have included them.
Rating:
Summary: A Herculean Task
Review: I have bought several copies of this book to give to people who mean something to me. When I share a poem from this work I am often questioned about "where did you find that"? The range is enormous and the selection of latin poetry in particular is just great. (Even the translation versions are selected carefully) The authors had a great sense of passion, humor and sensuality in their selections. I don't care if someone else thinks their favorite poem is missing...If I had just one book of poetry to keep this would be it.
Rating:
Summary: Something for everyone-very passionate
Review: I have bought several copies of this book to give to people who mean something to me. When I share a poem from this work I am often questioned about "where did you find that"? The range is enormous and the selection of latin poetry in particular is just great. (Even the translation versions are selected carefully) The authors had a great sense of passion, humor and sensuality in their selections. I don't care if someone else thinks their favorite poem is missing...If I had just one book of poetry to keep this would be it.
Rating: 
Summary: One (minor?) objection
Review: I noticed, in this mostly excellent anthology of world poetry, that a single word, "weird" has been spelled incorrectly as "wierd."This would be unmentionably minor. However, the misspelling is in a translation of the old English poem The Wanderer. "Weird" (spelled something like wyrd in the original, perhaps) is the single most important word in the entire poem. This is because the Wanderer himself, the speaker of the poem, is "weird", "set apart in thought." Today, the word refers to oddballs. But it appears that in old English the word referred to a man's soul, his "wyrd." "Weird" may have meant "great of soul" and, perhaps, able to reflect as does The Wanderer on a long life. Today, a society that is unconsciously other-directed does not encourage the chap who does this and instead we are supposed to get direction from our mates. Therefore, it is possible that collectively and as a group (where lowest common denominators tend to emerge) the editors were tone-deaf to the word, and the need to preserve its exceptional spelling (which modern dictionaries confirm.) The editors, in a world-multicultural spirit, may have thought that the word, "weird" needed to conform to a generally-accepted, trumping rule of modern English orthography whose relative antiquity is shown by its rhyme: "i before e, except after c." In so doing, they exhibit how a group of people, anxious to be be Politically Correct, are more apt in the French fashion to be dirigiste, and to make and to follow abstract, general rules. This *mission civilisatrice* is considered in such circles somewhat superior to a system, whether of law, or orthography, with many exceptions...as found in English spelling, or on those English and American juries permitted, in increasingly rare circumstances, to show mercy or severity, and ignore the black letter of the law. Now, I have no brief against Political Correctness. I have seen first-hand (as a minor participant in its enforcement on a network at Princeton) how it spares feelings previously violated and gives voice to the voiceless. But all social systems have besetting sins. The besetting sin of the older systems was the prime of place given to dead, white males. The besetting sin of the modern system is that the lowest common denominator, here, the tone-deafness, is silently given equal time to an older sensitivity to the music of the Wanderer. Many neo-conservative conscientious objectors to Political Correctness may be not so much paleo-conservative as anxious about the position of the indvidual author and reader in a *dirigiste* system, in which abstract rules trump local custom. Paradoxically, one of the goals of Political Correctness happens to be respect for local custom. I am reminded in far more serious venues of how the feminist critique of the use of sex as power becomes, in the corporation and the academe, the syntactical and relatively mindless application of rules. The feminist narrates how a woman has a right to a job free of unwanted advances, even by future justices of the Supreme Court. The narrative becomes a rule in which the very mention of our sexual being becomes a terminating offense. And in the same way, a marvelous exception to a rule that's hard enough to remember in itself, an exception self-reflexively weird and an echo of ancient times, becomes barbarously forgotten. Where is the horse? Where is the rider? Where is my car?
Rating:
Summary: One (minor?) objection
Review: I noticed, in this mostly excellent anthology of world poetry, that a single word, "weird" has been spelled incorrectly as "wierd." This would be unmentionably minor. However, the misspelling is in a translation of the old English poem The Wanderer. "Weird" (spelled something like wyrd in the original, perhaps) is the single most important word in the entire poem. This is because the Wanderer himself, the speaker of the poem, is "weird", "set apart in thought." Today, the word refers to oddballs. But it appears that in old English the word referred to a man's soul, his "wyrd." "Weird" may have meant "great of soul" and, perhaps, able to reflect as does The Wanderer on a long life. Today, a society that is unconsciously other-directed does not encourage the chap who does this and instead we are supposed to get direction from our mates. Therefore, it is possible that collectively and as a group (where lowest common denominators tend to emerge) the editors were tone-deaf to the word, and the need to preserve its exceptional spelling (which modern dictionaries confirm.) The editors, in a world-multicultural spirit, may have thought that the word, "weird" needed to conform to a generally-accepted, trumping rule of modern English orthography whose relative antiquity is shown by its rhyme: "i before e, except after c." In so doing, they exhibit how a group of people, anxious to be be Politically Correct, are more apt in the French fashion to be dirigiste, and to make and to follow abstract, general rules. This *mission civilisatrice* is considered in such circles somewhat superior to a system, whether of law, or orthography, with many exceptions...as found in English spelling, or on those English and American juries permitted, in increasingly rare circumstances, to show mercy or severity, and ignore the black letter of the law. Now, I have no brief against Political Correctness. I have seen first-hand (as a minor participant in its enforcement on a network at Princeton) how it spares feelings previously violated and gives voice to the voiceless. But all social systems have besetting sins. The besetting sin of the older systems was the prime of place given to dead, white males. The besetting sin of the modern system is that the lowest common denominator, here, the tone-deafness, is silently given equal time to an older sensitivity to the music of the Wanderer. Many neo-conservative conscientious objectors to Political Correctness may be not so much paleo-conservative as anxious about the position of the indvidual author and reader in a *dirigiste* system, in which abstract rules trump local custom. Paradoxically, one of the goals of Political Correctness happens to be respect for local custom. I am reminded in far more serious venues of how the feminist critique of the use of sex as power becomes, in the corporation and the academe, the syntactical and relatively mindless application of rules. The feminist narrates how a woman has a right to a job free of unwanted advances, even by future justices of the Supreme Court. The narrative becomes a rule in which the very mention of our sexual being becomes a terminating offense. And in the same way, a marvelous exception to a rule that's hard enough to remember in itself, an exception self-reflexively weird and an echo of ancient times, becomes barbarously forgotten. Where is the horse? Where is the rider? Where is my car?
Rating:
Summary: Delightful
Review: If I had to flee once more (this is my second exile since I left Bosnia in 1991), I would take this book with me, even though it's heavy and I seriously miss some poets and poems the editors "forgot". It is so vast you can lose yourself in it and come back only after a long while, it is like a glass or two of the best wine in the world..but enough. Buy it, read it, make yourself happy!
Rating:
Summary: A Herculean Task
Review: Putting together an anthology of poetry written in English is all fineand good.... An anthology of world poetry, on the other hand, is a monumental task. .... Washburn and Major have put together one of the best anthologies I have found. Yes, the book is big...and yet we all find that one favorite poem that wasn't included. Objectively speaking, the breadth is admirable, the translations consistantly excellent, and the organization logical. A person only needs one anthology of world poetry, and this is the best one I know of. END
Rating:
Summary: If you love poetry, buy this book.
Review: The full breadth of poetry as it stretched humanity to new heights. English did not start the poetic world. Here the Greeks, Romans, Akkadians enter our life and share the same tears and laughter as the 12th Century Japanese or the 5th century Persians. Enjoy!
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