The Poetry of Our World : An International Anthology of Contemporary Poetry

Rating:
Summary: Quality over breadth
Review: For an anthology of that claims to be "the poetry of our world", this book has suprisingly few poets represented. The editors chose to include poetry from about 25 countries and mostly include poetry from only one author per country. But that is intentional: the editors wanted the quality and richness of the poetry to be the track their sled runs in. In doing so, they have succeeded in creating a collection that is bursting in energy and emotion, with poetry that is a pleasure to read and reflect on. It is a very strong anthology that is sure to finish very highly, if not win, any poetry Iditarod.

Rating:
Summary: rediscovering poetry
Review: mr. paine has accomplished something long overdue: he has taken a fresh view of poetry, not handicapped by genre or nationality, and recast it in such a way that what we read awakens us. maybe it is not too bold to suggest that the way he juxtaposes various poets reminds us that we can share a broader, inner world. he has rescued poetry from its own gnarled roots and allowed us to see the way it flowers. this is a book intended both for people with a long love affair with poetry, but also for readers who want to draw the kind of intellectual connections that literature can offer. i strongly recommend this book. it is more than a book of poetry, it is a book of ideas and passion.

Rating:
Summary: good collection of different poets
Review: this book is a collection of contemporary (roughly the past 25 years or so) poetry from around the world. The book is divided into geographical sections (i.e. africa, europe,) and each section has a few poets and each poet has one or two poems presented. Now how you feel about this book will probably depend on how you feel about poetry, and your knowledge of poetry. I like poetry, am a casual reader of it, but really don't know anything about it. So if you are an English major with an emphasis on world poetry, you may think differently than i did! Overall i liked the book. i think that many of the poems were outstanding, i really enjoyed having one book that had such a wide variety of poets. i liked the fact that each area was introduced by an essay that helped set things in context, and most poets were introduced with the same type of essay. for a guy like me who doesn't know much about poetry, this was helpful. to sum up: if you are an english major i don't know how you will feel about this book, but if you are a casual reader of poetry who would like one book that contains poetry from around the world then i think you will like this.