For a hundred years, Poetry Review has been at the heart of British literary life. Founded as The Poetical Gazette in May 1909, it has become the country’s most widely read poetry magazine, playing a vital role in giving readers access to a generous diversity of contemporary poetry, and poets a space for the practice and appraisal of their art.

In this celebratory anthology, Fiona Sampson, the current editor of Poetry Review and herself an acclaimed poet, has selected a hundred of Poetry Review’s finest moments, ranging from Rupert Brooke’s ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’, published in 1911, to a manuscript page of Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur, published 2008. Here are Nobel Prizewinners and Poets Laureate, as well as long-forgotten delights recovered from back-issues. Contextualised by key critical essays and reviews, with Fiona Sampson’s illuminating introduction, A Century of Poetry Review provides an indispensible map of twentieth-century poetry.

Cover image: Tempo - Passado e Presente (Time - Past and Present) by Paula Rego, copyright the artist, photograph courtesy of Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd.

Contents

Introduction: For God’s Sake, Do Something! ?? Fiona Sampson    xi
A Note on the Text    xxv

Prologue
HAROLD MONRO, from the Introduction to the First Issue;
Poetry Review    

A CENTURY OF POETRY REVIEW
RUPERT BROOKE, The Old Vicarage, Grantchester     
F.T. MARINETTI, from Le Futurisme    
EZRA POUND, Credo from Prolegomena, and Sub Mare     
LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE, from The Function of Poetry in
the Drama     
HENRY NEWBOLT, from Robert Bridges: The Classical Poet     
THOMAS HARDY, A Song of the Soldiers    
The Right Hon. A.J. BALFOUR MP, from Argument in Verse    
IVOR GURNEY, The Incense Bearers     
RABINDRANATH TAGORE, from After Death    
ALEKSANDR BLOK, On the Function of the Poet     
HARRIET MONROE, from Modern American Poetry
OSBERT SITWELL, from Subtlety of the Serpent?     
RUDYARD KIPLING, The Fires     
MICHAEL ROBERTS, from The New Criticism     
EDITH EVANS, from On Verse-Speaking     
LAURENCE BINYON, from The English Lyric     
KEITH DOUGLAS, Three Drawings    
EDMUND BLUNDEN, A Day in December     
ROBERT GRAVES, The Chink     
RICHARD HOGGART, from The Journey of Sidney Keyes     
KATHLEEN RAINE, Herm
WALTER DE LA MARE, Swift     
ROY CAMPBELL, The Death of Antonio Torres Heredia,
        known as ‘El Camborio’    
HILAIRE BELLOC, Desert
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER, The Raven    
FRANCES CORNFORD, A Meeting     
F. PRATT GREEN, from Some Post-War Poets –
An Appreciation     
LAWRENCE DURRELL, Deus Loci (Forio d’Ischia)     
ROBERT FROST, The Gift Outright     
T.S. ELIOT, An interview with DONALD HALL     
PHILIP LARKIN, MCMXIV
HUGH MACDIARMID, from Scottish Literature Today     
FEATURE: from Poetry in Scotland
NORMAN MACCAIG, Introduction and a Selection    
GEORGE MACKAY BROWN, Beachcomber    
NORMAN MACCAIG, Sounds of the Day    
HUGH MACDIARMID, By Wauchopeside     
EDWIN MORGAN, For the ‘International Poetry
Incarnation’, Royal Albert Hall, 11 June 1965    
C. DAY LEWIS, A Loss     
RUPERT HART-DAVIS, CHARLES MONTEITH, DIANA ATHILL,
COLIN FRANKLIN AND ERICA MARX, Why Publish Poetry?
STEVIE SMITH, The Wedding Photograph    
DEREK MAHON, Day Trip to Donegal     
JOHN LEHMANN, from Relief and Admiration    
ROBERT GRAVES, from Chaucer’s Man     
DEREK STANFORD, from Thoughts on the Forties     
W.H. AUDEN, A New Year Greeting     
CHARLES CAUSLEY, Mary, Mary Magdalene     
ROY FULLER, False Image     
EDWARD LUCIE-SMITH, from Thoughts after Advent     
IAN HAMILTON FINLAY, Evening / Sail
FRANCES HOROVITZ, Buzzard
BASIL BUNTING, At Briggflats Meetinghouse: Tercentenary    
PETER PORTER, Talking To You Afterwards     
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI, The Old Italians Dying     
PAUL MULDOON, Why Brownlee Left     
PAUL AUSTER, from Fits and Starts     
ALLEN GINSBERG, Bayonne Entering NYC     
ELIZABETH JENNINGS, Goings     
DAVID GASCOYNE, Variations on a Phrase    
PHILIP LARKIN, Horror Poet     
ANDREW MOTION, from Skating: Memories of Childhood
ANNE RIDLER, Working for T.S. Eliot: A Personal
Reminiscence    
GAVIN EWART, The Peter Porter Poem of ’83    
JAMES BERRY, Bluefoot Traveller    
JAMES FENTON, The Manifesto Against Manifestoes      
CRAIG RAINE, from Babylonish Dialects and
The Sylko Bandit    
PENELOPE SHUTTLE, Blue
PETER MCDONALD, from From Ulster with Love     
W.S. GRAHAM interviewed by JOHN HAFFENDEN, from
‘I Would Say I Was a Happy Man’    
JOHN FULLER, England     
CRITICAL FEATURE: English Identities
MICK IMLAH, from Twenty Ways of Saying Happy Birthday    
PHILIP HOBSBAUM, from Larkin’s England
JOHN BAYLEY, from English Equivocation     
TOM PAULIN, from The Politics of English Verse    
LOUIS MACNEICE, from Broken Windows or
Thinking Aloud      
ANTHONY THWAITE, Memories of Rothwell House      
EAVAN BOLAND, What We Lost     
PRIMO LEVI, Unfinished Business    
JOSEPH BRODSKY, Sextet      
JAMES LOVELOCK, from Address to the Global Forum of
Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders…    
SEAMUS HEANEY, Man and Boy     
JOHN ASHBERY, Avant de Quitter Ces Lieux     
MIROSLAV HOLUB, Poetry Against Absurdity     
PAUL CELAN, [‘Low water’]    
AIMÉ CÉSAIRE, Word     
DEREK WALCOTT, from The Poet in the Theatre
E.A. MARKHAM, from Truly, Deeply, Sonorously    
from TERRY EAGLETON in conversation with JAMES WOOD     
CIARAN CARSON, On Not Remembering Some Lines
of a Song    
JO SHAPCOTT, Phrase Book     
R.S. THOMAS, All Souls’ Night
FEATURE: After Marina Tsvetaeva
WENDY COPE, A Word Before Sleep     
KATHLEEN JAMIE, In Praise of Aphrodite    
GWYNETH LEWIS, The Hedge
CAROL ANN DUFFY, Mrs Aesop     
ADRIENNE RICH in conversation with SARAH MAGUIRE,
from Storm Warnings     
ANNE STEVENSON, from Sylvia Plath’s Word Games
TED HUGHES, Four Ages
DONALD DAVIE, from Critics and Essayists (Seamus
Heaney, Helen Vendler and Eavan Boland)    
THOM GUNN, The Painter as an Old Man    
CZESlAW MIlOSZ, Prudence     
PETER READING, Lucretian     
C.K. WILLIAMS, Grief     
MICHAEL LONGLEY, A Poppy     
FEATURE: Ruth and Harry Fainlight
RUTH FAINLIGHT, The Same     
HARRY FAINLIGHT, [‘The moon shows through’]     
IAN HAMILTON in conversation with GREGORY LESTAGE,
from Pick Me Flowers for Vietnam     
DENNIS O’DRISCOLL, from The State of the Language:
On Irish English    
GLYN MAXWELL, from Letters to Edward Thomas     
FEATURE: Scottish Identity in the 1990s
DOUGLAS DUNN interviewed by ATTILA DÖSA, from
A Different Drummer
W.N. HERBERT, Cabaret McGonagall     
ROBERT CRAWFORD, Zero
AMY CLAMPITT, Syrinx     
BILLY COLLINS, Silhouette     
LES MURRAY, The Holy Show     
ZBIGNIEW HERBERT, Breviary     
JOHN AGARD, Remember the Ship
TONY HARRISON, The Ode not Taken     
SIMON ARMITAGE, Chainsaw versus the Pampas Grass     
HUGO WILLIAMS, Egg and Spoon     
WIS?AWA SZYMBORSKA, Letters of the Dead     
GEOFFREY HILL, from Speech! Speech!     
PETER REDGROVE, At the Old Powerhouse
PAULINE STAINER, The Hangar Ghosts     
MONIZA ALVI, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
PAUL FARLEY, Big Safe Themes
SEAN O’BRIEN, Authentically Excruciating     
ALAN JENKINS, Orpheus     
ELAINE FEINSTEIN, Another Anniversary     
MIMI KHALVATI, Ghazal     
JOHN BERGER, from I Would Softly Tell My Love    
SEAN O’BRIEN, Fantasia on a Theme of James Wright     
ROBIN ROBERTSON, The Glair     
JOHN BURNSIDE, Ama et fac quod vis     
JACKIE KAY, Darling    
DON PATERSON, from The Lyric Principle, Part 2:
The Sound of Sense    
W.S. MERWIN, Europe
MEDBH MCGUCKIAN, Mariola with Angel Choir     
JOHN KINSELLA, from Lyric and Razo: Activism and
the Poet
ALICE OSWALD, Two Moon Poems     
HARRISON BIRTWISTLE, facsimile from The Minotaur    
ALAN BROWNJOHN, Ludbrooke: His Old Approach    
MARJORIE PERLOFF, from It Must Change
SHARON OLDS, One Secret Thing    
DON PATERSON, Song for Natalie ‘Tusja’ Beridze     
DAVID HARSENT, Vanitas     

Index of Authors
Acknowledgements