Americans’ Favorite Poems by Favorite Poem Project (PDF)

Description

This anthology embodies Robert Pinsky’s commitment to discover America’s beloved poems, his special undertaking as Poet Laureate of the United States. The selections in this anthology were chosen form the personal letters of thousands of Americans who responded to Robert Pinsky’s invitation to write to him about their favorite poems. Some poems are memories treasured in the mind since childhood; some crystallize the passion of love or recall the trail of loss and sorrow. The poems and poets in this anthology―from Sappho to Lorca, from Shakespeare and Chaucer to Gwendolyn Brooks, Louise Bluck, and Allen Ginsberg―are poems to be read aloud and memorized, poems to be celebrated as part of our nation’s cultural inheritance. Accompanying the poems are comments by people who speak not as professional critics but as passionate readers of various ages, professions and regions. This anthology, in a manner unlike any other, discloses the rich and vigorous presence of poetry in American life at the millennium and provides a portrait of the United States through the lens of poetry.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Amazon.com Review Americans’ Favorite Poems offers keen proof that poetry does make something happen, that it can give strength and perspective, inspire and alter lives, and comfort and surprise. How did this grassroots golden anthology come about? When Robert Pinsky was named U.S. poet laureate in 1997, he hoped to persuade 100 Americans to recite and discuss their favorite works. Even he may have been surprised when thousands were moved to contribute and commune. From the wave of responses, Pinsky has selected 200 poems, each preceded by one or more testimonials. Make no mistake: this collection, ranging in alphabetical order from Ammons to Zagajewski, would be a keeper without any commentary whatsoever. But Pinsky’s volume again and again makes clear that for real readers Matthew Arnold is far from outmoded, that people still thrill to Robert Browning, and that Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” is–at least for one Hollywood type–a reflection of reality rather than sublime whimsy. And how about John Donne’s “The Flea”? A precocious Arizona 17-year-old deems it not a thorny metaphysical work but “the best argument for sex I’ve ever heard.” Fans will encounter their favorites, from Anna Akhmatova to Langston Hughes to W.B. Yeats, and read them anew in the light of people’s passionate comments. But there are also discoveries to be made. A New Mexican treasures “Who Says Words with My Mouth” by the 13th-century Persian poet Jalal Al-Din Rumi: “I can’t live without it and I can die with it.” And this reader is grateful to one New Yorker for offering up Nazim Hikmet’s “Things I Didn’t Know I Loved.” Twenty-four-year-old Chad Menville writes: “I identify with this poem about imprisonment, censorship, longing, and belief in oneself more than with any other poem I have read. This poem needs to be heard! Please.” Americans’ Favorite Poems really is a national portrait: those who took up Pinsky’s challenge range from teachers to prisoners, teenagers to nonagenarians. There are even a few artists. Violinist and conundrum merchant Laurie Anderson sent a long, complex paragraph detailing how George Herbert inspired her to create a talking table: “It compressed the sound and drove it up steel rods so that when you sat with your elbows on the table and your hands to your ears, it was like wearing a pair of powerful headphones.” And when it comes to A.E. Housman, the writer William Maxwell opted for simplicity with the sentence fragment: “Because I cannot read it without shuddering with pleasure.” That same phrase can be applied to the entire volume. Robert Pinsky’s vision is inspiring on every level, proof of his belief in poetry–and people. –Kerry Fried From Booklist Poet laureate Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project was a stroke of genius. Americans were invited to share by letter a poem they treasured; then many were recorded reading their chosen poems for inclusion in a national video and audio archive. The response was tremendous, and as Pinsky notes, many of the matches between reader and poem defy stereotypes, and all attest to the vital role that poetry plays in more lives than seems possible in a country that appears to pay scant attention to this quiet art form. Here each poem is introduced in extraordinarily moving personal disclosures by the reader who chose it. Teenagers and octogenarians, a social worker, a farmer, a nurse, a truck driver, a commodities trader, a librarian, a judge, and an alcoholic who memorizes poetry to test her sobriety selected poems by Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Haki R. Madhubuti, W. S. Merwin, Sylvia Plath, and Dylan Thomas. No one person, however well read, could have created this resounding collection, which may well become a favorite in its own right. Donna Seaman About the Author Maggie Dietz is the Favorite Poem Project’s director. She lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.Robert Pinsky is the author of numerous books of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Figured Wheel, and prose, including The Sounds of Poetry. He served as United States Poet Laureate from 1997 to 2000, during which time he founded the Favorite Poem Project. He has edited several anthologies, most recently The Book of Poetry for Hard Times. Pinsky teaches at Boston University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐For more than 55 years of my life I have loved poetry of all kinds; however, like most people I have certain poets and poems that I enjoy reading over and over again. When I saw this Hardcover (Americans’’ Favorite Poems edited by Robert Pinsky and Maggi Dietz 337 pages) book on Amazon for a bargain price I immediately purchased it.Even though I own numerous great poem books one of the things that make this particular collection unique is before each poem a person tells why that particular poem means so much to them. Not surprisingly, many in this collection are also my favorite poems.The 200 poems in this collection are wide, varied, and unique and come from a host of great poets. Some of these include the following: William Blake, Eavan Roland, Rupert Brooke, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Burns, Lewis Carroll, Geoffrey Chaucer, James Dickey, Emily Dickinson, Michael Drayton, T.S. Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hayden, Homer, A. E. Housman, James Weldon Johnson, James Joyce, John Keats, Lao TZU, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, John Milton, Ezra Pound, Sir Walter Raleigh, Carl Sandberg, William Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dylan Thomas and numerous other great poets.This is a book every lover of poetry may want to check out.Rating: 5 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: The Samurai Soul: A Poetic Tribute to Warriors)

⭐Great

⭐This is my all-time favorite poetry book to share. It contains so many beautiful poets, famous and new, so many varied poems, tiny kernels of lyric to sweeping epics. I buy every copy I can find and give them away whenever someone becomes engrossed looking through it. Also the presentation is so unique–every poem is introduced by excerpts of letters from the people who submitted that poem, say Betty a 50 yr old Minnesotan/school teacher and James a 7 yr old kid in Brooklyn, both grooving to the same poem and explaining why, and Pinsky has catalogued those experiences alongside the work as a poetry of its own. Buy it and see if you don’t find something brooding in there for you.

⭐This is the poetry book you pick-up open at random and enjoy. All the favorites are indeed favorites. Perfect when you’re feeling nostalgic. Each poem will bring back all sorts of memories of friends, places, emotions, dreams, sights, times.

⭐I absolutely love poetry and this is one of the best collections I have ever read. It pulls from a wide ranges of poets and includes many lesser-known poems.

⭐I bought several copies as gifts and for local poetry readings. Each poem was submitted by a person with a letter explaining why it was his or her favorite.

⭐I purchased this for my son; we homeschool. Although there were some good poems here, many were not what I would have wanted him to read. Instead of letting him read through it himself, I began picking and choosing a few as read alouds. Too few! I set it aside. I cannot recommend this book.

⭐Delivered exactly as stated

⭐Very enjoyable

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