Herbert Rosengarten

Amanda Goldrick-Jones

“The purpose of The Broadview Anthology of Poetry is to present a wide range of poetry written in English. [Though the poems are arranged chronologically], we have compiled not a historical survey, but rather a collection of poems that represent a variety of times, places and English-speaking cultures. Our selection process was guided by a wish to combine works long accepted as part of the English-language ‘canon’ with material not always well represented in anthologies—such as, most notably, the poetry of women since the seventeenth century… “Another notion implicit in the framing of this anthology is that English-language poetry has dramatically expanded within the last century. Writers in Australia and New Zealand, Canada, India, Africa and the Caribbean all hold in common with writers in Britain and the United States an English-Language tradition that helped to shape their history and their institutions, and that laid the groundwork for new writings… “In trying to include as wide a selection as possible of representative work…we have had to leave out several well-known long poems. In almost all cases, however, we have chosen to represent a poet by several poems, inviting readers to take a broader view of a given writer’s work and ways of thinking.” — from the Preface

The Broadview Anthology of Poetry

Recounts and examines the goals, challenges, and accomplishments of profeminist men's groups.

Men who Believe in Feminism

Among the poets new to this edition are such leading names as Americans Robert Pinsky, Louise Erdrich and Louise Glück; Britons James Fenton and Carol Ann Duffy; and Canadians Anne Carson, Robert Bringhurst, and Christian Bök. A number of names who may be new to many readers of poetry are also included among them: Ohioan Debra Allbery, Vancouverite Elise Partridge, and the Cree poet Connie Fife; as with the first edition, the editors have endeavored to include much that is fresh as well as much that is familiar. There are many additions to the selections from poets who appeared in the first edition including selections from the recent work of Leonard Cohen, Les Murray, and Margaret Atwood. As before, the anthology includes work from English-language poets throughout the world from India, Africa, and the Caribbean as well as from Britain, North America, and Australia. Although the selections from the work of poets of earlier eras are largely unchanged from the first edition, there have been some changes; among poems added for this edition are Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, Bradstreet’s “Employment,” Dickinson’s “I cannot live without You,” Frost’s “Once by the Pacific,” and Auden’s “Funeral Blues.” As before, the text emphasizes work of the past century; poems from 1900 or later take up more than half of the anthology’s pages. In its first edition The Broadview Anthology of Poetry included biographical information about the poets at the back of the anthology; for the new edition, biographical material appears in a headnote to each poet. Two other features are also new to this edition: the date of first publication is appended after each poem, and line numbering is used throughout. The numbers have been kept unobtrusive, however; as with the first edition, the designers have endeavored to give a clean look to the pages of the anthology. A substantial section on prosody, figures of speech, and so on is included as an appendix.

Amanda Goldrick-Jones

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