The Poetry Reader

You have picked up this book because you are a poetry reader. Or you are about to be one. Because as soon as you read a poem, that's what you are. Filled with the profound, the lyrical, the consoling, and the curious, The Poetry Reader: An Anthology is the book you would hope to find if you washed up alone on a deserted island: this companionable collection shows how poetry itself is a discussion, alive and flowing, and how poems speak to, with, and sometimes over one another. If you are a teacher, this is the anthology you wish you had as a student – a text that doesn't try to survey entire time periods or aesthetic areas, but one that places side-by-side carefully selected poems that speak to each other over time as well as to today's readers. - Section header notes provide critical commentary, framing the poems within their given topic - Discussion and writing suggestions give interesting and actionable prompts - Works as a standalone book, or can easily be used alongside Poetry: A Survivor's Guide, 2nd ed.