Women's great poems: 100 Essential Modern Poems By Women
edited by Joseph Parisi and Kathleen Welton


Women's great poems: 100 Essential Modern Poems By Women


* Summary. * Poets.

Comment Summary

There is much to commend 100 Essential Modern Poems By Women (2008) edited by Joseph Parisi and Kathleen Welton.

It prints in full a hundred poems by 48 women poets, with many partial quotations of their other poems in the essay (by Parisi) on each poet.

The essays are terrific. Parisi adds an essay on Elizabeth Bishop, whose will apparently forbade inclusion of her poetry in such an anthology.

Even Mary Oliver (whom I once heard say at a reading that she did not give permission for her work to be included in a women-only anthology) is there.

So is Kay Ryan. [She is paired with Mary Oliver for "special thanks" in the Acknowledgments. So perhaps she had expressed similar limitations previously.]

While Parisi's essays are interesting and informative, be warned that they outweigh the space devoted to the poets:

The text totals 266 pages (for essays and women's poems).
Only about 105 pages (40%) are occupied by poems.
About 161 pages (60%) of essays.

The essays and notes are terrific in giving a summary of each poet's body of work and her life. Parisi includes many references to biographies and to critical works for more detailed study. Mina Loy and Dorothy Parker, Louise Brogan and Stevie Smith particularly caught my eye. The Australian Judith Wright also merits study, not least as the only Antipodean in the volume.

A final heads-up: the book does indeed include a lot of great poems and poets, though it is a jingoistic collection:

Poets

Poets by birth date

Books

Links and Books


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