20th Century – 20 Poets

This book describes the work of twenty poets of the 20^th Century, English, European, American and Latin American. In doing so it seeks to illuminate what happened to the poetry of this period. Did it, as is so often claimed, cut itself off from the past, from clarity of ideas and diction, and retreat into obscurity, into complex language games which leave the reader cold? Did it become part of modern art’s compulsion to experiment and destroy, to reject the standards of the past, and this to participate in the process of disorder and conflict to which the 2oth Century gave birth? Modern poetry can indeed be difficult, even baffling, but this book argues that these poets were, on the contrary, seeking to preserve the authentic life of the mind and spirit in a hostile world of materialism and dehumanisation. Their work shows the power of poetry to offer a criticism of life, and more, a vision of life. They have sought to create counter-worlds, resisting the destructive power of modern civilisation , and recalling us to values that are moral, personal and spiritual.

Poets discussed:

-Johannes Bobrowski                 -Georg Trakl                             -Pablo Neruda

-Osip Mandelstam                     -Marina Tsvetayeva                    -Peter Levi

-Giuseppe Ungaretti                  -Salvatore Quasimodo                -George Seferis

-Czeslaw Milosz                        -Yehuda Amichai                       -Mary Oliver

-Robert Penn Warren                -Robinson Jeffers                       -W.S.Merwin

-James Merrill                           -Archibald MacLeish                  -Octavio Paz

160 pages                           Illustrated with portraits                    £8.00