Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology

Americans' Favorite Poems is the result of Robert Pinsky's "Favorite Poem Project" in which he invited Americans to share their favorite poems. The result is a masterpiece, as people from all walks of life, of all ages, genders and from all parts of the country share a little about the poems moves them and why. There are the old stand-bys of Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare and the like, but also a number of poets I was previously unaware of - and am pleased to have been introduced to them. (James Dickey's "The Bee", Black Elk's "Everything the Power of the world does in a circle", Nazm Hikmet's Things I Didn;t Know I Loved" to mention a few.) The poems themselves are a rich variety, given further depth and meaning from the tidbits shared by those who participated in the project. I purchased the book on a whim; I have never regretted buying it. Few books have moved me to tears or laughter, or have caused me to simply pause and reflect like this anthology has. I highly recommend it.

This book celebrates and typifies the resurgence of interest in poetry in our relentlessly digital age. It may be precisely because of the noisy pace of our technologically driven lives that poems appeal to us -- they are economical, artful, and surprising. Poems offer a few moments of thoughtful peace during which we can be with ourselves before returning to the fray. And they can be shared with others, which makes them both personal and communal. Poetry is also portable -- you can carry one on a scrap of paper that weighs next to nothing, or in a slim volume, or in your memory. Pinsky and Dietz accomplish at least two things with this wide-ranging anthology. First, they gather together 200 poems that represent the breadth of the genre's history in many styles, voices, and themes, from Homer and other ancients up to current popular favorites like Mary Oliver and Robert Hass. Second, they give the children and women and men whose comments precede each poem the opportunity to define themselves through their response to the words, which in effect provides a picture of Americans around the turn of the millennium. This kind of self-exploration is innate to good poetry, for the best way to appreciate a poem is to engage your heart and mind with it. And your tongue -- in his book The Sounds of Poetry, Pinsky recommends reading a poem aloud (or hearing someone recite it) and listening for the cadence and the rhythm, the beauty of the sound, without worrying about the sense. You can always figure out the meaning later. For him, poetry is foremost a physical object brought into existence by the individual voice, and therefore a unique entity that cannot be duplicated, because each time it is said aloud it's different, each time created anew. All the poems in this volume reward reading aloud, but are also, of course, a pleasure to read silently. Here are familiar poets such as Matthew Arnold, Coleridge, Emily Dickinson, Frost, Keats, Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, Whitman, and Yeats. Here also are poets not often found in general anthologies, such as Anne Bradstreet, Federico Garcia Lorca, and the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, and writers known primarily as novelists (Margaret Atwood, Herman Melville). The poems are filled with pathos, love, loss, memory, anger, and humor, with adventure and beauty, with stories. There is no discussion of technical achievement because that is out of the book's scope. "Difficult" poets like James Merrill are not included. Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project was intended to evoke the ecumenical texture of American society and maintain the momentum of interest in poetry by a careful selection from among the thousands of contributions he received. The resulting anthology is both pleasurable and instructive.

Being a populist poet myself, I found this collection a joy to participate in and read.This proves what I thought all along: regular joes read poetry, not just high toned academics. I hope more collection of this ilk, will result because of Pinsky's and Diet's efforts.

I love this book, and I do not buy books of poetry, or read poetry. I began reading it on a Saturday morning, read the first 200 pages without a break. The poems are familiar, and also new, but in this book are presented with an entirely new purpose. . . .WHY THEY MATTER, WHO THEY HAVE INSPIRED AND SUPPORTED. What makes this book a rare gem are the detailed stories, written by everyone from a 6 year old to a 90 year old, of how these icons of literature have influenced individuals like ourselves, and have even changed our lives, including people who are not poetry lovers. I was moved by the details of how these poems influenced the lives of people. I never, ever, would have wanted a book of poems for Christmas. I got this one tho, and it was the best gift, really. Now I know the power of the written word in a way I could not have known before.

Americans' Favorite Poems is not only a beautiful anthology of poetry but also a millennial document. The Favorite Poem Project staff under the direction of Maggie Dietz and Robert Pinsky, have gathered a sampling of poems which are meaningful to people living in America. Each selected poem was submitted with a letter revealing what that particular poem and poetry in general mean to the submitter. The selection of poetry could have stood elegantly on its own without the letters. The juxtaposition of the poems and the letters takes one on a fantastic journey of connections, separations, profound joys, tragic sorrows, awe and wonder through the human experience. I read one of the letters and its accompanying poem to a friend who was feeling a bit frazzled after a sleepless night. She sat back in a deep chair attending to the words with eyes closed. At the close of the poem she looked up. There is a wonderful joy in seeing the tearful eye of a friend just lifted out of the ordinary to a place of deep feeling and understanding.