Reviews

The 100 Best Poems of All Time, by Leslie Pockell

megadallion's review

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2.0

If these are the best 100 poems of all time, then I'm even less a fan of poetry than I thought. I've always wanted to like poetry - it's a beautiful concept and seems so romantic and complicated...but it can be really boring and tedious. And a lot of it goes right over my head. I made myself read every single one of these though in hopes that I would gain a better understanding and appreciation for poetry, but unfortunately my experiment failed. I wasn't at all familiar with over half of the poems and poets included in this collection, which was really disappointing. In an "all time" list you expect to have at least heard of most of the works, right? The handful of poems that I remembered studying in either high school or college were highly enjoyable to read again, maybe because I actually learned about them back in the day. The rest, I could take or leave em. I guess I should just pick a better anthology next time.

bellatora's review

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5.0

It’s hard for me to find poems I really love, so I like to get short collections of a bunch of famous/popular poems, because I feel like that’s the best chance of getting a good mix of poems I’m already familiar with and enjoy, and getting new poems that others have liked. I think this collection did a really great job overall fulfilling that expectation, and I liked the brief introductions at the beginning of each poem so that there could be some context to the poem.

mads1706's review

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challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

4.0

laurabb's review

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3.0

Like any collection, it's a fairly even mix of hits and misses.

rixenr's review

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3.0

This volume is a handy little collection of some of the world's "best poems;" a convenient stepping-stone into poetry for people like me who avoid poetry as much as possible and don't know where to begin. It's a nice survey of poetry, comprised mainly of works from British and American poets, and while it's still not enough to make me a poetry convert, I appreciated reading and recognizing poems with which I should probably be more familiar.

sleeplessscribe's review

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3.0

I like poetry but I am not the type of person to sit and analyze what I just read which I think a lot of poetry needs so I think a lot of it goes over my head. Was a good way to be exposed to a lot of different poets I probably would not have read otherwise.

losethegirl's review against another edition

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inspiring reflective slow-paced

2.75

This was a good anthology, but I wouldn't call it the "best" poems, I would call it the most popular. 

celebrin's review

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4.0

While I'm not 100% sure I agree with all of them, this is a fine collection.

elenancalima's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5 stars.
I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks This Land is Your Land is a) a poem, and b) good, should not edit a poetry anthology.
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