The Poets Laureate Anthology

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. First Edition, First Printing. 1/4 paper. Fine/near fine. A fine/as new first edition (review copy), appears unread. Red 1/4 paper over buckram boards in a near fine dustjacket with a small 1/4 inch nick at top right corner of jacket. Publisher's errata laid in. 762 pp. including index. Octavo The first anthology to gather poems by the forty-three poets laureate of the United States, with works by Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Fitzgerald, Robert Frost, Maxine Kuman, Robert Lowell, William Meredith. William Carlos Williams, and by all the other poets laureate to 2010.."As a record of poetry, The Poets Laureate Anthology is groundbreaking, charting the course of American poetry over the last seventy-five years, while being, at the same time, a pleasure to read, full of some of the world's best-known poems and many new surprises. Elizabeth Hun Schmidt has gathered and introduced poems by each of the forty-three poets who have been named our nation's poets laureate since the post (originally called Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress) was established in 1937. Poets range from Robert Pinsky, William Carlos Williams, and Elizabeth Bishop to Charles Simic, Billy Collins, and Rita Dove. Schmidt's spirited introductions place the poets and their poems in historical and literary context and shine light on the interesting and often uneasy relationship between politics and art. This is an inviting, monumental collection for everyone's library, containing much of the best poetry written in America over the last century." --- Google Books