Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry

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In her gorgeous second collection, Mary Szybist blends traditional and experimental aesthetics to recast the myth of the Biblical Mary for this era. In vulnerable lyrics, surprising concrete poems, and other forms, and with extraordinary sympathy and a light touch of humor, Szybist probes the nuances of love, loss, and the struggle for religious faith in a world that seems to argue against it. This is a religious book for nonbelievers, or a book of necessary doubts for the faithful. The ambition of Coste Lewis’s project is revealed in the precision of its limitations, as described in the first sentence of the prologue: MAIN BODY: disagree - the poets come to a point of disagreement in their portrayals of how - in poem A, - on the other hand, poet B adopts a more - yet the reader becomes increasingly aware Armaments” are military weapons and equipment, so describing a “flash” links to them being fired, bringing one of the only references to weaponry and violence to the poem. Notably this is at the end of the poem, which could be interpreted by some readers at signalling the potential for future conflict. ‘An Easy Passage’ Key Themes

Language urges you to push against what you might think you know, what you might initially be inclined to draw from what you’ve observed and even what you believe. That’s exciting because you’re wandering away from the things that you feel confident of, and you’re wandering into a place where—oh, maybe you’re not so right. Maybe you’re vulnerable in ways that you hadn’t anticipated, and maybe the vulnerability that you’re willing to claim isn’t the whole story.”

- to conclude, readers are prompted by both poets to consider/critique the _

It is the perfect introduction to a wide range of contemporary poetry: works that speak of violence, danger and fear, of love and all that opposes love, in forms of language broken and reshaped by the need to communicate what it is to be alive now, here. I will say that this list was the hardest we’ve done so far—poetry is extremely subjective, and true consensus was rare (except for Claudia Rankine, for whom almost everyone in the office voted). And NB that for this one, we excluded huge “collected poems” for range. So please feel extra free to add any of your own favorites that we’ve missed in the comments below.

Poems of the Decade is a celebration of the last ten years of poetry published in the UK and Ireland. The 100 poems contained in this anthology were selected from the many thousands of poems submitted to the Forward Prizes for Poetry over the past ten years. Power: Throughout ‘Eat Me’ the idea of power is very important because it is fundamental to the ‘feeder’ relationship. Without this power it wouldn’t be able to operate, and the objectification and possession would not be able to take place. Re read ‘To My Nine-Year-Old Self’ by Helen Dunmore and ‘From the Journal of a Disappointed Man’ by Andrew Motion. Compare the ways in which both poets portray personal experiences.Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9740 Ocr_module_version 0.0.15 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000602 Openlibrary_edition MAIN BODY: agree - “in a similar vein”, author uses the method of - it is clear that the author is intending to evoke a sense of - author forces readers to confront how universal truth or societal message