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Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz, editors

Poems to Read

A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology

A unique anthology by the editors of the bestseller Americans' Favorite Poems.

Poems to Read is a welcoming avenue into poetry for readers new to poetry, including high school and college students. It is also meant to be a fresh, valuable collection for readers already devoted to the art.

This anthology concentrates on the actual pleasures of reading poems: hearing the poem in your voice, bringing it to other people, musing about it, taking excitement or comfort from it, wandering with it or—as in the Keats letter quoted in the Introduction—having it as a starting post.

Many of these 200 poems are accompanied by comments from readers of various ages, regions, and backgrounds who participated in the Favorite Poem Project. Included are poems by John Donne, Walt Whitman, William Butler Yeats, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Seamus Heaney, Allen Ginsberg, and Louise Glück, to name a few. The editors offer their own comments on some of the poems, which are arranged in thematic chapters.


Robert Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project during his tenure as Poet Laureate of the United States. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Maggie Dietz is the Project's director. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Poems to Read book jacket

Table of Contents



Visit the official Favorite Poem Project Web site

Also Available:
Americans' Favorite Poems

Americans' Favorite Poems book jkt


June 2002 / hardcover / ISBN 0-393-01074-0 / 6" x 9" / 416 pages / Poetry
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