Immortal Poems of the English Language

by Oscar Williams (Editor)

A timeless and comprehensive anthology of enduring English language poetry, featuring entries from 150 British and American poets, including Alexander Pope, Lord Byron, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Emily Dickinson.

The last six hundred years in British and American literature have given us some of the most moving and memorable poems in all literature. Now, discover many of these same works in one gorgeously wrought collection, featuring entries from poets as legendary and beloved as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Ralph Waldo Emerson, D.H. Lawrence, and many more.

From Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberywocky” to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and from Shakespeare’s sonnets to anonymous classics, this is the ultimate gift for poetry lovers of all ages and backgrounds. Arranged chronologically, the 150 poems featured in this stunning collection reflect the immortality of the poetic soul.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Anthologies, Literature, Reference, 20th Century

624 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

Reviews

[s.penkevich [mental health hiatus] · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was pleased to run across my old copy of Immortal Poems in a box the other day. Not that it is a good collection per se, but that this dog eared and heavily underlined mass market edition was the first book of poetry I ever bought myself. Back when I was 15 and you could snag a new mass market book for $5.99. It was rather lovely pouring over all my teenage notes and wondering what was it about Yeat’s The Second Coming or Ezra Pound’s An Immortality that spoke to me. Tracing over my old underlining I wonder what to a 15 year old were Auden’s lines ‘In the prison of his days / Teach the free man how to praise’? I enjoyed seeing I was already into Lord Byron and heavily marked up The Sea and loved all the Emily Dickinson. Or William Blake’s Eternity, Conrad Aiken’s Music I Heard. It was cool to see my origins in reading poetry and I’ll forever be glad it is an art I enjoy.

[Susan Budd · Rating 5 out of 5]

My copy of Immortal Poems of the English Language must be handled gingerly to prevent it from completely falling apart. The cover is held together with so much clear tape that it’s probably more tape than cover. But the memories this book holds are as strong as the paper is brittle.

This current copy is actually my second ~ the first having been worn out so quickly that it soon needed replacing. I remember them both living in my book bag during my college years. The first was purchased for a literature course at Hunter College. The second perhaps a year later when the first one wore out. I used to whip it out every chance I got. If a lecture was boring, out came Immortal Poems of the English Language. If there was a long wait at the bus stop, a poem or two would fill the time. Many of its poems were memorized during those days and some of them I can still recite today.

Nowadays I have a fairly large collection of poetry books and most, if not all, of the poems in Immortal Poems of the English Language are surely available on the internet, but I would not part with this book for all the poems on the web. It is not mere sentimentality that keeps this book on my shelves. When it finally does fall to dust I will get a third copy. I keep it because it is, quite simply, a superlative collection of poetry. Everyone should own a copy.

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 4 out of 5]

RATING: 4 STARS

I was shopping for books online, and found myself a few dollars away from getting free shipping. Instead of paying for shipping, I would rather pay for another book. I decided to check out the cheaper books and see what strikes my fancy. This paperback, with what I assume is a 1960s cover art, of poetry was $2.95. As a lover of words and poems, I thought, "why not". I have this habit of collecting but not reading books I buy. I'm always trying to get library books back on time, and getting ARCs read, I put off the books I buy. It's the "I-got-forever-to-read-them" syndrome. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and among many other anxieties, I wonder will I ever get to read my own books? I looked at this book when in it came in and challenged it to be read....now. I have been meaning to pick books to read before bed that are more calming. When I was having panic attacks, and not knowing they were panic attacks, I would read Shakespeare, Barrett Browning, Dickinson to calm down. Listening to the words and poetry took me to my happy place. Sorry to dither on, but I am an A-Z communicator.

I really enjoyed this anthology. I would not read this every night, as some nights I was just too tired to hold a book, and just listened to an audiobook. I found when I did start reading, I couldn't stop. This collection had some old friends and introduced me to some poets I have not heard of. I started marking some of poems/poets I wanted to revisit with sticky notes (if you are reading my blog, you will see it in the picture above). This collection was published in the 1950s, and my reprint is from 2009. This book has been kicking around for awhile so it's probably in some used bookstores out there, chilling out, waiting on you. So with all this praise, why have I given this book only 4 stars? Now I know this book is from the 50s where women were even more misrepresented, but come on. Not only are there just a handful of women poets in this anthology, but when there is a woman, there is also just one poem. Some poets were given several pages for several poems. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson - my reasons for loving poetry - were given one poem, and half a page. I am taking one star away for that reason. I still think this is a great gift for yourself or someone who loves words. It is a book that will have a cracked spine, underlining and stickies to show how loved this copy was.

[Stephy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been an ongoing "Currently Reading" book in my collection since I owned the first, 1952 edition. Every now and them it falls to pieces and I get a new copy. Many of my favorite poems are in here, the ones I memorized in childhood to recite before dinner, the ones that comforted me during bad times in childhood, the ones Mama read when Father died. I read some of those same ones to my nephew when my mother died, and earlier this year, when my younger sister died suddenly, I chose poems to read at her memorial service.
It was from a volume of this name that I learned Shelley's OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

One of my all time favorites, Ozymandias was another name of Ramesses the Great, Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt.

Lots of my favorites in here, and a nice addition to an library.

[Seema · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like poetry, this is a brilliant collection. John Keats was well represented in this. It is a very inclusive and comprehensive anthology. But the volume is not too intimidating and I found myself easily lingering on a few poems for days, and then sifting through others within minutes, which is the beauty of an anthology -- not too daunting... when you're reading poetry, this makes for a great variety of writing styles and I never got bored. My only complaint is that Elizabeth Barret Browning is short-changed with a little less than 2 pages... yikes. But Yeats, Shakespeare, Byron, & Alexander Pope, among others, are well-represented.

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I carried this book around the world in my backpack when I went to Japan as an exchange student in high school, and again when I travelled around the world, in college. It's a great book to have when traveling, with high literature-per-ounce value, and can be re-read many times. The collection favors older poems -- there's not much even from the earlier 20th century, but it's good for what it does.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

şiir gibi insanlar.

[Mary Matias · Rating 5 out of 5]

My grandma told me the story of how she got this book of which she decided to entrust to my keeping. And I will treasure this collection of immortal poems forever, as well as my grandma, of course. Hahaha!

She worked as a librarian back in the day and having resided in the province where not a lot of people took Library Science due to its indefinite work placement, my grandma still chose to study the said course in pursuit of knowledge and her love for books. Most young girls either took up teaching or medicine since they are much more useful at that time and that it pays more, yet grandma took no notice of this. Perhaps it was because she could afford to do so given that she is the youngest out of all nine children which means she was the last to be burdened with responsibility or maybe no responsibility at all. For that, I am eternally grateful for her choice, as much as my great grandparents' support of letting her choose the course as she so desired since it did leave such a huge impact on me as I grew up with her, as well as until this very day when my obsession with books continues to leave a spark in my everyday life.

You'd be surprised to know that our copy of the Immortal Poems of the English Language which now resides in my keeping, which formerly resided in our house library, which came from my grandma's house in the province, which came from the library where my grandmother worked. Yeap, it's an original copy from the Library of Cabanatuan. But worry not, my grandma didn't steal the book, of course, she merely borrowed it and read it on the way home and on her way to work every single day. She was very much drawn to each poem from every page that she knew she had to get a copy. However, books such as these were rarely accessible back in the day, and since my grandma was head librarian, she knew that this book was even rarely borrowed. Considering this, she told her boss that she had lost it and merely paid for it. I was surprised at how she managed to get away with it, but it's a story that my grandma and I laugh from time to time.

I appreciate her love for the English language and of classics, and I'm in awe of how she was able to appreciate it as such in the first place given her upbringing. But I'm lucky enough to have grown in her care, a house that has a library, filled with books to read, English as my first language -- she literally colored my upbringing with stories that I have only recently come to appreciate.

I'll always love my grandmother, and her cunning ways. No wonder we're both Slytherins.

This is a book that I'll keep coming back to, and I bet that I will rate it 5/5 stars every time.

[Jocelyne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the collection was very well done. So many epic poems, and with no notes in it you could take it in and try it figure it out yourself.

[T. Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as collections go this was not my favorite. While it did have some very iconic poems within its pages, I think I would have like something a little more geared towards specific poets or mood or a certain era even. It was a hodge podge of a collection, a good one, but nothing I'd be willing to pull off the shelf to try and find that one poem that woke me up, excited me or touched my heart; I'd more likley just try and find a thiner collection of like inspired poems so that I could find that one poem and along my journey find others that I fancy as welll.

[Dan Finnigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can a four-century collection of great poems be anything but a 5? So many of my favourites are in here. I think it is essential reading for any lover of English language poetry. I bought it as a child, and have effectively worn the book out. It has survived every bookshelf purge.

[Danielle Palmer]

DNF. A lot of old poems from poets that are found in many anthologies. I saw numerous religious poems, and I stopped reading after I read the slaughter house poem.

[Carrie]

I am enjoying this book as something to browse through. It's a nice collection of poems by different writers. Some of the poems are long and complex, but a few are short and fun, such as:

Epigram (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1839)
Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

Or:

The Golf Links (Sarah N Cleghorn, 1876-1959)
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.

Anyway, sometimes it's nice to read poetry for a change.

[Blue Caeruleus · Rating 2 out of 5]

I skipped a whole bunch of poems in this anthology and nearly as many as I should have. As with most anthologies of poetry that I've read, for every entertaining or inspiring poem that was included here, there were a dozen boring and impenetrable ones.

[Benj · Rating 5 out of 5]

The grizzly bear is huge and wild;
He has devoured the infant child.
The infant child is not aware,
It has been eaten by the bear.

- A.E. Housman Page 487

Love it.

[Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some poets overrepresented, others underrepresented. A good collection, though.

[D.A. Fellows · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 stars. It’s difficult to rate an anthology because I loathed some of these poems and loved some others, feeling very little one way or the other for many of them; but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the overall experience was therefore middling. It is useful to discover which kinds of poets and poems I enjoy, and interesting for me to consider the reasons why. I like form, a strong meter and any kind of rhyming scheme. I dislike free verse and abstractions; if you want to write a poem about smelling the color purple, it’s a free country and good luck to you, but please don’t show it to me afterwards.

As I read this collection, I created a list of poets I’d like to further explore, and a shit-list of a few that I would rather hack off a body part than be subjected to again. The latter were usually but not always disqualified due to their unrelenting and painfully overlong odes to Jesus, or something similar. I can handle a line or two on that subject, but as Basil Fawlty says in Fawlty Towers, “if the Good Lord is mentioned once more, I shall move you closer to Him.”


My Hit List:

Sir Philip Sydney
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Edward Dyer
Michael Drayton
Oliver Goldsmith
Thomas Campbell
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Edward Lear
Emily Brontë
A.E. Housman
Rudyard Kipling?
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Ogden Nash


My Shit List:

John Milton
William Blake
Walt Whitman
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Wallace Stevens

[S.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been working through this anthology for a few months now, and finally reached the end. Overall, I think it provides an excellent taste of poems of the English language and their history. Many classics are contained herein, and yet, it’s concise enough not to be overwhelming. I was frustrated with some omissions. There are SEVERAL John Donne poems, and yet my favorite “To His Mistress Going to Bed,” was not included. I was similarly frustrated with the selections of Walt Whitman’s poems, as well as a few others. Matters of taste aside, I think this is an excellent resource for English teachers and students alike.

[Logan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate this book. I had to get it for a required poetry class and it’s literally all just lame boring depressing poems by old sad people with sad boring lives. I hate it. The poems are dumb. Write about something interesting please. Also reciting these poems sucks because the poems themselves suck.

[Jonathan Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself obsessing over a few poems. I don’t think I’ll ever “finish” this.

“But when the days of golden dream had perished and even despair was powerless to destroy, then did I learn how existence could be cherished, strengthened and fed, without the aid of joy; then did I check the tears of useless passion, weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;”

[Tony Laplume · Rating 4 out of 5]

It might more accurate have been titled Immortal Poets. Anyway, obviously the bulk of this is acknowledged classic material one way or another, so it was good to revisit (and sometimes merely visit, or so it seemed to this reader, possibly under the auspices of an estrangement since college days) such a broad survey of literary achievement, in a realm I’ve too often neglected.

[Sarah Bakeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very hit or miss. I'd have to look back at my underlining/notations to see which poets I was really eating up. It was a good introduction to poets. I have a jumping off point for who I want to read in the future. A little outdated for those wanting to get into more contemporary poetry. For me, the next thing on the agenda is getting contemporary with it.

[Daniel Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't think all of them are immortal. Some of these will definitely die, at least I hope so.
This was a great collection, but it fell short of its claim. I've found better collections of poems in the English language.

[Elizabeth Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I give it a 5 star, although there are some poems I care for much. It is chock full of a lot of really great and famous poems. It's not the kind of book you sit down and read cover to cover. Read what you want when you your in to mood, because "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."

[Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have not had this book for long and it is already well-worn, marked, and tabbed. There are so many beautiful passages here that I think over in my head every day. I have not read every sing poem in here yet, but I assure you, this anthology is already well worth the read.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is just this richness and brilliant way that Williams put together all of these poems, which range from dedication, romance, thoroughness, reflection, and elemental. A great collection. Highly recommend to those who like to read anthologies of poetry.

[Alex Strang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love poetry and classics so this was kind of a no-brainer to give it 5 stars but even if you want to learn more about classic poetry or just know some of them its a really nice book to just have to maybe glance at a poem from time to time

[Danny Vaden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good.

[Alberto Loyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that got me in to poetry. Without it, I'd never have been in to books, lyrics, or any forms of written art.

[kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some poets I wasn’t a fan of, but over all I enjoyed all the classic poets!