Inspired by a remark of Seamus Heaney, Lifesaving Poems began life as notebook, then a blog. How many poems, Heaney wondered, was it possible to recall responding to, over a lifetime? Was it ten, he asked, twenty, fifty, a hundred, or more? Lifesaving Poems is a way of trying to answer that question. Giving himself the constraint of choosing no more than one poem per poet, Anthony began copying poems out, one at a time, as it were for safekeeping. He asked himself: was the poem one he could recall being moved by the moment he first read it? And: could he live without it? Then he posted each poem on his blog and said why he liked it. Word spread and soon his blog had thousands of followers, everyone reading and responding to the poems he talked about - and sharing his posts. Now Lifesaving Poems has turned into an anthology, not one designed to be a perfect list of 'the great and the good', but a gathering of poems he happens to feel passionate about, according to his tastes. As Billy Collins says: 'Good poems are poems that I like'. Anthony's popular personal commentaries are included with the poems. There are Lifesaving Poems by John Ashbery, Elizabeth Bishop, Raymond Carver, Carol Ann Duffy, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Marie Howe, Jaan Kaplinski, Brendan Kennelly, Jane Kenyon, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Norman MacCaig, Ian McMillan, Derek Mahon, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Jo Shapcott, Tomas Tranströmer, Wislawa Szymborska, and many, many others.
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[The sniff of the real, that's / what I'd want to get / how it felt / to sit on Parliament / Hill on a May evening / studying for exams AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY THOM GUNN]***
(@BloodaxeBooks, 24 June 2015, e-book, 256 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveLibs, edited by Anthony Wilson)
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My favourite poetry anthologies are Being Alive and it's successors from the same publisher. This reminded me a lot of those books. The subject matter explored here is a bit lighter than those anthologies though, the poems are for the most part, hopeful and inspiring. I must admit to not reading the editor's notes that followed each poem describing their reasons for choosing it and how they came across the poem. Sorry. This didn't interest me. I just wanted to read the poems. There is a wide selection of poets and styles on offer here, some familiar to me such as Derek Mahon, Carol Ann Duffy, Sharon Olds and Mary Oliver. There are also poets I've heard of but never read and also brand new poets. I enjoyed this anthology very much.
