From Library Journal
The highly selective magazine Antaeus has long tended to favor poetry of a brooding, moralistic nature, and consequently there is little humor or contagious joy or even pathos in this collectionthat is to say, while there is a lot of quality, there is not very much variety. In the midst of so much sameness, however, the truly distinguished poets are all the more visible: C. P. Cavafy, Gloria Fuertes, Carolyn Kizer, Philip Levine, Gregory Orr, Mark Strand, C. K. Williams. The book is worth having primarily for these writers and for a literary oddity, a "Great American Poem" of 102 lines, each by a different poet, that took six years to compose. David Kirby, English Dept., Florida State Univ., TallahasseeCopyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From the powerful poems of Nobel prizewinner Czeslaw Milosz to the articulate voice of award-winning American poet Robert Hass, this magnificent collection provides a unique cross section of great modern poetry. All originally published in ANTAEUS, one of the most important literary journals of the past two decades, these works ring out with the familiar voices of long-recognized poets such as William Carlos Williams...poignant lines from today's most notable women writers such as Louise Gluck and Adrienne Rich...and verse from outstanding international poets--Poland's Zbigniew Herbert, Greece's prolific Yannis Ritsos, England's famous John Fowles. The wide spectrum of poems selected from ANTAEUS creates a rare, comprehensive portrait of poetry in the twentieth century...and a volume destined to become a classic.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal