Hundreds of poems, introduced and interpreted by Carol Rumens

June 9, 2015 12:24 PM

Poem of the Week is a series in The Guardian's books section, originally started by Sarah Crown but quickly taken over by poet, playwright and professor Carol Rumens. Every week she selects, introduces and interprets one poem. The archive has about four hundred poems, with only a few repeat poets, so here are a few favorites, ranging from English-language classics (John Donne, John Keats, Emily Dickinson), contemporary poets (Shazea Quraishi, Kei Miller, Katha Pollit) translated classics (Wang Wei, Horace, Rainer Maria Rilke), translated contemporary writers (Tua Forsström, Zeng Di, Aurélia Lassaque) the unfairly neglected (Adelaide Crapsey, Rosemary Tonks, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu), avant-garde (Gertrude Stein, Hugo Ball, John Ashbery) and anonymous (The Lyke-Wake Dirge, The Bridal Morn, This Endris Night). There are hundreds more on all kinds of subjects by all kinds of poets.
posted by Kattullus (6 comments total)

Great post! There are some real treasures in here, I'm looking forward to working through them all.
posted by billiebee at 1:09 PM on June 9, 2015

Thanks for posting! This is a wonderful resource. I didn't see a way to subscribe - the daily Writers Almanac sends emails, but not of this caliber.
posted by mmiddle at 5:45 PM on June 9, 2015

Thank you so much. I've recently looked into several 'poem of the day/week' sites because I wanted to be exposed to more poetry. I hadn't found one that really matched what I wanted though. In some cases, it's hard to tell how they are vetting the selections, and in other cases the poem is just thrown out there with no context. This seems to be everything I wanted.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:35 AM on June 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this, it's a great resource. I went immediately to see what she has to say about The Lyke Wake Dirge.

Happy to say the version sung by The Young Tradition is back on YouTube after a few years of being disallowed. Hair-shivering in a good way, reinforces everything Carol Rumen says about it.
posted by glasseyes at 6:54 AM on June 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting. I love poetry so much and had used up all my resources. I'm not so interested in the commentary, I just collect poems that mean something to me. I will go through every single one of these soon. I just need more time...
posted by guy72277 at 12:42 AM on June 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I am suddenly convinced that Tender Buttons is a markov chain based on itself.
posted by lore at 1:07 PM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]