Poems Of The Decade

by Forward Arts Foundation

Agbabi, Armitage, Burnside, Duffy, Dunmore, Fanthorpe, Heaney, Motion, Nagra, O'Brien and more Poems of the Decade brings together more than one hundred poems from the many thousands submitted to the Forward Prizes for Poetry in the first decade of the 21st century.The Forwards are among the world's most coveted poetry honours. They have been awarded annually since 1992 for the Best Collection, Best First Collection and Best Single Poem published in Britain and Ireland, and the roster of winning, shortlisted and highly commended poets regularly juxtaposes familiar canonical names with fresh voices.This anthology of anthologies draws on the ten Forward Books of Poetry published to accompany the prizes between 2001 and 2010. It is the perfect introduction to a wide range of contemporary works that speak of violence, danger and fear, of love and all that opposes love, in forms of language broken and reshaped by the need to communicate what it is to be alive now, here.'These annual anthologies of the poems in the running for the Forward Prizes remain the best way of encountering the richness that new poetry has to offer.' Daily Telegraph

Genres: Poetry, School, Read For School, Classics

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2015

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Right so I have read all the poems for Alevel English about 5trillion times this morning so I consider this a valid read to be added to goodreads.

Genuinely have a love/hate relationship with this anthology

[steffie · Rating 1 out of 5]

this shit is so ass STILL PASSED THE A LEVEL 💋💋

[Olive Mason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a sudden CRAVING to read this anthology after reading it for my A-levels 7 or 8 years ago now (how tf??) - I could remember the poem “Eat Me” being so disturbing and I wanted to refresh my memory of the anthology. However, it seemed that I had got rid of my annotated copy… So I had to buy a new one to scratch the itch to read this again. I was disappointed majorly. I only liked 5 of the poems, the rest just seemed like word soup to me. Top 5 as follows:

1) Eat Me
2) Material
3) September 11th, 2001
4) Please Hold
5) The New Bride

[Ian Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anthologies are usually collections by one author or related by theme. The only thing uniting these poems is that they were all up for The Forward Prize in the same 10 years. They’re all competent and many of them are superb.

[Geeni · Rating 4 out of 5]

A perfect way to ease yourself into more modern poetry I feel. It deals with a mound of relevant topics, and it allows a person to begin to approach poetry without being shackled by the context we receive poetry in today. That is to say, read this book but do not think about the poets of old.

[Elifsu · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[ruby]

course related.

[Caety Berry · Rating 4 out of 5]

we only look at 20 of these poems for english lit but i read the others and it’s fascinating i really like them :)

[Kayla Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did it in college. It was good

[Maisie]

the amount of times i saw people with this in sixth form i thought id try it out. i get the complaints now

[Gemima · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favourite poems in this collection was:
Eat me
History
Being boring
Jury
The wrong beds
The new bride.

[elizabeth anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

i liked lammas hierling the best

[maryam :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good poems, some were either confusing or just nonsensical
My favourites included Eat Me, Don’t commit adultery and the one about Liverpool disappearing

[Lady Isabelle Jarvis · Rating 3 out of 5]

there were some very powerful men in this anthology (I still will never understand how Please Hold links to hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy????? post-modernism???????????)

[Joanne Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great poems, some confusing poems, some
poignant poems. The only problem in reading the anthology is I got the feeling that the poetic voices were all too similar- which made me wonder whether it was my way of reading them.

[Kissavee · Rating 3 out of 5]

out of the bag needs to get out of the anthology x