The Faber Book of Love Poems

by Geoffrey Grigson (Editor and Introduction)

Geoffrey Grigson was arguably the century's greatest poetry anthologist -- a man whose breadth of reading was equaled only by his infallible taste.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

407 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Grigson was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead, and at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He first came to prominence in the 1930s as a poet, then as editor from 1933 of the influential poetry magazine New Verse. A teacher, journalist and broadcaster, later in life he was a noted critic, reviewer (for the New York Review of Books in particular), and compiler of many inventive and innovative anthologies. He published 13 collections of poetry, and wrote on travel, on art (notably works on Samuel Palmer, Wyndham Lewis and Henry Moore), on the English countryside, and on botany, among other subjects.
Geoffrey Grigson's first wife was Frances Galt (who died in 1937 of tuberculosis). With her, he founded New Verse. They had one daughter, Caroline (who was married to the designer Colin Banks). Grigson's second marriage was to Berta (Bertschy) Emma Kunert, who bore him two children, Anna and Lionel Grigson, the jazz musician and educator. Following their divorce, Grigson's third and last marriage was to Jane Grigson, née McIntire (1928–90), the writer on food and cookery. Their daughter is the cookery writer Sophie Grigson.
Geoffrey Grigson in his later life lived partly in Wiltshire, England, and partly in Trôo, a village in the Loir-et-Cher département in France, which features in his poetry. He died in Wiltshire in 1985.

Reviews

[Cliona Walker]

There were several poems I enjoyed but I found while reading most of them my mind would wonder to other things.

[Bethany Tyack]

I really love this collection, I constantly go back to it and reread. The format is organised into stages of love, which really helps to fill out a general theme for the collection. I particularly liked the chapter of 'Absences, Doubts and Division', but many of the other chapters contain famous sonnets and even snippets of shakespeare plays which I enjoyed. The only drawback I found was a lot of french poems with no translation 3

[Mae Batchelor]

Crazy I accidentally stumbled upon a poem call ‘To Lady May’

[Judith Rich]

I enjoy poetry anthologies. What this anthology doesn't tell you on the cover is that there are untranslated French poems in it. A LOT of untranslated French poems. I do speak French, but I've got rusty and could use a parallel text.

[Alex]

The Faber Book of Love Poems (1983)

[Bluetiful Hadeel]

5 SOLID stars! Amazing poetry. Whenever you feel the mood of love strikes, go ahead and shuffle through this book. It will totally quench your thirst.