100 Best-Loved Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) Kindle Edition

The poetry is excellent--they're best-loved poems because of their timeless qualities; but the Kindle book is lousy if you intend to browse for the right poem according to your mood. Like so many other Kindle books, it lacks an easy way to move around, no index, and poorly "linked" to allow you to pick and choose the right poem for the right occasion. Too bad, as the format is unworthy of the poems.

I think this is an excellent collection. A year ago I first bought 3 copies in Cork City, and decided to give it to our children in the States with a penciled "X" to my favourites in the table of contents. Then I created a folder of other favourites not in the book and added some literature-related things I had written during my 35-year teaching career. I gave it to them, and this Christmas to a bunch of others. I think it's good for kids and grandkids to have a collection of favourite pieces to explore, and it leaves something behind for them after I've left this world. Others may think of doing something similar.

I am an avid reader, but rarely do I pick up a book of poetry. And while I may prefer to read a novel, having a knowledge of the English language's best poetry can enrich novel reading. After all, many a novel opens with an epigraph of poetry that provides a foreshadowing of the story to come.This particular volume of poetry, which was edited and compiled by Philip Smith, includes poems that are well-known and considered to be of high literary value. Many of the poems will be familiar to most readers just because they have become such an integral part of our culture; in fact, you may read one of these poems and suddenly realize it is the origin of something you've heard most of your life.Each poet is introduced with a brief paragraph describing his/her poetry. It's hardly a literary analysis, but is mildly helpful. Featured poets include the classicists William Shakespeare, John Donne, and John Milton, as well as more modern poets (relatively so…they were all born more than 100 years ago), such as e.e. cummings and Dylan Thomas.True story: When I read this book, I didn't rush through it. I read one or two poems a day. One day I read "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," written in 1750 by British poet Thomas Gray. Minutes later, I picked up my novel and on the second page I read that day, there was a reference to "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." I would not have fully understood or appreciated the reference to the poem had a I not just read it. It was an odd coincidence (to be honest, it gave me the shivers), but it does make me better appreciate the literary importance of stretching my reading beyond my comfort zone.This is a solid, little tome of poems that offers a wide overview of English language poetry.

The Dover “One-Hundred Best Loved Poems” has resonances far beyond the poems on the page. If you read poems in school, reading these will bring back the words like distant, barely traceable memories. Most of these poems belong to the heritage of western culture, and even if you have not read the poem, or don’t remember reading it, you can trace the fine lines where the literary culture has borrowed, stolen or hijacked (all fairly) the words and meaning(s) of these poems.Take Yeats’s poem The Second Coming which has such memorable and well used lines as “things fall apart,” the title of Chinua Achebe’s celebrated novel, “the centre cannot hold” used in a variety of titles and contexts, mostly about mental illness and “slouches toward Bethlehem” used by Joan Didion in her famous series of essays about the rise and fall of the 60s.This is only one of 99 reasons to read this collection and get back in touch with some of the central poems of our tradition, and then move on to ever widening circles of poetry and its meaning.

Great value. I bought a classroom set to use in my high school English classroom. The variety of poems worked great for our unit and gave the students more experience with different types of poetry from a wide range of poets.

As I had started to study poetry and had begun to write poetry again after a long hiatus I decided to buy this book as part of my study.The first poems are sonnets or romantic in nature, which I'm truly not, so I kind of slowly made my way through the book and then it changed in style of poetry and I found some absolute classics that are just brilliant. I found where the oft overused phrases in the English come from, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." an amazing poem about a poet's cat drowning in a fish bowl, and that despite "The Dead Poets Society" critique of Byron by John Keating (Robin Williams), Byron wrote some great poems.I think there is something for everyone in this book and I'm glad I bought it.

This is a volume that all poetry lovers will welcome. Dover Thrift Edition has put out some of the best classics in literature, and at a very modest price. This small but mighty book includes selections from some of the most well-known and best poets. The editor has chosen these poems from the middle ages to the 20th century.Some of the talented poets in this volume include Frost, Milton, Blake, Shakespeare, Longfellow, Houseman, Keats, Sandburg, Poe, Emerson, Yeats, Dickinson, Whitman, Kipling and many, many others. One of the things I personally love about this volume is the brief introduction on each of the poets. This gives the reader information that makes the poet come alive.In conclusion, if you love poetry, you will want this small volume in your library. If you are new to poetry, this book can serve as an excellent introduction to some of the greatest poets and their most loved poems.Rating: 5 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: Haiku Moments: How to read, write and enjoy Haiku)

which is only spoilt by the impossibility of navigation and the complete lack of a menu. What on earth is the use of an alphabetical listing of titles, or one of first lines, which, incredibly, don't even link to the actual poems. Dreadful idea.Fix this, however, and this would be a 5-star collection, especially because of the inclusion of Wallace Steven's "The Emperor of Ice Cream" .

I liked most of the poems but the layout was bizarre on the kindle, with huge gaps in places and other lines crammed together. There is no navigation for the kindle, so you can't click on the title in the index and go to a specific poem. I thought the introductory comments about the authors were interesting but obtrusive and would have preferred them to be at the beginning or end rather than in front of each poem.

I would love to give this 5 stars, the content deserves it. An excellent choice of wonderful poetry, well thought out. But, what lets it down massively is the spacing, the layout and the overall presentation of the content. Some are double spaced, some are single spaced, there's no break between some of the poems. I'm a publisher of poetry and it's really worth taking the time to lay it out properly as it can make or break the entire reading experience. If I could split it, content, 5 stars without a doubt, layout, 1. So sorry but it has the feel of a book that was produced in a terrible rush and seems unprofessional.

A fair choice of poems but not organised so that you can find a particular poems without tracing it through the heading. Needed an index of individual poems.

100 best poems ? Who on earth thought these were the best ? This book is dreadful