Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website

By Diane Boller

Book Overview

The founding editors of poems.com, the Poetry Daily website, have compiled 366 days worth of poetry (including Leap Day) from 366 contemporary poets, with a poem fit for every day of the year. Humorous, edgy, comforting or thought-provoking, this book of poems celebrates the diversity of today's thriving poetry culture.

Poetry Daily includes poems from:

--Robert Pinsky

--Rita Dove

--Billy Collins

--Anne Waldman

--Dana Gioia

--Kay Ryan

--Jane Hirschfield

--Albert Goldbarth

This thoughtful, lively book collection presents a poem-a-day that you can enjoy any time, anywhere, from January through December--the perfect way to enjoy the pleasures of poetry in delicious bite-sized morsels.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1402201516
• ISBN13: 9781402201516
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Poetry Daily: Superlatives outweigh quibbles

Poetry Daily's anthology offers 366 poems from the Net site by the same name. Edited by Diane Boller, Don Selby and Chryss Yost, the book does a solid job of assembling a variety of voices and styles. Most poetry fans will find something of interest, and there are poems that hang with you long after you've read them. Scanning the credits, a number of familiar presses are represented, from established publishers such as Copper Canyon, Zoo Press, Sarabande Books and Alice James Books. University presses are represented abundantly. But poems come from less familiar quarters too, although those are fewer. Some of my favorite poets are included; among them, Kim Addonizio, Bob Hicok, Rhina P. Espaillat, Tony Hoagland, Marie Howe and Marilyn Hacker. I've interviewed a few of my favorites for magazine articles, and I'm always glad to see their work put before a wide audience. Some of the poets I've communicated with in cyberspace, such as Patricia Fargnoli, whose work I was delighted to see included because her poetry always resonates with me. Other poets I met by way of their words in this book. It's the sort of volume meant for thumbing through, the perfect companion to a peaceful moment when a reader can just curl up and enjoy a sort of poetic oasis in our hurry-up-and-go society. The selections are grouped by month and day, so that theoretically, a poem can be read like a devotional. I didn't care for that setup; it seems contrived, but that's a personal quibble that has to do with format rather than poetry. Poetry Daily the Net site aims to offer up a poem each day, but with a book, few people will grab the book, read one poem and be on their merry way. That's just not the involvement I see with a book of poems. I began my reading with Fargnoli's poem because I spotted her name in the author list. "Lightning Spreads Out across the Water" makes use of very specific language choices in terms of alliterative words to tell a story and set a mood. A storm strikes suddenly. "It was already too late," the speaker notes, "when the swimmers began/to wade through the heavy/ water toward shore..." and we move through the water and the poem within a tale of tragedy. The poem progresses, ending with the pond that the speaker notes "smooths to a stillness/that gives back,/as though nothing could move it,/the vacant imponderable sky." What haunts the reader are simply constructed lines that describe the victims-- "the boy with the water-wings" and "...the woman/ in the purple tank suit." Equally moving is Ted Kooser's "A Dog's Grave." The reader senses the struggle with the elements of nature and of the spirit as the speaker digs a grave in frozen ground. Finally, the job is finished-- "and then I unfolded the clay,/the warm yellow brown/of an old army blanket,/and dry as a place by the stove." Dog lovers will definitely be moved; the language is spare and the emotion held back so that the reader can experience the act of making a grave "next to a bent little tre

A Poem a Day

Before you can understand this book, you must understand the online site, Poetry Daily, from which these poems have been harvested. Poetry Daily publishes (or, rather, re-publishes) a new poem everyday, but the poems have all been previously published in a literary journal or book of poetry. Thus, at Poetry Daily, you may read a poem by William Matthews or A.E. Stallings, Rachel Hadas, Marilyn Hacker or Dana Gioia. And these poems may have been previously published almost anywhere, for the editors' taste is nothing if not eclectic. I have been reading Poetry Daily, almost daily, for almost all of the six years of its existence, and I can tell you that the poems published there do not reflect a particular agenda or school of poetry. Poetry Daily has published free verse, mostly, because that is what is mostly published in the journals, but you will also find there sonnets, villanelles, ballads, blues stanzas, translations, light verse, prose poems, you name it. What all the poems have in common is a kind of inner quality I can call only "brightness." The editors seem drawn to poems that are intelligent, that evoke honest emotion, that display an energetic diction, that have a distinctive voice, and that make use of images that are bright and clear. And, as these things are true of the poems published on the web site, they are even more true of the poems published in this book because this book represents a careful culling of the poems published on the web site. So, what you have, really, is a kind of best of the best of American poetry over the last six years. The book is a treat, and a good answer to the question--where is American poetry at right now?The concept behind the book is that you read one poem a day for each of the 366 days of 2004. (Yep, it's a leap year.) So, you might want to keep this book on your nightstand and read one poem every night before you go to bed. If at the end of the year, you have read all 366 poems, you will have genuinely accomplished something rare because there are few people in the country who read even one contemporary poem a year, much less 366. And that's a shame because so much really good, if not great, poetry is being published, everyday. Oh, there is the usual amount of druck in the journals, to be sure. But every age has had its literary impostors who somehow, by force of personality or connections, make a name for themselves as poets even though they lack talent. And there have always been editors who lack taste. (Think of Emily Dickinson being rejected.) You won't find such poets here among Poetry Daily's 366 choice selections because these editors don't have tin ears.What you will find are poems like "Those Graves in Rome" by Larry Levis (for November 17). It is a long poem, so I will quote only a few lines:There are places where the eye can starve,But not here. Here, for example isThe Piazza Navona, & here is his narrow roomOverlooking the Steps & the crowds of sunbathingTouri

366 poems from 366 contemporary poets

Collaboratively compiled, arranged and edited by Diane Boller, Don Selby and Chryss Yost, Poetry Daily offers 366 poems from 366 contemporary poets, including Dana Gioia, Jane Hirschfield, Albert Goldbarth and many more. Offering a different poem for every day of the year (even a leap year!), Poetry Daily is a vigorous, challenging, and delightful 470-page compilation recommended for poetry lovers everywhere. The Dancer: Say you came once as a dragonfly,/a one-inch serpent-twig, the suspended "I,"//its double pair of barely air-dried wings/sewing one moment to the next. Quietness//makes it clear: it's not an exact equation,/the weight of clouds and the dusty mirror//of the pond. The nymphs are always hatching./Something is always disturbing the surface,//changing the leeway: future perfect, past/imperfect, this green ocean of air in between. -- Margaret Holley

Poetry Daily

An excellent collection; generously eclectic, profound and fulfilling. If you are familiar with the website then this book is your reward. Finally, a collection of the poems you have been reading throughout the past year(s), burning up your printer to make copies of and clipping together in files. If you are not familiar with the website this book will make you want to sign on. Poetry Daily provides that moment, when you sigh inwardly and say, "A-ha, yes". Don't forget to read the Introduction, you will be intrigued by the fact that the Poetry Daily founders are not English lit majors or academics, but just regular folks who love poetry. This is what makes the collection so marvelously accessible.

Buy this book

An excellent book. If you can restrict yourself to reading only one poem a day from this book, you're either very disciplined, very busy, or you hate poetry. First class all the way, just what you'd expect if you followed their web site.