A Little History of Poetry

A vital, engaging, and hugely enjoyable guide to poetry, from ancient times to the present, by one of our greatest champions of literature--selected as the literature book of the year by the London Times
 
“[A] fizzing, exhilarating book.”—Sebastian Faulks, Sunday Times, London

“Delightful.’”—New York Times Book Review
 
What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work—over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. But this Little History is about some that have not.
 
John Carey tells the stories behind the world’s greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world, such as Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Yeats. He also looks at more recent poets, like Derek Walcott, Marianne Moore, and Maya Angelou, who have started to question what makes a poem “great” in the first place.
 
For readers both young and old, this little history shines a light for readers on the richness of the world’s poems—and the elusive quality that makes them all the more enticing.

“In this clever, wide-ranging history, British literary critic Carey provides a tour of Western poetry, from Homer to Maya Angelou. Each brief chapter tackles one or more poets representative of a particular era, with excerpts from their works, brief accounts of their lives, and Carey’s insightful critical commentaries. . . . Those looking for a shrewdly condensed and accessible history of poetry could not ask for a better guide.”—Publishers Weekly

“A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray. . . . Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.”—Kirkus Reviews

“An elegant history of poetry, what it is, what it does, why it matters, written in an authoritative and engaging voice. Masterly.”—Ruth Padel, author of 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem

“Warm in tone, informative, generous in its sympathies, inviting in its choices, with a clear emphasis on human stories underpinning poetic achievement.”—Emma Smith, author of This is Shakespeare

“This wonderfully positive and vivid history is a delight on every page ... Carey’s sparkling Little History of Poetry is an astonishingly full introduction to English poetry from Beowulf to the present, set in a framework extending in place and time from Gilgamesh to Akhmatova and Seferis.”—Bernard O'Donoghue, Winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award

“Here is an informative, fast-moving book … Like Carey’s previous works, it’s forceful as well as clear, and it’s populist, no-nonsense and anti-elite in its sympathies. Many people may find new favourites here.”—Stephanie Burt, Professor of English, Harvard University

“Books about poetry are rarely page turners, but Carey’s little history is gripping, is unputdownable! Reading this book and its galaxy of poets is like looking up at the sky and seeing the whole wheeling and constellated universe.”—Daljit Nagra, author of Look We Have Coming to Dover!

A Conversation with John Carey:

How did you first become interested in poetry?

 

It must have been around 1949, when I was 15. We lived in post-Blitz London. There were bombed-out buildings and piles of rubble everywhere. Food—even bread—was rationed. Then, in school one day, we read Keats's The Eve of St Agnes [a poetic romance]. I was amazed. The very idea of hiding in a girl’s bedroom and watching her undress! Then there was the food—the exotic goodies I’d never even heard of! It was as if a window had been opened on a better world.

 

Why is poetry worth reading today?

 

Poetry educates the emotions. Music does that too, of course. But because poetry uses language, it feeds the mind and educates the emotions at the same time. No other art can do that.

 

Why is it important that young people encounter poetry?

 

Because it extends their imaginative world. Poetry uses language in a special way. It doesn’t use language to tell you things, like a newspaper, say. It uses language as play—imaginative play. That is a whole new departure, and if children do not discover it they will be, to that extent, deprived. There will be a part of their minds they have not learned to use.

 

What advice would you give to aspiring poets?

 

Trust your feelings. Never feel ashamed of them. Don’t be pretentious. Ask yourself if what you have written is intelligible. If it’s not, ditch it and start again.