Scanning the century

The 20th century has been one of great turbulence, profound shifts in sensibility, and enormous changes in lifestyle. As this anthology brilliantly demonstrates, the poetry of the last hundred years has been both a mirror and a gloss to the age. Drawing on poetry written in English and in translation, Peter Forbes' aim has been to capture this century's flavor "with something like the tang of newsreel and the zest of popular song." There are 39 sections, which run the gamut of from Omens (Brodsky, Hardy, Kipling) to The Jazz Age (Mayakovsky, Eliot, Hughes), from The Holocaust (Auden, Rumens, Levi) to The Sixties (Dylan, Lennon, McCartney), from The Arts (Stevens, Prvert, Yevtushenko) to Love and Sex (Larkin, Adcock, Gunn). As ambitious, various, and energetic as its subject, Scanning the Century offers both history and poetry in one artful and illuminating volume. Peter Forbes is the editor of Poetry Review.