THE HARVILL BOOK OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY POETRY IN ENGLISH 

Michael Schmidt - literary critic, anthologist, poet, translator, novelist, publisher

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The Harvill Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry in English
Edited by Michael Schmidt

The Harvill Press, 1999; Penguin, 2020

This mighty antho­logy (over 700 pages) includes the work of over a hundred poets from the English-speaking world. It begins with Thomas Hardy and ends with Simon Armitage and Sophie Hannah; the female addi­tions to a pre­dom­in­antly male canon are espe­cially welcome. What links these diverse voices is a common lan­guage: each poem, in its own way, adds to the resources of the poetic art and makes it new.

‘A valu­able and brave book […] reli­ably thoughtful and prop­erly con­tro­ver­sial. Furthermore, its devo­tion is always to poetry not to personality.’
– Andrew Motion

‘Schmidt is no des­piser of popular taste for all his declared mod­ernism, his agenda is elastic and inclusive […] I can imagine teaching out of this rich, warm, ima­gin­ative col­lec­tion for years without getting bored, limited or enraged with its editor.’
–Times Educational Supplement 

‘A sat­is­fying selec­tion that reminds us that Lawrence didn’t just write about animals, Betjeman wasn’t always jolly, and Plath is more inter­esting for her col­lapsed per­spect­ives than her self-exposure.’
– New Statesman