Classic Poems to Read Aloud (Classic Collections Series) Book

This is one of those books that is a bit on the deceiving side when you just skim through it. I was excited by what I was seeing as poetry and thought it would make for a great complement to my other go-to poetry book since there seemed to be a more cultural variety than what I normally see such as with some talks from Native American leaders, some religious inclusions, etc. But that isn't what I actually found once I got to reading the actual book.

My first suggestion that I wouldn't like the book came through reading the introduction of the book. One of the sentences suggested that "the literary canon that acknowledges, celebrates and emphasizes only white people's experiences in print does not apply here". Why does this have to be the focal of the introduction? Most of my experiences with poetry anthologies is that even though the cultural background may be restricted, especially on really older compilations, the thought isn't about skin color experiences but on how poetry makes you feel - rich emotions, the wonders of nature, love and life in all its various forms. True poetry will convey the reader no matter how long ago it may have been written.

Anyway if we were to look into the actual diversity of this book it seems to hit borderline. For a feat the book includes poets from at least 21 different cultural locations and that only increases if you count two Native American tribes, four African groups and three major religions also having parts of their lore shared within the pages. But of the 103 poets included the majority are Welsh, Scots, Irish, Greek, Danish, British-French, British-American, English and some white Americans with the combined total of the last two groups already forming over half of the poets included. And out of the 103, only thirteen females are included in the line-up, which makes me wonder why Maya Angelou wasn't included. Furthermore the only thing that came from Asia were the religious scriptures and the Chinese proverbs, which is sad when you think about haikus.

Plus if you just look at it with some of the names you wouldn't be able to tell where these poets were from and I think if the book really wanted to be diverse then they could have included a bit of a blurb explaining why this poet was chosen, their cultural influences and where they are from. At least you would be learning more about these diverse poets.

The selections themselves with the exception of the classics, which have been heavily fallen back upon, are mediocre at best. Unlike Louis Untermeyer's 1962 treasury that held both treasured classics and newbies side-by-side that intrigued me such as the trick poem "I Saw a Peacock With A Fiery Tail", nothing really new spoke to me. As such it just felt like reading a batch of poems someone randomly set before you, especially when you read parts like all three parts of Buddhist scriptures and they are just repeating the other pieces with a slight word change.

There were two styles of illustrations going on. The most included illustrations were black-and-white line sketches. There were a few pretty ones but otherwise they weren't too remarkable as well to really help set the tone for this book. And occasionally you would find a colored inset set-in. Although they were bright and gave the book some color most of these were also mediocre with a few only truly standing out to give the book a higher push.

In the end although it was a decent book and a good introduction to some non-local poets you may not have heard of before I just can't say I would recommend it for a poetry fallback. To me I can definitely say I know better compilations are out there.