Michael Schmidt s anthology includes the work of more than a hundred poets from every part of the English-speaking world. What links their diverse voices is a common language: each poem, in its own way, adds to the resources of the medium and makes it new.The poems in this book are allowed to slip free of their moorings in the biography and history of the last century to create new spaces and times. They have been chosen because they are exceptional, profound and unique in what they do to language, regardless of their subject matter or the orientation of the poet. It is a powerful reminder that in the twentieth century poems did what they have never done before, and it provides us with a unique insight into the forces that will shape the poetry of the twenty-first century.

"The poets which Schmidt has chosen to include in this volume are worthy to stand up and speak for the art of a century"

Rachel Campbell-Johnson, The Times

"Michael Schmidt is eminently well-suited to take the measure of the changes and vicissitudes that brought poetry to its current modern character"

Olivier Burckhardt, Independent on Sunday

"Schmidt is no despiser of the popular taste and for all his declared modernism, his agenda is elastic and inclusive?I can imagine teaching out of this rich, warm, generous collection for years, without getting bored, limited, or enraged with its editor"

Kate Clanchy, Times Educational Supplement