Poems that make grown women cry – ed. Anthony Holden and Ben Holden. Pub 2016
An interesting anthology – poems selected by a diverse group of women (mostly actors and celebrities) with an intro by each about the significance of the poem to them. Even without the intros, this would be a good, if eclectic, selection of poems. Poems can make you cry for many reasons – beauty, joy, sorrow, poignancy, timely significance – and so the collection is a bit uneven, with the emotions behind the selections ranging from personal significance to political statement to plain-and-simple art. Nearly a third were poems I’d read before, and of the ones that were new to me, none really stood out as gems (although I will likely seek out more Rumi, Bishop and Owen based on what I read here).
Interestingly, within the 100 choices by 100 women were 5 that were the same in the companion book (Poems that make grown men cry – ed. Anthony Holden and Ben Holden. Pub 2014). Also the women chose 19 poems by women poets, while the men chose 11 (Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop have multiple entries in both collections).
While I found these collections interesting, I preferred the poems themselves to the intros by the celebs.
4. A book published in 2016
7. A book with a male author (well, editor anyway)
8. A book of poetry.
rclr 
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