"The Wide and Varied World" by Ellen Bryant Voigt

We want what you want, only
We have to want it more. (75)

For those who want to move on from the glorious nonsense of Silverstein and Prelutsky, this is an intensely serious anthology of poems, classic and contemporary, American and global, that will hit readers with immediacy and passion. As Rosenberg says in her eloquent introduction, "People often turn to poetry in peak moments--moments of extreme joy, or sorrow, or confusion," and these poems speak powerfully to "our most intense experiences and emotions." Pablo Neruda, Anna Akhmatova, Audre Lorde, Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, John Keats, and Matthew Arnold are among the more than 40 poets, several in translation. In Rosenberg's previous anthology, The Invisible Ladder (1996), the commentary was sometimes intrusive, telling you too much before you read the poetry; this time, the notes are at the back, with biographical information and suggestions for further reading. Like Naomi Shihab Nye's This Same Sky (1992) and Ruth Gordon's Pierced by a Ray of Sun (1995), this is a world anthology that is close to home. Hazel Rochman (Booklist, December 15, 1997 (Vol. 94, No. 8))