100 Poems To Break Your Heart

This anthology (and the accompanying analytical essays by Hirsch) covers over two-hundred years of poetry and works with a large set of translated languages as well as poems of English language origin. Therefore, the poems include an eclectic set of forms and schools of poetry. There are narrative poems and philosophical poems. There are sparse poems and elaborate poems. Besides the fact that they are all short to intermediate length poems (a few pages, at most,) the only thing the included poems have in common is some serious subject matter at each poem’s core. There are elegies and cathartic poems of illness or ended relationships, as well as tales of various types of tragedy (personal, global, and of scales in between.) That said, not all of the poems feature a dark and melancholic tone. There are several poems that are humorous -- in a gallows humor sort of way. Such poems include: Dunya Mikhail’s “The War Works Hard,” Harryette Mullen’s “We Are Not Responsible,” and Stanley Kunitz’s “Halley’s Comet.” Of course, there are many poems that are as devastatingly sad as the title leads one to expect. Of these, Eavan Boland’s “Quarantine,” the story of a man carrying his illness-ravaged wife in search of survival during a famine in Ireland in 1847 takes the award for saddest. There are poems in this book that are more brutal, encompass vaster scales of suffering, or combine lyrical skill and emotional experience more artfully. But none of those poems socked me in the chest like Boland’s. One thing that struck me during my reading was what an intense force multiplier story is in creating poignant poems. Several others among my favorites told stories that made for visceral reads. These include: “Song” by Brigit Pageen Kelly, “The Race” by Sharon Olds, “Terminus” by Nicholas Christopher (also among the most savage tear-jerkers,) and “The Gas-Poker” by Thom Gunn. Other favorites include: Langston Hughes’s “Song for a Dark Girl,” Miklós Radnóti’s “The Fifth Eclogue,” Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving but Drowning,” and “Mendocino Rose” by Garrett Hongo. I’d highly recommend this book for poetry readers.

This anthology is a charming collection of poems centred around loss, death, grief, sadness and fear. Each poem is accompanied by a detailed analysis and the context in which it was written.Edward Hirsch does a wonderful job in explaining the poems, but the analysis often overpowers the poem. It is often too unnecessarily detailed. The book goes from being a light read to an educational one, which is fine if that’s what you want although I would have preferred shorter insights.The selection of poems is quite good though.

The selection of poems cannot be faulted. I, a long-time resident of Camden, Maine, was pleased to see Edna St. Vincent Millay represented by one of her most beautiful - and saddest - sonnets: "What lips my lips have kissed..."Although I have not studied all 100 poems - and Hirsch's exegesis surely invites study - to my mind - let me emphasize to my mind - the exegeses spend too much effort and time on the mechanics, the metrics, the rhyme scheme, and so forth. In Hirsch's defense, he does indeed give background, historical context- and often his opinion of the sentiments expressed in the poems. But I tend to be of the Archibald MacLeish school that holds that "a poem should not mean, but be..."And that is why I include the qualifier "almost" in my review. I am quick to state, however, that other readers may challenge my views - and if they do, why - this is the book for them!

Edward Hirsch has written a very great book. His review of the poems helps the reader to better understand some of the background and circumstances behind each of the poems. I highly recommend this book.

And the illuminations provided by the author Hirsch are profoundly insightful, adding many dimensions to each poem. I have rarely read a book of poems straight through; or thought of it as a "page turning." This one is a read straight through page turner.

These poems and analyses are a pleasure to read even if they are heartbreaking.Want to feel companionship in your grieving, this book is for you.

Whenever Hirsch brings his considerable gifts and rich field of reference to reading poetry the result is pure magic. Also read: How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry | The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Expression | Poet's Choice | A Poet's Glossary. You won't be disappointed. JdL