Mark Ford is Professor of English and American Literature at University College London.
The huge anthology [Ford] has edited is a considerable and welcome
achievement. Any literate cloakroom should have a copy, but so
should anyone interested in London or, indeed, life. -- Lachlan
MacKinnon * Times Literary Supplement *
[A] superb anthology... Ford's collection shows the development of
particular city-sensibilities: the hedonistic, jaded, nostalgic,
urbane. Oppositions are played out as much between the classic
dichotomies of country and town as by London's own inbuilt
contradictions (wealth and poverty, pleasure and pain, fear and
wonder)... By so assiduously unpacking the metropolis, Ford's
anthology also stumps for poetry itself: as it leaps from
historical events to the private dramas playing out in postal
districts all over the 'great mean city,' the art asserts its
primacy as a portal to the full range of the human. -- Nick Laird *
New York Review of Books *
No other city so inspires and infuriates poets like London...
Spanning seven centuries, this fascinating new collection features
Wordsworth and Pope alongside lesser-known and even anonymous
poets, all of them moved by the city's labyrinthine streets and
smells, sounds and textures. The volume includes an outbreak of
plague, the Great Fire, the deposition of Charles I, the crowning
of Charles II, two world wars and the introduction of the London
Underground, all of it conveyed through the prism of poetry. It
makes for a thrilling read... A wonderfully eclectic collection,
which sees ballads and poems from popular pamphlets jostling
alongside more meditative, contemplative works. There are many
unknown gems, such as a rare poem by George Eliot ('In a London
Drawingroom') and work from the under-appreciated Stevie Smith...
Poems by Thom Gunn and W.S. Graham, and the contemporary work of
Seamus Heaney and Lavinia Greenlaw, prove that London is still a
rich source of material. Both a history of London and a clever
guide to some overlooked works, this volume is as unexpected and as
dazzling as the metropolis itself. * The Economist *
Here is a rich, poetic evocation of [London] by one who is himself
a learned poet; and dull would he be of soul who did not find
something to enjoy in its voluminous bulk. -- A. N. Wilson *
Evening Standard *
[A] seething, clamorous megalopolis of a London anthology... I have
never come across a London anthology (or any warehouse of urban
poetry) as rich, as bold, as multifarious as this... Olympic
visitors should lug this brick back home for a pungent souvenir of
the original 'maximum city' in all its grot and grandeur. -- Boyd
Tonkin * The Independent *
The book is as full of mayhem and color as the city itself...
Ford's book packs in as much lore, as much fact and legend, as much
gala occasion, as much glitter and cloud, gossip and prayer, sound
and sight and smell as it's possible to imagine... Ford offers a
wonderful sampler of British poets-as well as some of the many
American ones who have washed up here, and written what they found.
The titles of poems tantalize with place-names, stacking up like
gold medals... Everyone's a winner, and London's finest moments are
all here, for anyone who wants to look. -- Katy Evans-Bush * Los
Angeles Review of Books *
[Ford's] anthology, ranging from the mid-fourteenth-century poems
of John Gower and William Langland to a poem of Ahren Warner (b.
1986), and across all genres (love poems, satires, anonymous
ballads, street cries, limericks, personal memoirs) and all styles
(free verse to sonnets and villanelles-Wendy Cope has a beauty),
displays an openness of mind and a keen eye. -- Geoffrey Lehmann *
Australian Book Review *
[A] superb book dedicated to Londons both past and present...
London: A History in Verse, edited by Mark Ford, will engage
not only poetry lovers but anyone interested in a nearly
seven-century poetic record of how London's citizens and visitors
have interpretively framed this city... This ample and handsomely
produced book won't leave any readers feeling cheated. Ford takes
care to reflect a contemporary London that is a global city and a
postcolonial capital as well. Instead of a monotone 'London
English,' different demotic voices reflect today's cosmopolis. --
Brett Foster * Books & Culture *
[A] gold [medal] goes to London: A History in Verse, edited
by Mark Ford. This beautifully produced, doorstop of an anthology
runs from the 14th century to the present day. -- Michael
Murray-Fennell * Country Life *
[A] wonderful and ceaselessly evocative anthology of London verse.
All the way from 14th-century William Langland and Chaucer to the
present, we hear echoes, and see reflections... This vast volume is
a guide to the city's authentically enduring soul. -- Sinclair
McKay * Daily Telegraph *
Traces an enchanting journey round the canonical to the quirky,
from love lyrics, the cries of old London, ballads and limericks to
satirical verses and epics. -- Juliet Gardiner * History Today
*
If I were going to recommend one perfect present for a poetry
lover, it would be London: A History in Verse. -- Suzi Feay
* Independent on Sunday *
This elegant selection of poets begins in the 14th century and ends
in the present day. -- Nick Owchar * Los Angeles Times *
Lavish and intensely enjoyable... Ford has searched the highways
and back-alleys of the poetry world and brought together an
anthology so great in scope and inviting in scale that it
thunderously surpasses anything similar ever attempted... This is a
volume to keep, to savor, and to re-savor. -- Steve Donoghue * Open
Letters Monthly *
What's on offer is an exercise is historical-cultural geography.
The experience of reading it is much like that of stepping out of
King's Cross station and strolling the city's streets. Walk long
enough, read deeply enough, and you'll be immersed in impressions
of beauty, grime, humor, violence-often simultaneously. If this
book succeeds as a celebration, it is only insofar as it admits
everything, like the city itself. -- Tobias Peterson * PopMatters
*
A magnificent collection revealing [London] in all its splendor and
squalor. -- Mark Sanderson * Sunday Telegraph *
This anthology is as much about how history is made by words, and
how we remember, as it is about the poetry. If it is a history it
is unapologetically composed of shards and fragments. But it is
possible to glimpse something like a spirit of place; the splendid
flashing temperament of a wild animal. For those unwilling to
detach history from narrative, this great sprawling collection
offers multifarious delights on their own terms. -- Felicity
Plunkett * Weekend Australian *
This delightfully thick book offers poems from the late 14th
century to the early 21st that are connected in one fashion or
another with London. Offerings range from nursery rhymes through
watermen's songs and pedlars' chants, with stops at less-familiar
subgenres, such as 'Thames frozen over' poems... Sure to afford
instruction and delight to readers who love London, to readers
curious about the city, and (for that matter) to readers who loathe
the place. -- E. D. Hill * Choice *
A rich anthology of poems and selections from poems that describe,
evoke, and trace the history of London, beginning with the
14th-century Middle English poets Gower, Langland, and Chaucer, and
continuing on to current ones such as Tom Chivers and Ahren
Warners. In addition to the usual suspects such as Swift, Blake,
and Eliot, there is a wide and deep diversity of poets, crossing
national, class, and ethnic boundaries in order to express the full
response to London. Following a chronological arrangement, Ford
includes work commemorating the city's various defining historical
events from insurrections to the Great Plague and Fire, the
Industrial Revolution, the Blitz, the Swinging Sixties, and
terrorist bombings... A fine anthology aimed not just at poetry
specialists but for the general reader who loves both London and
verse anthologies. -- T. L. Cooksey * Library Journal *
This marvelous anthology ranging over six centuries about one of
the great cities of the world is not only a delight to read, but
also a revelation: Who would have suspected that there were so many
memorable poems written about London by poets one tends to identify
with other interests? Starting with Mark Ford's informative and
thoroughly enjoyable introduction, we go from surprise to surprise
turning the pages of this book, very much like someone taking in
the sights of a city he was not familiar with, or has long known,
and is now discovering to his astonishment, as if for the first
time. -- Charles Simic
A volume that holds a poetic mirror up to London-and how does she
look? Sublime and squalid, high-born and street-smart, worthy of a
sonnet and fit only for doggerel. This irresistible collection
captures 600 years of the city's vibrant many-voiced chorus. A gem.
-- Zadie Smith
This vivid, vibrant and vital anthology takes us into the heart and
history of Eliot's 'unreal city', poem by poem. Mark Ford has
gathered together poems born of London, in conversation with
London, in combat with London, in awe of London, most of which were
first published in London, centre of print and power. Covering six
and a half centuries of wandering, whoring, watching, drinking,
dancing, praying, building, courting, and cursing, here can be
found Wordsworth's 'endless stream of men and moving things', even
when, as Fleur Adcock puts it, 'the traffic's as abominable as
ever'. Packed as the Underground, this is as essential a guide to
London as the A-Z. -- Frances Wilson
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