''Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry'' is a

poetry anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

edited by Keith Tuma, and published in 2001 by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. Tuma is an American academic, and author of the somewhat despairing ''Fishing by Obstinate Isles: Modern and Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers'' (1998), on the topic of the perceived gap between 'mainstream' British poetry and the possible American reception (particularly in

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

). The choice of poets (it, clearly enough, operating at the level of poets as much as poems) is therefore some gesture at remedying a gulf supposed to have opened when Ezra Pound left London for Paris.

Poets in ''Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry''

Fleur Adcock Fleur Adcock (born 10 February 1934) is a New Zealand poet and editor, of English and Northern Irish ancestry, who has lived much of her life in England. She is well-represented in New Zealand poetry anthologies, was awarded an honorary doc ...

Moniza Alvi Moniza Alvi (born 2 February 1954) is a Pakistani-British poet and writer. She has won several well-known prizes for her verse. Life and education Moniza Alvi was born in Lahore, Pakistan, to a Pakistani father and a British mother. Her father ...

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

* Samuel Beckett * Asa Benveniste *

Caroline Bergvall Caroline Bergvall (born 1962) is a French-Norwegian poet who has lived in England since 1989. Her work includes the adaption of Old English and Old Norse texts into audio text and sound art performances. Life and education Born in Hamburg, Germ ...

* James Berry *

Eavan Boland Eavan Aisling Boland (24 September 1944 – 27 April 2020) was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at Stanford University, where she had taught from 1996. Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role of w ...

* Jean "Binta" Breeze *

Basil Bunting Basil Cheesman Bunting (1 March 1900 – 17 April 1985) was a British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of '' Briggflatts'' in 1966, generally regarded as one of the major achievements of the modernist traditio ...

Mary Butts Mary Francis Butts, (13 December 1890 – 5 March 1937) also Mary Rodker by marriage, was an English modernist writer. Her work found recognition in literary magazines such as '' The Bookman'' and ''The Little Review'', as well as from fellow mo ...

Brian Catling Brian Catling (23 October 1948 – 26 September 2022) was a British sculptor, poet, novelist, film maker and performance artist. He was educated at North East London Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. He held the post of Professor of Fi ...

* cris cheek * Austin Clarke *

Bob Cobbing Bob Cobbing (30 July 1920 – 29 September 2002) was a British sound, visual, concrete and performance poet who was a central figure in the British Poetry Revival. Early life Cobbing was born in Enfield and grew up within the Plymouth Breth ...

Brian Coffey Brian Coffey (8 June 1905 – 14 April 1995) was an Irish poet and publisher. His work was informed by his Catholicism, his background in science and philosophy, and his connection to French surrealism. He was close to an intellectual Europea ...

* Andrew Crozier *

Nancy Cunard Nancy Clara Cunard (10 March 1896 – 17 March 1965) was a British writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class, and devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism. She became a muse to some of the ...

David Dabydeen David Dabydeen (born 9 December 1955) is a Guyanese-born broadcaster, novelist, poet and academic. He was formerly Guyana's Ambassador to UNESCO (United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organisation) from 1997 to 2010 and the youngest Memb ...

Elizabeth Daryush Elizabeth Daryush (8 December 1887 – 7 April 1977) was an English poet. Life Daryush was the daughter of Robert Bridges; her maternal grandfather was Alfred Waterhouse. She married Ali Akbar Daryush, a Persian government official whom she ...

Donald Davie Donald Alfred Davie, FBA (17 July 1922 – 18 September 1995) was an English Movement poet, and literary critic. His poems in general are philosophical and abstract, but often evoke various landscapes. Biography Davie was born in Barnsley, ...

Walter de la Mare Walter John de la Mare (; 25 April 1873 – 22 June 1956) was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for a highly acclaimed selection of ...

Denis Devlin Denis Devlin (15 April 1908 – 21 August 1959) was, along with Samuel Beckett, Thomas MacGreevy and Brian Coffey, one of the generation of Irish modernist poets to emerge at the end of the 1920s. He was also a career diplomat. Early life and ...

Keith Douglas Keith Castellain Douglas (24 January 1920 – 9 June 1944) was a poet and soldier noted for his war poetry during the Second World War and his wry memoir of the Western Desert campaign, '' Alamein to Zem Zem''. He was killed in action during ...

Carol Ann Duffy Dame Carol Ann Duffy (born 23 December 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, resigning in 2019. She was the first ...

* T. S. Eliot *

William Empson Sir William Empson (27 September 1906 – 15 April 1984) was an English literary critic and poet, widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, a practice fundamental to New Criticism. His best-known work is his first ...

Elaine Feinstein Elaine Feinstein FRSL (born Elaine Cooklin; 24 October 1930 – 23 September 2019) was an English poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, biographer and translator. She joined the Council of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007. Earl ...

Ian Hamilton Finlay Ian Hamilton Finlay, CBE (28 October 1925 – 27 March 2006) was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener. Life Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas, to James Hamilton Finlay and his wife, Annie Pettigrew, both of Scots descent. He was e ...

Allen Fisher Allen Fisher (born 1944) is a poet, painter, publisher, teacher and performer associated with the British Poetry Revival. Fisher was born in London and started writing poetry in 1962. In the late 1960s, he was involved with Fluxshoe, the United ...

Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals '' The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review'' were instrumental in ...

* Veronica Forrest-Thomson *

David Gascoyne David Gascoyne (10 October 1916 – 25 November 2001) was an English poet associated with the Surrealist movement, in particular the British Surrealist Group. Additionally he translated work by French surrealist poets. Early life and surrealis ...

* W. S. Graham * Robert Graves * Bill Griffiths *

Thom Gunn Thomson William "Thom" Gunn (29 August 1929 – 25 April 2004) was an English poet who was praised for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement, and his later poetry in America, even after moving towards a looser, ...

Ivor Gurney Ivor Bertie Gurney (28 August 1890 – 26 December 1937) was an English poet and composer, particularly of songs. He was born and raised in Gloucester. He suffered from bipolar disorder through much of his life and spent his last 15 years in ps ...

* Alan Halsey * Thomas Hardy *

Tony Harrison Tony Harrison (born 30 April 1937) is an English poet, translator and playwright. He was born in Beeston, Leeds and he received his education in Classics from Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University. He is one of Britain's foremost verse w ...

Lee Harwood Lee Harwood (6 June 1939 – 26 July 2015) was a poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. Life Travers Rafe Lee Harwood was born in Leicester to maths teacher Wilfred Travers Lee-Harwood and Grace Ladkin Harwood, who were then living ...

* Randolph Healy *

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

W. N. Herbert W. N. Herbert , also known as Bill Herbert (born 1961) is a poet from Dundee, Scotland. He writes in both English and Scots. He and Richard Price founded the poetry magazine '' Gairfish''. He currently teaches at Newcastle University. Early ...

* F. R. Higgins *

Geoffrey Hill Sir Geoffrey William Hill, FRSL (18 June 1932 – 30 June 2016) was an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston University. Hill has been considered to be ...

* Gerard Manley Hopkins *

Ted Hughes Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...

T. E. Hulme Thomas Ernest Hulme (; 16 September 1883 – 28 September 1917) was an English critic and poet who, through his writings on art, literature and politics, had a notable influence upon modernism. He was an aesthetic philosopher and the 'father ...

* John James * Elizabeth Jennings *

Linton Kwesi Johnson Linton Kwesi Johnson (born 24 August 1952), also known as LKJ, is a Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet and activist. In 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black one, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. His p ...

* David Jones *

Trevor Joyce Trevor Joyce (born 26 October 1947) is an Irish poet, born in Dublin. He co-founded New Writers' Press (NWP) in Dublin in 1967 and was a founding editor of NWP's ''The Lace Curtain; A Magazine of Poetry and Criticism'' in 1968. Joyce was the ...

Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh (21 October 1904 – 30 November 1967) was an Irish poet and novelist. His best-known works include the novel ''Tarry Flynn'', and the poems "On Raglan Road" and "The Great Hunger". He is known for his accounts of Irish life th ...

* Jackie Kay *

Thomas Kinsella Thomas Kinsella (4 May 192822 December 2021) was an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher. Born outside Dublin, Kinsella attended University College Dublin before entering the civil service. He began publishing poetry in the early 1950s ...

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

* Frank Kuppner *

R. F. Langley Roger Francis Langley (commonly known as R. F. Langley; 23 October 1938 – 25 January 2011) was an English poet and diarist. During his life, he was loosely affiliated with the Cambridge poetry scene. Life and work Langley was born in Rugb ...

Philip Larkin Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, ''The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, ''Jill'' (1946) and ''A Girl in Winter'' (1947 ...

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

* Tom Leonard *

Liz Lochhead Liz Lochhead Hon FRSE (born 26 December 1947) is a Scottish poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster. Between 2011 and 2016 she was the Makar, or National Poet of Scotland, and served as Poet Laureate for Glasgow between 2005 and 2011. E ...

* Tony Lopez *

Mina Loy Mina Loy (born Mina Gertrude Löwy; 27 December 1882 – 25 September 1966) was a British-born artist, writer, poet, playwright, novelist, painter, designer of lamps, and bohemian. She was one of the last of the first-generation modernists to ...

Norman MacCaig Norman Alexander MacCaig DLitt (14 November 1910 – 23 January 1996) was a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity. Life Norman Alexander MacCaig was born ...

Hugh MacDiarmid Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid (), was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish Rena ...

* Helen Macdonald * Somhairle MacGill-Eain * Thomas MacGreevy * Sorley Maclean * Joseph Gordon Macleod * Louis MacNeice *

Barry MacSweeney Barry MacSweeney (17 July 1948 – 9 May 2000) was an English poet and journalist. His organizing work contributed to the British Poetry Revival. Life and work 1960s Barry MacSweeney was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. He left school aged 16, and b ...

Charles Madge Charles Henry Madge (10 October 1912 – 17 January 1996) was an English poet, journalist and sociologist, now most remembered as a founder of Mass-Observation. Philip Bounds, ''Orwell and Marxism: the political and cultural thinking of George ...

Derek Mahon Derek Mahon (23 November 1941 – 1 October 2020) was an Irish poet. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland but lived in a number of cities around the world. At his death it was noted that his, "influence in the Irish poetry community, lit ...

E. A. Markham Edward Archibald "Archie" Markham FRSL (1 October 1939 – 23 March 2008) was a Montserratian poet, playwright, novelist and academic. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1956, where he remained for most of his life, writing as well as teaching at ...

Medbh McGuckian Medbh McGuckian (born as Maeve McCaughan on 12 August 1950) is a poet from Northern Ireland. Biography She was born the third of six children as Maeve McCaughan to Hugh and Margaret McCaughan in North Belfast. Her father was a school headmaster ...

Charlotte Mew Charlotte Mary Mew (15 November 1869 – 24 March 1928) was an English poet whose work spans the eras of Victorian poetry and Modernism. Early life and education Mew was born in Bloomsbury, London, daughter of the architect Frederick Mew (1 ...

* Christopher Middleton * Drew Milne * Geraldine Monk *

Harold Monro Harold Edward Monro (14 March 1879 – 16 March 1932) was an English poet born in Brussels, Belgium. As the proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London, he helped many poets to bring their work before the public. Life and career Monro was born ...

* John Montague *

Nicholas Moore Nicholas Moore (16 November 1918 – 26 January 1986) was an English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, whose reputation stood as high as Dylan Thomas’s. He later dropped out of the literary world. Biography Moore wa ...

Edwin Muir Edwin Muir CBE (15 May 1887 – 3 January 1959) was a Scottish poet, novelist and translator. Born on a farm in Deerness, a parish of Orkney, Scotland, he is remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry written in plain language and w ...

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon (born 20 June 1951) is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he is currently both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University P ...

Grace Nichols Grace Nichols FRSL (born 1950) is a Guyanese poet who moved to Britain in 1977, before which she worked as a teacher and journalist in Guyana. Her first collection, ''I is a Long-Memoried Woman'' (1983), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. In D ...

* Maggie O'Sullivan *

Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced b ...

Clere Parsons Clere Parsons (1908 - 1931) was an English poet, born in India. He was educated at Christ Church, University of Oxford, and edited the 1928 edition of ''Oxford Poetry''. His only collection, ''Poems'', was published after his death by Faber & Fabe ...

Tom Pickard Tom Pickard (born 1946, Newcastle upon Tyne, England) is a poet, and documentary film maker who was an important initiator of the movement known as the British Poetry Revival. Biography Pickard grew up in the working-class suburbs of Cowgate, Ne ...

* F. T. Prince *

Craig Raine Craig Anthony Raine, FRSL (born 3 December 1944) is an English contemporary poet. Along with Christopher Reid, he is a notable pioneer of Martian poetry, a movement that expresses alienation with the world, society and objects. He was a fellow o ...

Tom Raworth Thomas Moore Raworth (19 July 1938 – 8 February 2017) was an English-Irish poet, publisher, editor, and teacher who published over 40 books of poetry and prose during his life. His work has been translated and published in many countries. Rawor ...

* Peter Reading * Peter Redgrove * Carlyle Reedy * Denise Riley * John Riley (poet), John Riley * Peter Riley * Lynette Roberts * John Rodker * Isaac Rosenberg * Siegfried Sassoon * Tom Scott (poet), Tom Scott * Maurice Scully * Jo Shapcott * Robert Sheppard * Jon Silkin * C. H. Sisson * Edith Sitwell * Stevie Smith * Dylan Thomas * Edward Thomas (poet), Edward Thomas * Charles Tomlinson * Rosemary Tonks * Gael Turnbull * Catherine Walsh (poet), Catherine Walsh * Sylvia Townsend Warner * Anna Wickham * John Wilkinson (poet), John Wilkinson * W. B. Yeats * Benjamin Zephaniah (A note in the book's introduction indicates that J. H. Prynne was originally included in the anthology but had to be omitted because of the author's refusal of permission.)

Poets in ''Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry''

See also