This rich and vital anthology of fifty-nine poets and more than 350 poems offers readers intricate conversations between poets and poems, between the living and the dead, between the present and the future. It is a book that will enrich the reader's experience and understanding of modern poetry. Edna Longley shows us the key poets of the century-from England, Scotland, Wales, and the north and south of Ireland-and through inter-linking commentary and biographical sketches points out the connections between them as well as their relationship with the continuing poetic traditions of the British Isles. Readers will find this book exciting and risk-taking not because the author's selections are surprising but because of the intensity and critical rigor of her focus, and because the poems themselves are so good. This is an ideal sampler of this great century's finest British and Irish poetry and poets. ""Enlightening and entertaining.""-Kirkus