The Anthologist Nicholson Baker

The Anthologist is narrated by Paul Chowder - a once-in-a-while-published kind of poet who is writing the introduction to a new anthology of poetry. He's having a hard time getting started because his career is floundering, his girlfriend Roz has recently left him, and he keeps thinking about the great poets throughout history who have suffered far worse than he has. He'd like to unveil the mysteries of metre and rhyme, but he's not sure he's the right man for the job. What unfolds is a wholly entertaining and beguiling love story about people and poetry: from Tennyson, Swinburne, and Yeats to the moderns (Roethke, Bogan, Merwin) to families, neighbours and the strangers in our lives, what Paul reveals is astonishing and makes one realize how incredibly important poetry can be to all of our lives. The result is a tenderly romantic, dryly comic, and inspired novel.