World's Best Poetry, Volume 9: Tragedy and Humor (Part 2)

Here is joy in liquid language: a century's finest comic and light verse, gathered from the margins and centers of English poetry. Bliss Carman, Canada's poet laureate, assembled this collection as part of his ambitious attempt to map the full territory of poetic feeling, not just the elevated and tragic, but the wry, the impudent, the gently absurd. This volume overflows with verbal invention: puns that detonate under their own weight, dialect verses that capture the music of working voices, parodies that affectionately skewer literary giants, and pure nonsense that refuses to mean anything at all. Here are poems about love's humiliations, the dignity of labor, the strange theology of everyday meals, and the creatures who share our homes. For readers who believe poetry must be solemn, this collection is a delightful correction. It will make you laugh out loud on the train, reread lines to catch the cleverness, and marvel at how much joy a well-turned verse can hold.