The Oxford Book of English Verse

I first became interested in the Oxford Book of English Verse after reading the 'Rumpole' stories of John Mortimer almost twenty years ago. I had always been an admirer of various poets, particularly Blake (due to the strange congruence of his name and mine own) and Eliot (due to the strange congruence of the American State of his youth and mine own). Such a book seemed like a remarkable thing, for anthologies of poetry that weren't simply collections of those sometimes meagre things set for school reading were new to me in my youth. After some searching, I located the first of my copies at a smoky little second-hand bookseller's stall in a flea-market in Town. It was the Quiller-Couch edition, reprinted shortly before the Second World War. I was enthralled.

There is a beautiful symmetry to the OBEV. Poets of the past co-mingle with those of recent memory, and, in the new edition, those of the present. Too, in older editions, there is a certain sense of style and authority, and one comes to believe that these really are the best works of English poetry, the best representatives of a tradition that has lasted for nearly a thousand years. Such is a very comforting authority, and the OBEV is, as a consequence, like a wood fire and a hot whiskey and lemon on a cold winter's night.

The Oxford Book of English Verse travels well. In my own voyages, it has passed a night and morning spent in in a small Missouri town, where I finally read 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' through in one go (almost fifteen years ago - who would have thought?). It went abroad with me, and passed an afternoon in a northern French valley by the Marne, reading Chaucer and then, for shock value, Gerald Manley Hopkins. It honeymooned with me, and reassured me while my bride slept. It also stood by me when that bride went her own way, and I was alone again. It comforts me in the evenings, properly enjoyed with a cup of tea, or scotch and soda, if the mood takes me. It removes my mind from the tedium of the work day, and relaxes me at the week-end. There are few cures which I may not attribute to its lovingly-thumbed pages. Have I gone mad? Perhaps, but who is to tell?

Thanks for your indulgence.

--- William Nedblake

 

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This page was created on 26 July 1996.

It was last updated on 18 may 2003.
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