A century of poetry review - Fiona Sampson

For a hundred years, Poetry Review has been at the heart of British literary life. Founded as The Poetical Gazette in May 1909, it has become the country's most widely read poetry magazine, playing a vital role in giving readers access to a generous diversity of contemporary poetry, and poets a space for the practice and appraisal of their art.

In this celebratory anthology, Fiona Sampson, the current editor of Poetry Review and herself an acclaimed poet, has selected a hundred of Poetry Review's finest moments, ranging from Rupert Brooke's 'The Old Vicarage, Grantchester', published in 1911, to a manuscript page of Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur, published 2008. Here are Nobel Prizewinners and Poets Laureate, as well as long-forgotten delights recovered from back-issues. Contextualised by key critical essays and reviews, with Fiona Sampson's illuminating introduction, A Century of Poetry Review provides an indispensible map of twentieth-century poetry.



Cover image: Tempo - Passado e Presente (Time - Past and Present) by Paula Rego, copyright the artist, photograph courtesy of Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd.

'It's always been the great distinction - and the great opportunity - of Poetry Review to be at once a beacon and a lighthouse: as interested in providing a centre for good writing, as it is in estabishing and representing a wide curiosity about the many forms that good writing might take. It's especially heartening to see the magazine in such excellent health in this, its centenary year.'
Andrew Motion