100 Poems to Lift Your Spirits
by Leslie Pockell, Editor, with Celia Johnson
Published by Grand Central Publishing
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Reviewed by Sarah van Ingen
You may feel an occasional smile playing around the corners of your mouth while reading 100 Poems to Lift Your Spirits, but I doubt that you’ll be soaring to new heights. To be sure, this collection does contain at least twenty-or-so extraordinary poems. The trouble is that if you have any love of poetry, you’re probably already familiar with these poems.
We read poems to be stopped in our tracks and laid flat on our backs—even if the laying down is a gentle one. At its best, reading poems can be like watching open-heart surgery on our own chests. Collections of poems, like this one, have unique challenges and possibilities when it comes to arresting our attention. In a great collection, poems will stand by themselves and also, by their differences and similarities, will resonate with the poems surrounding them. Here, the pacing of the poems becomes important, and I found that the pacing of this collection lacks inspiration.
I became bored reading through the first few dozen poems. They seemed far too monolithic in style and tone to elicit much of a reaction. After finishing the book, I went back and took a closer look. Out of 100 poems, 71 were written by authors who died before 1950. This limits the scope and impact of the collection. Not only that, but I would consider many of the poems to be fluffy. Sure, there’s a lighter side to life. But joy, happiness, and even hilarity are deep emotions, and many of these poems never plumb the depths.
Who might appreciate this book? Perhaps an older reader who loves literature but has not yet read much poetry will find this book engaging. There is an introduction before each poem that will orient that new reader to some fact about the poet or poem. The collection is divided into four sections: Nature, Nonsense, Spirituality, and The Human Connection. Anyone with a particular interest in one of these topics might want to browse through the book.
There are great poems here; unfortunately the great don’t resonate well with the mediocre.
Armchair Interviews says: Heed this reviewer’s words.