Viewer's review: Staying Alive - Real Poems For Unreal Times

Staying Alive - Real Poems For Unreal Times
Edited by Neil Astley
ISBN-13: 978-1852245887

This collection of more than 500 poems, usefully grouped in sections, with really helpful introductions, has been a source of delight and diversion ever since I bought my copy when it was published in 2002.

The poems introduce writers both dead and alive, with poems covering subjects as diverse as love, death, war and peace, people, growing up, roads and journeys, animals and nature. The introductory chapters to each section dispel some of the worries readers may have about reading poetry, yet never patronise. In these uncertain times it seems particularly important to be able to have some sort of 'ready reference' collection of poems, which deal with subjects which affect us all.

So if we are worried about our failing memory then Billy Collins'  'Forgetfulness' will strike a chord: 'It is as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor/ decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,/ to a little fishing village where there are no phones', and if you're observing your child's jealousy of his or her new sibling, then Fleur Adcock expresses it all in 'The Video': 'She watched Laura come out, and then,/in reverse, she made her go back in.'

There is, quite literally, something for everyone in this collection. I've bought several more copies to pass on as presents and have always had good feedback. My own book bristles with markers of my favourites. I urge everyone to read Staying Alive.
 
By Madeleine Heaney, Northamptonshire

Madeleine has also enjoyed reading Jenni Murray's Memoir of a Not So Dutiful Daughter and How to Make a Woman Out of Water, poems by Charles Bennett