The Faber Book of Modern Verse. A new edition enlarged
with a Supplement. Revised by Anne Ridler. (Faber and Faber. 125. 6d.) WHEN Michael Roberts died, he was about to undertake -the revision of this best of modern anthologies, which he compiled in 1936. No one was better fitted to take over the task than Mrs. Ridler, who has made some changes in the body of the book, sub- stituting "East Coker," for example, for "Ash Wednesday," and has added 64 pages of selections from the poets of the last fifteen years. Despite the excellence of her taste, however, she has not been able to find among the newcomers anything comparable to the talent that Roberts discovered in the poets of his generation. One is, indeed, left with the feeling that little has happened in English poetry since the emergence of Dylan Thotnas. Too much even of the best from the younger men relies on violence of imagery or on rather too deliberate technique. A case might be made against the book as it stands that the intellectual poets, Laura Riding, Charles Madge and Empson, are over represented, at the expense of richer poets, particularly of Edith Sitwell and Dylan Thomas. But this is not Mrs. Ridler's fault, for she was only entrusted with limited powers of revision, which she has exercised extremely well. This book remains the essential introduction to modern
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