Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them
Amnesty International, sponsor of this anthology of poems chosen by men prominent in various fields, explains its involvement by noting that prisoners of conscience are often poets. Indeed, one of those poet-prisoners, the Malawian Jack Mapanje, whom Amnesty International helped, is a contributor here. Unusually, he says that his selection, Brecht’s “The Burning of the Books,” makes him cry with laughter—“Don’t ask me why.” The other contributors report soberer tears, internal as well as overt, in reaction to the poems they selected, works that powerfully protest death or poignantly acknowledge it; that embrace despair or, with surprise, discover hope; that mourn personal loss or feel the pangs of the constant, general losses that make up all existence; that stand in awe of love or of the possibility that love is not enough. Some may consider it significant that there is not a trace of religious consolation throughout the book; Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” isn’t among the selections, yet its spirit is everywhere. The selections are overwhelmingly Anglophone and twentieth-century; the selectors, mostly writers, filmmakers, and actors. --Ray Olson