Axe-wielding poetry.(Book Review)

Being Alive: The Sequel to Staying Alive, edited by Neil Astley; Bloodaxe, 2004, about $30.

CRITICISED by many poet-reviewers but well received by the public, Nell Astley's first anthology of "real poems for unreal times", Staying Alive, sold in the tens of thousands. Its sequel, Being Alive, is filled with 500 equally well chosen poems that resonate and engage the reader. The anthology opens with a poem by Elma Mitchell whose first lines "This poem is dangerous: it should not be left / Within the reach of children, or even of adults" set out Astley's war-cry approach to poetry: that it be relevant, lively and accessible.

Those who were enlivened to contemporary poetry through the first anthology will find more voices, new and old, to explore and discover in its sequel. For those who could not help feel that Astley's approach is somewhat akin to propaganda, a systematic dissemination of doctrine or spin, that feeling of uneasiness will remain.

The problem is not with the poems; almost every page opened at random has a poem of quality, and Astley's juxtaposition of poems is at times brilliant. Carol Ann Duffy's "Valentine" for example, with its "I give you an onion. / It is a moon wrapped in brown paper" is followed by Pablo Neruda's "Ode to the Onion"; ...