I've spent a long time with this collection, but not in the way you may think. Originally, I started reading this book because bringing together poems under a single subject from multiple poets sounded great--but the book's original description (which I see has since been updated) did not include the fact that these poems would be accompanied by the author's own poetic criticism and dissection after each piece. I don't know about you, but having to read someone else's opinion on what a poem means takes the fun out of reading it. I've already been through all the college poetry classes--it's what kills many people's love of poetry.

I found the best way to read this book, if you love the poetry itself, is to make sure to read the introduction to each poem, because that does contain necessary information, especially if you are not familiar with the poet, read the poem itself, then skip the criticism that comes afterwards and simply enjoy your own interpretation of it. The author did compile a wealth of heartbreaking poems, so it is still a solid collection otherwise.

Review: 100 Poems to Break Your Heart by Edward Hirsch
Rating: 3.5 Stars

I’m not normally someone who reads poetry, however I would like to start to read more and because I love reading sad things I thought this one would be perfect for me haha. This book includes 100 of the most moving and inspiring poems of the last 200 years from around the world, a collection that will comfort and enthrall anyone trapped by grief or loneliness.
When I first got this I thought it would just be a compilation of the poems, and then I saw that it was more of a commentary along side the poems. I’m sure this would be incredibly useful to students, or people who are poetry lovers and want additional insight to their own to analyse them as they go along. After a while I did just skip along those parts because I was only there for the poetry, but that suited me just fine!
Seeing all these poems and reading them back to back is quite intense, so I would recommend reading this alongside other things and taking breaks to appreciate them.

The poems were a bit dense and hard to get through my really beautifully written overall.

Having experienced a loss recently a lot of this impacted me in a way that it wouldn’t typically impact me.

A quick read.

I thought that this was an interesting selection of poems and I enjoyed the accompanying commentary. These were emotional poems, that went with the concept of this book for sure. I felt guided through the poems and definitely saw merit for the most part in the interpretative information provided.

Book Review “100 Poems to Break Your Heart” by Edward Hirsch

Thank you for the ARC copy @netgalley and @houghtonmifflinharcourt

I was a little disappointed because I thought this was going to be a book of poems, but it was a book analyzing poems. So if you’re looking for a book of poetry to read - I do not recommend this book, however if you enjoy reading another persons analysis about poetry you will love it.

Some of the many poets whose works are included in this collection are Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Hardy, St. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, Anne Sexton, Randall Jarrell, Muriel Rukeyser, Robert Lowell, Sharon Olds and Phillip Larkin, among many others. This is certainly a good collection with, as the title suggests, a focus on heartbreak.

This collection will most appeal to serious readers of poetry. There are many kinds of poems including sonnets, aubades, a villanelle, a nocturne and more.

Edward Hirsch has picked some gems. These poems resonate when read but are even better when Hirsch examines them in detail. Again, if that isn’t something you are into - do not buy this book - but if you want something that makes you think deeper about poetry, grab it!

The poem collection was a nice to past the time but it wasn't something that I would come back to again and again, unfortunately.

definitely a book I will eventually purchase! Would be much better in small portions than all at once. Can't wait to add it to my bookshelf

TWO-CENT TUESDAY

Below are a few (somewhat) brief $.02 opinions about books I've read or listened to recently but don't have the opportunity to review in full. Many of these titles I enjoyed as much or more than those that got the full court press. I hope you'll consider one or two for your own TBR stack if they strike your fancy whether they struck mine or not.

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100 POEMS TO BREAK YOUR HEART, by Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch's Gabriel: A Poem was the work that got me started on a mission to read more poetry. It is a set of poems, longlisted for the 2014 National Book Award, about the life and death of Hirsch's son. When I saw Hirsch had collected this set of poems I was all in. Turns out it's much more than I bargained for. Not only does he lay out 100 poems, he analyzes them and assists in the reading and internalizing of them. Which means this collection is lovely, educational and lengthy. I'm still working my way through it in little snippets, but it came out some time ago and I didn't want to delay writing about it any further. A great place to start if you're trying to get more out of the poetry you read.

Another book of poems selected by Hirsch. I appreciate this book of poems around the subject of heartbreak and grief. I particularly like his detailed explanations on the poets, as well as his wide selection of poets.
I highly recommend as a book to accompany you on your walk through loss.

I received a copy of this book from Net Galley for my unbiased review.

Each chapter offers three part: the history of heartbreak leading to the poem’s writing, the poem itself, and the critical breakdown of the poem, from rhythm and rhyme to structure, style, and sound. I expected one and two, and found them beautiful.

The third part? I skimmed each because that level of detail and analysis is something I like to have as reference material but not actual reading material.

The chapter on Langston Hughes was most excellent. Julia de Burgos’s was compelling too, and I found most that followed — all from 1940 and more recent than that — were more engaging for me because the selections were less likely to be old white men whose poetry is already canon and more likely to be men and women of color and immigrants. Kadya Molodowsky’s poem about Poland in WW2 was a different heartbreak than I expected, and it — from the perspective of a Jewish immigrant to the U.S. — was divinely perfect. As a disabled woman with chronic health conditions, I connected with the poetry and experience of Cynthia Huntington, with this book’s main choice of her work being about the onset of MS.

This book was sent to me as an ARC on NetGalley. However, all opinions are of my own.
Unfortunately, this book had been archived before I was able to read it.

An excellent anthology!!

I don't know why, I didn't expect this book to contain analysis of the poems; I thought the author would explain why they broke his heart and the context in which he read them. But he does more and better than that: he writes about the context in which the poem was written and analyses it! He talks about literary devices, choice of words, metric, silence and space: it was everything I love about analysis! It allows the reader to first read the poem, then get more from it thanks to context and interpretation!

But, it might not be for everyone because of that. I know some readers don't like their poems analysed: in this case, they can simply read the poems and, maybe, read about the context in which they were written. It really gives another perspective about certain pieces, it allows to understand a bit more about its writing circumstances.

Of course, the choice of poems was great: quite diverse, including poets I didn't know much about or at all. I discovered new favourites thanks to Edward Hirsch. And, to get back to the title, clearly, most of them will break your heart!!


So, one of my favourite poetry anthologies!

I think the synopsis needs to be clarified a bit here - I was expecting a true compilation of poetry, maybe with a few notes. However, what I got was a very long and involved commentary on poetry. I think it was largely academic which...almost stripped some of the emotion out of them.

Hirsch did a wonderful job of selecting poems that really explore the depths of heartbreak, pain, grief and so much more. This collection really will break your heart.

A wonderful collection of poetry, that provides insight and meticulous analysis of literary devices and poems' overall meaning and intent.

I definitely think you must both love poetry and be familiar with the vocabulary used in literary analysis in order to fully enjoy this collection and what it aims to do, I would not recommend this to people who are new to poetry/and poetry analysis. It is a large tome, and so I found that the best way to enjoy it was to casually dip in and out, reading one or a couple of chapters at a time. I agree with other reviewers that this would be good book to have laying around for anyone to peek at!

Well researched and enjoyable to get through!

A lovely collection of poetry with insightful context and history mixed in. Buy this for your coffee table!

What a beautiful collection of poetry! The research and accompanying notes are really useful, and I will be using some of these poems and the details to introduce some of my classes to a wider variety of poems.

Gorgeous book, with some poets and poems that I had not heard of or read before.

So many beautiful and touching poems in this book, an absolute have to have on your bookshelf. I will be buying a copy to keep for future reference.

I could not get into this book of poetry. I didn’t enjoy such in depth analysis of the poems the author shared. It was quite boring, and I feel like they could have chosen better poems. I expected better.

This is a long collection, so be prepared! If you are prepared to take in a few poems at a time, it's a great read!

This collection is serious and packed full of content, as well as commentary. It's a really interesting take and I enjoyed it. Normally I enjoy reading a few poems at a time, but I had to binge this one due to time constraints. It's a massive one that I don't recommend reading in one sitting, but it's still a great read!

Three out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.