A rich, wonderfully broad collection that I would be wanting to take off to the proverbial island with...the modern mixed in with the historical makes for easy browsing in a great big book of poetry. ( )

The Norton Introduction to Poetry has two parts: half is tutorial and half is anthology. The tutorial part is my favorite. In various sections, the editor (J. Paul Hunter) describes the role of subject, theme, and tone; text (including speaker, situation and setting, word choice, figurative language, and structure); and various contexts. For each subsection, he shares at least one poem and discusses the particular aspects of that poem. Since I still struggle with some poetry and I am a beginner each time I approach it, I enjoy the tutorial aspect.