Many of the poems are accompanied by process notes, giving the reader useful information how the piece was created. The anthology opens with Charles Henri Ford’s “International Chainpoem”, written by Ford and 11 other poets in 1940. The excellent introduction tells us that “In 1940, American Charles Henri Ford adapted this practice [of collaborative poetry] into what he dubbed the “Chainpoem”, which he defined as an “intellectual sport…an anonymous shape laying in a hypothetical joint imagination” ” This opening poem is a wonderful example of the melding together of different personalities and imaginations, seen with lines like “When a parasol is cooled in the crystal garden” (Takesi Fuji) and “Spell me out a sonnet of a steel necklace” (Tuneo Osada)

It moves through collaborative efforts by Beat poets Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, to the New York school, with poems by John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Frank O’Hara, Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett amongst others. Bill Berkson & Frank O’Hara’s darkly comic St Bridget poems stand out with poignant lines juxtaposed next to childlike silliness:

afternoon is leaning toward drinks I am getting
myself right now though I shouldn’t Would

you like one, heaviness of the compost thresh-
hold? No, I want the plants to have it, for

they have died Sometimes the streets are full
of snot sometimes the travelling ferris-wheel

Collaborative poems by Robert Creeley, Marilyn Hacker, Susan Cataldo and James Schulyer move the anthology through to the eighties. The nineties and thousands continues the eclectic range of styles seen throughout the book. “All Ears” by Keith Abbot, Pat Nolan, Maureen Owen & Michael Sowl, for example, is a mish-mash of Japanese traditional forms such as hokku, waki, renku and ageku woven together with a series of zen-like images:

After rain the freeze
gnawing at the wall
hands over heater all ears

after rain the freeze
gnawing at the wall
hands over heater all ears
leaves cut into a steel sky
or the gray in photographs

The anthology is well worth reading even if you’re not interested in collaborative poetry. There is such an abundance of different styles and imaginations from several decades that everyone will find something they will enjoy.

Christian Ward is a 27 year old London based student and writer, currently finishing the final year of a degree in Creative Writing and English Literature at Roehampton University, London. His work is fortcoming in journals such as Decanto, The Warwick Review and Cider Press Review.