I’m an anthology fan.

An anthology is a collection of texts which share some characteristic: theme, period, location, aesthetic, a collector’s preference. The word derives circuitously from the Greek, meaning (roughly) word-flowers.

Anthologies are older than printed literature. Meleager compiled the first in Western literature in 100 BCE, bless him, rescuing many older Greek poets from oblivion. Shakespeare’s first appearance in print was in a pirated anthology in 1599, in the bad old days before copyright.

Anthologies introduce us to a variety of voices, some familiar, others from the reputational periphery. I know a fair amount about literature in English but inevitably I meet new voices in anthologies or renew acquaintances with others I’ve forgotten or ignored. Many the poet, essayist, or storyteller who merits only minutes of attention, but those minutes are pleasurably spent. Anthologies invite us to compare – styles, views, authorial strategies, resonances and dissonances.

Anthologies expose their assemblers’ biases. Often inclusions or exclusions set my hair on fire: how clueless, tone-deaf, prejudiced, politicized these choices, are you f-ing kidding me! One omission from a famous compendium moved me to hurl the tome across the room. Such spats invigorate, forcing me to hone my arguments. Many the anthologist I’ve slain with critiques as deftly as Zorro with his sword, though they never knew it.

Anthologies save time. Time grows more stressful as less remains. In one’s seventies, life becomes a game of musical chairs, another pal eliminated each round. I’m zealous to make the most of my time, but what does that mean? A slow reader, I look on fat books glumly. Will I ever read Proust again? I’ve bushwhacked his masterpiece twice, with gratitude and awe – but man, is it long! How I’d like to tackle the collected music of Browning, Tennyson, Dryden, and a dozen others! How can I not revisit Chaucer, Spenser, or Pope’s Homer (maybe the most musical volume of verse ever)! The unsampled titles in my library grieve as they thrill. I refuse to say goodbye – but how can I afford to say hello?

Anthologists say my goodbyes for me. Their choices may be bad – stupidly, outrageously bad – but they are choices, which have been made with care. If an anthologist deems H.D. or Ezra Pound worth my while, I’ll allow them a few minutes to make their case (they can’t). Recently I’ve been trawling for poetic voices you and I might share, since that’s a sport we seem to enjoy. Bless harvesters with their “best” lists, in print and online. My folder bulges with finds; its richness obliges me to live till ninety-seven at least.

Terror shrinks the world to a single dread. That’s what’s happening in America today: the Nameless One’s Reign of Terror commands our attention, waking and sleeping. It’s like when I had cancer: however tedious the topic, it was impossible to ignore.

Anthologies serve me as antidote, wresting my attention, engaging me in debate, widening my world. Thinking about a poem, I can’t be thinking about the Nameless One. And I must think about poems – and beauty – and goodness – and the wonders wrought by humans – because that’s the reason these woeful wars are worth waging. I do not fight to defeat my Nemesis, but to free myself and loved ones to live our lives and think our thoughts unconstrained.

All choices are political. Whether or not they affirm a point of view, they infer one. My recent pivot back to poetry, my first love, defies the truthless brutality of our hour. Poets are the natural enemies of tyrants – and they win in the end. Anthologists gather poets into gladsome throngs.