What a poetry anthology is, and how to get into one
Anthologies
A poetry anthology is a book of poems by more than one poet, gathered and ordered by an editor around a theme, a period, a place or a purpose.
The word comes from the Greek anthologia, a gathering of flowers, and the metaphor is exact: somebody walked through a very large field and picked these. That editor is the difference between an anthology and a pile. A collection is one poet's own book; an anthology is many poets chosen by someone else, which is why appearing in a real one is a credit and why a book that prints everyone who paid to be in it is not an anthology in any sense that matters.
The exam board anthology, and why it sits in Literature
The exam board anthology is the one most teenagers meet first, and it belongs to English Literature rather than English Language. Language papers use unseen texts and test how writing works; Literature papers set named texts to be studied in advance, and the poetry anthology is one of them, examined closed book with poems compared against each other. In England the boards publish their own: AQA sets clusters such as Love and Relationships and Power and Conflict, and Eduqas, OCR and Pearson Edexcel each issue a different selection. In Wales the WJEC anthology is used, in Northern Ireland CCEA sets its own, and in Scotland the SQA route through National 5 and Higher English works from Scottish set texts rather than from a single anthology.
Revising one is a different job from reading one. The examinable unit is the comparison, not the poem, so the work is done in pairs: two poems on the same subject, what each does with its speaker, its form and its ending, and where they part company. Short quotations, four or five words long, are worth more than long ones because they can be used precisely. Learning the poems by heart is not the point, although a young writer who has said one out loud has already understood more about its rhythm than a page of notes will give them.
An edited anthology, and one that prints everyone who pays
An edited anthology and a pay to print anthology look identical on a shelf and are opposite things, so the comparison is worth setting out plainly.
| Question | Edited anthology | Pay to print anthology |
|---|---|---|
| Who chose the poems | A named editor, from more entries than places | Nobody, since everyone who entered is in |
| Who pays | The publisher, and the poet is often paid or given copies | The writer, the family or the school |
| Who buys it | Readers, libraries and schools | Almost entirely the people printed in it |
| What arrives first | A contract and a proof | An invitation to purchase |
| What it is worth later | A credit an editor recognises | A hardback nobody outside the family opens |
The pay to print model is aimed at school age writers on purpose, because the poem is genuinely good enough to be praised and the family is genuinely proud. Publishing a poem sets out the same mechanism in its other forms. Selling a book back to the families of the children printed in it is a trading matter as well as a literary one, and Trading Standards, reached through the Citizens Advice consumer service, is the body that handles it.
How school and youth anthologies are put together
A school or youth anthology is assembled in a term, usually by one teacher or librarian with a deadline, and knowing the sequence is what lets a young writer land in it. Somebody agrees a theme and a page count. A call goes out with a closing date and a word or line limit. Poems arrive, most of them in the last two days. A small group reads everything, twice, and argues. Selected writers are asked to confirm the final text and to say how they want their name printed. The book is typeset, proofread by more people than seems necessary, printed in a short run, and launched at a reading where the poems are said out loud, which is the part everyone remembers. What performance poetry is explains why that launch matters more than the book does.
Making one is within reach of any group with a photocopier, and four decisions do most of the work: a theme narrow enough to argue with, a hard closing date, a rule that every submission gets a reply, and a named person who has the final say. An anthology assembled by a committee of the whole room is an anthology that never comes out.
How a poem gets into a real one
A poem gets into a real anthology by four routes, none of which costs the writer money. Winning or being commended in a free award whose prize is publication, which is how the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award anthology from The Poetry Society is filled every year. Being published in a magazine first, since editors of themed anthologies read magazines to find contributors. Answering an open call with a stated theme, a named editor and a closing date. And being part of an organisation, a youth team or a workshop that publishes its own writers. Submitting a poem covers the file and the covering note each of those wants, and Ways a poem reaches other people sets the anthology beside the other four routes out of the room.
Permissions, and why old poems dominate
Permissions explain the single oddest feature of school anthologies, which is how many of the poets in them are long dead. Copyright in the United Kingdom lasts for the writer's lifetime and seventy years after the end of the year of death, under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which applies in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland alike. Poems by Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Robert Louis Stevenson are therefore free to reprint. Langston Hughes and Carl Sandburg both died in 1967, so their work remains in copyright in the United Kingdom until the end of 2037 and every use of it has to be cleared and usually paid for. A small anthology with no budget fills up with the free ones, which is why a room of teenagers meets the nineteenth century more often than it meets anybody alive.
Two further permissions catch out first time editors. A translation carries its own copyright, so printing a Japanese haiku or a Kannada poem in English needs the translator's permission as well as the poet's, even where the original is centuries old. And a living poet's permission comes with conditions about the text, the credit and sometimes the context, which is a reminder that the same rights belong to the young writers in the book. A contributor to any anthology should know what they have agreed to before the proof arrives, and should never be asked to hand over the copyright itself.