"It really matters that great poems get written"

Elizabeth Bachner reviews the Ecco Anthology of International Poetry at Bookslut.

Something sad happened to me recently that changed my life. At the same time, the same day, the same week, even sadder things happened to change the lives of some of the people I love. Luckily, I have the new Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, and international poetry (like domestic poetry) is one of the least disappointing things in the world. Sometimes it’s vast, sometimes it’s tiny. Luckily, we don’t have to decide, or to choose between poems. We don’t have to choose between lorises and panthers, Julio Cortázar and Nina Cassian, the fingers of one hand and the fingers of the other. Or do we?