Poetry

What do Billy Collins, Yusef Komunyakaa, Jane Hirshfield, Michael Collier, Robert Hass, and Molly Peacock have in common, aside from being accomplished poets? All have contributed modern English renderings of Anglo-Saxon poems to The Word Exchange (W.W. Norton, $18.95). Edited by Greg Delanty and Michael Matto, this diverse and fascinating anthology is a bilingual presentation of riddles and charms, laments and prayers, stories of heroes and saints that date back to the years between the mid-fifth and mid-eleventh centuries. The Anglo-Saxon period was marked by huge cultural and political changes; the poems narrate the consolidation of warring clans and tribes into stable communities under a centralized authority, the adoption of Christianity, and the rise of skilled craftsmanship. But you don’t need to know any of that to relish these poems. Just listen to the way the emphatic rhythms of Old English recharge today’s language, and notice how the situations—a spouse left alone, an old person wondering what’s next—are strikingly contemporary. And the riddles are great, clever fun. Laurie Greer