Notes

Anthology/-ies 2026

The vast popularity of the anthology project has attracted four additional responses from readers: Elizabeth Vandevir, the Clement Biddle Penrose Professor of Latin and Classics Emerita at Whitman College, David Sissons, a musician in the Peak District-based ceilidh band, The Well-Dressed Band, and the author of several books on related topics, Devindra Kohli, a frequent contributor to The Robert Graves Review in its current and former incarnations, whose brief argument for his selection directly follows this note, and the mysterious HG who taught at the universities of Lyon and of Toulouse and claims to be the author of The Unassuming Sky: The Life and Poetry of Timothy Corsellis (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), whose somewhat longer discussion follows after Professor Kohli’s. We should inform or remind readers that the anthology project solicited poems worth anthologizing as well as kinds of anthologies worthy of their selections. Many readers recommended poems they thought good enough to appear in a normal ‘best poems’ or ‘enduring poems’ anthology. A few readers came up with ideas for unusual anthologies. For example, HG followed Alice Oswald’s pathfinding anthology A Ted Hughes Bestiary: Poems and created a sample bestiary for Robert Graves. Therefore, the following list of 109 poems (more or less) does not represent the 109 poems by Robert Graves voted most popular or most admired or best loved (though many are just that). They are 109 poems a self-selected group of readers thought they'd like to see in an anthology of some kind.

In a vague attempt at statistical analysis, we have indicated suggestions that repeat previously mentioned titles with a +[n], provided the total number of submitted titles (2025–2026), announced which ones are more popular, and listed titles fresh to this theoretical mash-up anthology. For the various kinds of anthology readers imagined you might dip into the ‘Anthology/-ies’ note in last year's Review.

1805

Address to Self

Allie +1

Babylon

The Bough of Nonsense

Careers

A Child’s Nightmare

Christmas Robin, The +1

Cliff and Wave

Climate of Thought, The

Clipped Stater, The

Conjunction

Cool Web, The 3

Counting the Beats 3

Cuirassiers of the Frontier, The 2

Dead Cow Farm,

Dead Boche, A +2

Dedication of Three Hats, A +1

Departure

Despite and Still 2

Devil’s Advice to Storytellers, The

Diotima Dead

Down, Wanton, Down 3

End of Play

Escape +1

Eurydice

Facts of the Act

Face in the Mirror, The 3

Fallen Tower of Siloam, The

Faun

Finding of Love, The

Flying Crooked 2

Frightened Men

Fusilier, The (For Peter)

Ghost from Arakan, A

God called Poetry, The

Goliath and David

Hide and Seek

Hotel Bed at Lugano

Idyll of Old Age, An

In Broken Images 1

In the Lion House

It Was All Very Tidy 2

Lady Visitor in the Pauper Ward

Language of the Seasons 2

Last Day of Leave 2

Last Post, The

Legion, The

Legs, The

Letter from Wales

Leveller, The

Like Snow 2

The Lilac Frock

Lollocks 2

Love Story, A

Love Without Hope +1

Magic Picture , The

Meeting, The

Mid-Winter Waking 2

Naked and the Nude, The

Nature's Lineaments

Never Such Love

No More Ghosts

Not Dead 2

Olive Yard, The

On Portents 2

One Hard Look

Outlaws

Pact, The

Persian Version, The 2

Pier Glass, The [the revised version]

Pinch of Salt, A

Poet in the Nursery, The

Pressure Gauge, The

Pure Death

Pygmalion to Galatea

Reader over My Shoulder, The

Recalling War

Return of the Goddess, The

Rocky Acres

Second-Fated, The

She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep 2+1

Sick Love 3

Slice of Wedding Cake, A

Song of Contrariety

Spoilsport, The

Straw, The

Succubus, The

Symptoms of Love 3+1

Terraced Valley, The

Troll’s Nosegay, The

This What-I-Mean

Through Nightmare 2

Time

To Be in Love

To Bring the Dead to Life

To Juan at the Winter Solstice +1

To Lucia at Birth

To Walk on Hills

Toads

Two Fusiliers

Ulysses 2

Under the Olives

To Walk on Hills

Warning to Children 6

¡Welcome to the Caves of Àrta!

Welsh Incident 3+1

White Goddess, The +1

Wigs and Beards

S T A T I S T I C S

109 Poems in total

Most frequently cited

Warning to Children (6)

Second Most (2–6) Tie (4)

Welch Incident

Face in the Mirror

The Cool Web

Symptoms of Love

She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep

'Third' Most Cited (8-10)Tie: (3)

Sick Love

Down, Wanton, Down

Counting the Beats

2026 additions:

Dead Cow Farm