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Title: a good representation of an excellent exhibit
Review: This book is based on an 1996 exhibit in the New York Public Library which featured original material from one hundred poets, covering centuries of work, including poets as diverse as John Donne and Allen Ginsberg. Part of the appeal of the exhibit was seeing the actual original manuscripts, jotted notes, and correspondence right in front of you, and in that regard, the book can not live up. It is, nonetheless, excellent in its scope and interesting in its reproductions of the material from the exhibit. It would be particularly appealing to students or enthusiasts of poetry, that is, those with a prior background knowledge of the poets included. It would be of less value to someone looking for an introduction to poetry. I did thoroughly enjoy both the exhibit and the book and do strongly recommend it to any poetry enthusiast.
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