A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry

A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry: English and American is an anthology of poetry, edited by

In a letter to his friend Louis Zukofsky, William Carlos Williams wrote: "But if you happen to stumble across Scribner's latest, A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry, edited by O. Williams - look into it and die - of laughing. What a sell!"^[1]

Geoffrey Hill's father bought him a copy of this anthology when Hill was about fifteen. He carried the book in his jacket pocket all around Worcestershire for several years until it disintegrated. He later recalled in a conversation with John Haffenden: "I think there was probably a time when I knew every poem in that anthology by heart."^[2]

It was through this anthology that James Dickey came across the work of Dunstan Thompson, whose poem "Largo" displayed technical abilities that influenced Dickey's development.^[3]

Poets in A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry, 1947 edition