The dazzling variety of Anglo-Saxon poetry brought to life by an all-star cast of contemporary poets in an authoritative bilingual edition. Encompassing a wide range of voices-from weary sailors to forlorn wives, from heroic saints to drunken louts, from farmers hoping to improve their fields to sermonizers looking to save your soul―the 123 poems collected in The Word Exchange complement the portrait of medieval England that emerges from Beowulf , the most famous Anglo-Saxon poem of all. Offered here are tales of battle, travel, and adventure, but also songs of heartache and longing, pearls of lusty innuendo and clear-eyed stoicism, charms and spells for everyday use, and seven "hoards" of delightfully puzzling riddles. Featuring all-new translations by seventy-four of our most celebrated poets―including Seamus Heaney, Robert Pinsky, Billy Collins, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, Robert Hass, Gary Soto, Jane Hirshfield, David Ferry, Molly Peacock, Yusef Komunyakaa, Richard Wilbur, and many others― The Word Exchange is a landmark work of translation, as fascinating and multivocal as the original literature it translates. During the ostensibly Dark Ages, the Anglo-Saxons created one of the first bodies of vernacular literature in Western Europe. The star in this corpus is unquestionably Beowulf, but there is much more, including quite a trove of poetry. This anthology is probably the most generous one ever published for general readership. Rather than corralling extent translations, its editors asked a host of contemporary poets—many experienced translators from other tongues, classical and modern—to make new renderings. So here are versions by Billy Collins, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, Yusef Komunyakaa, Richard Wilbur, Jane Hirschfield, Molly Peacock, Robert Pinsky, and their peers. Refreshingly, a preponderance choose to echo the alliteration characteristic of Old English verse. Rewardingly, the explanatory prefatory matter is clear as a boy soprano, and the back matter includes 12 of the translators’ observations about their work. Best for some, this is a bilingual edition, providing irresistible temptation to crack the originals on their own; just give them an Old-to-modern English dictionary. --Ray Olson "Starred Review: This brilliant anthology infuses new vigor into Old English poetry and will delight scholars and general readers alike…. The results are stunning. The different translations convey the multivocal variety characterizing the originals, a quality usually absent from selections translated by one hand…. Highly recommended." ― Library Journal "Starred Review. Hefty and easy to like, fit at once for the classroom and the kitchen table, this anthology is a rare beast, a commercial opportunity that also fulfills a real literary need…. The editors have produced a book the many fans of Heaney’s Beowulf might take home and dip into, almost at random, for years." ― Publishers Weekly Greg Delanty is an artist-in-residence at Saint Michael’s College. He lives in Burlington, Vermont. Michael Matto is an associate professor of English at Adelphi University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Seamus Heaney (1939―2013) was an Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born at Mossbawn farmhouse between Castledawson and Toomebridge, County Derry, he resided in Dublin until his death.