A collection of sixty poems, if I could count them properly鈥擨 loved all the poems in this anthology. Not a single poem I disliked. And I congratulate A collection of sixty poems, if I could count them properly鈥擨 loved all the poems in this anthology. Not a single poem I disliked. And I congratulate the people behind this work鈥攁ll the poets and editors who took the decision to compile the best poems they received. Those who love poetry will find here a potpourri of poetic works published by many poets of varying backgrounds that have the potential to appease your 鈥榩oetic polydipsia鈥�. The selection is powerful and an amazing read. Some of the poems that I would like to mention are:
鈥業 can鈥檛 throw love out the window鈥� by JJ Celli. You can witness 鈥楢rab-and-Americanness鈥� in Maha Hashwi鈥檚 poem. You will find so many poetic methods to express your grief in 鈥淲ays to Grieve鈥� by Grant Davis. 鈥楤it my tongue a little too hard鈥�, is an emotional conversation with Ma, by Muskaan Singh.
鈥淚 may have inherited my father鈥檚 tinderbox temper, but from you, I learned my tongue between my teeth.鈥�
Anna Kushner鈥檚 鈥渢o my child that could have been鈥� was a motherly craft. In Abby Bland鈥檚 poem, you will hear the sounds of shells crumbling and eggs cracking. Jillian Calahan says, she had been having trouble writing lately, and then she decided to play with new words, and thus a poem was formed: 鈥淭here is a word for that,鈥� which is a nice novelty.
"And did you know there is a word
for a knife fight?
Its snickersnee
And callipygion is when one possesses
beautiful and shapely buttocks."
There are a couple of beautiful poems from Sakshi Patel. Samuel Faulk, in his disability-based poems, deals with the mentioned topic so well. You will find in one poem a cat making biscuits on stomach鈥�, cats and dogs doing crossword over coffee. 鈥楾respassin鈥� by Teichman was another poem that tinkled with its poetic tools.
I recommend this collection to all who love to inquire into a new poetic canvas in 2024. Thanking NetGalley and Publishers for providing me with an advanced copy, I say a big yes to this collection with the first Four lines of this anthology,
Larkin himself said somewhere that deprivation for him was 鈥渨hat daffodils were for Wordsworth鈥�. I don鈥檛 know about the deprivation, but he turned me Larkin himself said somewhere that deprivation for him was 鈥渨hat daffodils were for Wordsworth鈥�. I don鈥檛 know about the deprivation, but he turned me into a new 鈥渕oneyed class in verse.鈥�
After reading Stephan Dunn, a few days back, I was just thinking that why I can鈥檛 get a poem book by a poet who is modern and who writes in rhymes, like those classic poets. Then I rummaged in my list, which is unorganized as far as poetry books are concerned, I am still learning to make them orderly. Today I made a folder, which looks businesslike. And I have given it an archaic name, 鈥淭he Poesy Folder鈥�. Anything related to poiein, poiema, poeme or poem , whatever is that, will go into this folder now.
This book I got, was the only Philip Larkin poetry book in my library. It鈥檚 small. I had added the complete collection of poems of Larkin years back, but could not read them anytime. I have no idea where that is. I am on a poetry spree nowadays. I am fully utilizing my free time. I am posting lots of reviews too. I am happy. I am not a critic, I am a reader. I blow my own trumpet in my own melody after reading books. Sometimes I rodomontade!
So I found Philip Larkin amazing. In this collection, I found 32 sublime poems. There is beauty and rhyme. I found everything: assonance, consonance, alliteration, euphony, or whatever you define in poetry. I may be incorrect in observation, but I am correct in sentiments.
鈥淪trange to be ignorant of the way things work: Their skill at finding what they need, Their sense of safe and punctual spread of seed, And willingness to change; Yes it is strange,鈥�
You will find in his poems; Mr. Bleaney鈥檚 room, electric mixers, toasters, driers, Bombay to Berkley, balconies, flower baskets, quadrilles, and so many things in and around. He binds the ordinary things in such a beauteous manner that your soul gets filled. The aroma of his metrical and sensitive craft with a good sense of humor made me feel nice. Really nice! I will recommend this book to all who have not yet witnessed the beautiful poetic art of the poet. It鈥檚 short and very good in taste.
In the end, I will share one poem which is very interesting, a contrast between the life of a married and bachelor man. The title is 鈥淪elf鈥檚 the man.鈥�
Enjoy it!
鈥淥h, no one can deny That Arnold is less selfish than I. He married a woman to stop her getting away Now she鈥檚 there all day,
And the money he gets for wasting his life on work She takes as her perk To pay for the kiddies鈥� clobber and the drier And the electric fire,
And when he finishes supper Planning to have a read at the evening paper It鈥檚 Put a screw in this wall 鈥� He has no time at all,
With the nippers to wheel round the houses And the hall to paint in his old trousers And that letter to her mother Saying Won鈥檛 you come for the summer.
To compare his life and mine Makes me feel a swine: Oh, no one can deny That Arnold is less selfish than I.
But wait, not do fast: Is there such a contrast? He was out for his own ends Not just pleasing his friends;
And if it was such a mistake, He still did it for his own sake, Playing his own game. So he and I are the same, Only I鈥檓 a better hand At knowing what I can stand! 鈥� 鈥� Philip Larkin
鈥淒on鈥檛 bother me I have just been born.鈥� -Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. And Yes. She talks about nature. The鈥淒on鈥檛 bother me I have just been born.鈥� -Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. And Yes. She talks about nature. There is not much of the dubiety on my mind after having read her first book of poems in my life. I read two major award-winning woman poets for the first time this year; Louise Gl眉ck and Mary Oliver.
I can say that Mary observes in and around. She observes with clarity. She observes both piffling and salient. She is romantic and she is harsh as well. I will not use the word 鈥渞echerch茅鈥� for her poetic craft as it seems to me she is very explicit in her approach at least in this book. I loved all the poems in this collection. And along with Gl眉ck, this poetess gave me the dose of my poetic repose of this year. I am keen to jump over to her other books, especially the Pulitzer -prize-winning work 鈥淎merican Primitive鈥�, and I will definitely be receiving that book with high expectations.
In the eyes of Maxine Kumin Oliver was 鈥渁 patroller of wetlands in the same way that Thoreau was an inspector of snowstorms.鈥� When I read this comparison, my expression went from an intent observer to a cheerful grinner (no idea if this word even exists, but I grinned) in the blink of an eye. I recalled my failed attempt to read Walden, four years back but I remember reading somewhere then, about this association of Henry David Thoreau with snowstorms. Thoreau even wanted the officials to pay him for his job of observing and writing about snowstorms, jokingly.
At the beginning of her poetic craft in this book, she declares from the vantage point of her craft. See the attitude鈥�
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 want to hear the story of my life, and anyway I don鈥檛 want to tell it, I want to listen to the enormous waterfalls of the Sun鈥�
In the 鈥榤orning poem,鈥� she says,
鈥渆ach pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning, whether or not you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray.鈥�
In one poem she beautifully expressed the growth of trillium; how the Hillside grew white with the wild Trillium. She speaks about how the marsh hawks which are long-tailed and have yard-wide wings glide just above the Rough plush of Marshlands. And once she heard a scream,
鈥淪omething screamed from the fringes of the swamp It was Banyan, the old merchant. It was the hundred-legged Tree, walking again鈥�
In a poem, she writes, 鈥榖ows to the lightening of her eyes, the pick of her beak the swale of her appetite'. And at a place, she said that the sea is not a place but a fact and a mystery! She beautifully portrays the pink moccasins flower, rising in mid-May in the forest. I found her imagery of nature very poignant and sharp. Her love and close liaison with nature were very much visible in this book, I glided over this prepossessing and panoramic depiction of nature through her verses. I loved the book and I will finish my thought on the book with these lines,
鈥淔or years and years, I struggled just to love my life and then the butterfly rose, weightless, in the wind. 鈥渄on鈥檛 love your life too much鈥� it鈥檚 said, and vanished into the world.鈥�
"Who doubts the fitting key Who serves another's eye Whose hand is not his own Who never thought he won"
'Be the first'. 欧宝娱乐 told me when I clic
"Who doubts the fitting key Who serves another's eye Whose hand is not his own Who never thought he won"
'Be the first'. 欧宝娱乐 told me when I clicked on review. There is no one on this site who has reviewed this book. Do poetry lovers not read Robert Fitzgerald these days?
I read it though, under my self-inflicted poetry onrush.
A big book for a poetry collection and covers important poems of the poet spanning four decades. I loved many here, It gave me a glimpse of American poetry of a specific period, I saw all sorts of poems and it enriched my understanding!
The final part of this collection includes some translations also, as the poet is well known for his translations like 'Passages from Virgil's first Georgic' and ' A Chorus from Sophocles's Oedipus Rex'.
I just guzzled it this evening when I was too upset all day long and it worked. Yes! As if WW dispensed A beautiful ballad from the master of romance.
I just guzzled it this evening when I was too upset all day long and it worked. Yes! As if WW dispensed it to me in an invigorating goblet. It vivified my feverish spirit indeed. Feeling really light for myself with this piece, but I am sad for Martha Ray.
The beginning with a description of an old 'Thornbush' which is not higher than two years' child, and overgrown with lichens, on a mountain top and slowly WW taking the reader towards the sad story of a woman named Martha Ray, who is a frequent visitor to this hill and keeps on crying
"Oh misery! Oh misery! Oh woe is me ! oh misery!
Who is she ? and what has happened to her?
Read it to know her story! it's sad but that will be the right thing to do!...more
I also walked upon this sand and foam last year, but I forgot to mention it. I had my hands full at something else I guess! What can I say, It was beaI also walked upon this sand and foam last year, but I forgot to mention it. I had my hands full at something else I guess! What can I say, It was beautiful and pristine!
A few lines from the text, I hope you appreciate them...
"I am forever walking upon these shores, Betwixt the sand and the foam, The high tide will erase my foot-prints, And the wind will blow away the foam. But the sea and the Shore will remain Forever. Once I filled my hand with mist. Then I opened it and lo the mist was a worm. And I closed and opened my hand again, and behold there was a bird. And again I closed and opened my hand, and in its hollow stood a man with a sad face, turned upward. And again I closed my hand and when I opened it there was naught but mist."
"Half of what I say is meaningless but I say it so that the other half may reach you."
"If Winter says, "spring is in my heart," who would believe winter?"
"They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price."
"Perhaps the sea's definition of a shell is the Pearl. Perhaps time's definition of coal is the Diamond."
I found that the sand was glossy and the foam was lustrous. Each and every line of this book was a sort of sorcery for me. Aren't they?...more
I think I did pretty well in the first quarter of last year in my poetic pursuit, a couple of major well-known f
'His argument true, his tone light'
I think I did pretty well in the first quarter of last year in my poetic pursuit, a couple of major well-known figures in the contemporary poetry, I read. Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet who won Nobel Prize in 1995. When it comes to Ireland, you know W. B. Yeats鈥� poems; I liked very much, his folklores especially. Yeats鈥� folk tales had some cultural similarities with the Indian subcontinent. When I picked up this Irish poet, I was expecting some relatedness, though in some other enclave of poetic land. And I was not disappointed!
He is too natural a poet I guess, at least from the themes that I extracted from this poetry collection. Look at the list: Digging, potato digging, the barn, cow in calf, waterfall, gravities, blackberry picking, churning day鈥� these are some of the poems! In the first poem, he compares the potato digging of his father, his grandfather cutting more turf than anyone, and says at last that he has no spade like these men to dig, so he will dig in his own way鈥�.
鈥淏etween my fingers and my thumb the squat pen rests, snug as a gun鈥�..
Between my fingers and my thumb the squat pen rests and I鈥檒l dig with it.鈥�
This is a good collection and I liked many poems. There is a poem called 鈥榓t a potato digging鈥� and I loved it. It covered the historical potato famine and the hard work of potato diggers!
This book can be a challenging read for readers who don't have a taste for naturalistic poems. The poet has taken the readers to his childhood memories, his personal experiences, his happy moments, and time of loss, through extremely vivid imagery in and around his local natural landscape. A truly def portrayal. He has described the harsh activities of farm life and depicted the brutal culling of animals with an amazing poetic sense.
Leaving you with the poem "Follower" from this collection, describing relation with his father,
"My father worked with a horse-plough, His shoulders globed like a full sail strung Between the shafts and the furrow. The horses strained at his clicking tongue.
An expert. He would set the wing And fit the bright steel-pointed sock. The sod rolled over without breaking. At the headrig, with a single pluck
Of reins, the sweating team turned round And back into the land. His eye Narrowed and angled at the ground, Mapping the furrow exactly.
I stumbled in his hobnailed wake, Fell sometimes on the polished sod; Sometimes he rode me on his back Dipping and rising to his plod.
I wanted to grow up and plough, To close one eye, stiffen my arm. All I ever did was follow In his broad shadow round the farm.
I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, Yapping always. But today It is my father who keeps stumbling Behind me, and will not go away"
This is a plaintful story鈥� Being plaintful means...being sorrowful鈥� and being sorrowful means being this young lady of this poem.
[image] The first knoThis is a plaintful story鈥� Being plaintful means...being sorrowful鈥� and being sorrowful means being this young lady of this poem.
[image] The first known illustration to "A Lover's Complaint", from John Bell's 1774 edition of Shakespeare's works
But you know.. this sorrow of this young lady is quite beguiling!
A young woman is crying on the bank of a river. She is picking up ambers, crystals and braided jets from her basket and throwing them into the river one by one鈥lso, her letters written in blood she is throwing them into the flood.
An old man observes this. Consolation comes from him. The old man wants to know鈥� the motive of her woe!
She now begins the discourse of her complaint鈥n interlocution of her grief to the old man鈥� a lover鈥檚 complaint.
'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold The injury of many a blasting hour, Let it not tell your judgement I am old: Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power. I might as yet have been a spreading flower, Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied Love to myself, and to no love beside.
She then describes the youth of her lover, a skillful horse rider and so skillful in the speech that he could make the laugher weep and a weeper laugh.
'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls; And every light occasion of the wind Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls鈥�..
and
Small show of man was yet upon his chin; His phoenix down began but to appear, Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin鈥�..
Her lover is a fetching character, so charming, so bewitching that women gave themselves to him, without even his wanting it. Many thought themselves as his mistress. This young lady knew about his past treacheries and she took an oath to keep herself away from him. But soon the desire overcame the reason. The lover asks pity for his past sufferings. She came near and the passion for love is so fiery that her vows got broken. She said that how a tear could melt a rocky heart.
O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies In the small orb of one particular tear! But with the inundation of the eyes What rocky heart to water will not wear? What breast so cold that is not warmed here? O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath, Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath
(view spoiler)[She knew that he was a beguiler; She knew that he was untrue; she knew that it was all lie. But what drama and what fancy of those uncontrolled emotions of youth that brought the downfall of this young lady. The moisture of his eye betrayed her. He seduced her and left her.
But this young lady so occulted so bewitched that she said despite all this if she had to feel such a pleasure again... She might fall again!
O, that infected moisture of his eye, O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed, O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly, O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed, O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed, Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed, And new pervert a reconciled maid (hide spoiler)]
This is considered a controversial title. The authorship of this work is disputed I learned. But it did not affect my reading experience. Some claim this work an undeserved composition from the Bard. Trash... I don't think it is so. I loved it. And it is not always necessary that a genius will always produce a great piece of art. he has every right to slip.
There is nothing nasty in it. Though an abrupt end is there. But that is what poetry is all about. The message was fully conveyed.
I think this poem is all about the temptation and inducement of a young age and is certainly a good read!...more
I realized for a moment with a great sense of sadness that from now on, whenever I decide to read a famoWhen I hoped, I feared Since I hoped, I dared!
I realized for a moment with a great sense of sadness that from now on, whenever I decide to read a famous poet for the first time, I must keep myself free from any prejudice and presumption. I had heard that she was regarded as a transcendentalist as far as the major themes in her poems were concerned. I do not know, from where I got this notion, I probably learned it from some of the early articles, I read about her poems somewhere. How authentic was that source? I never checked! And meanwhile, I never got time to read her, verifying such presuppositions.
I'm Nobody! Who are you? Ar you--Nobody--Too?
Transcendentalism is certainly present there, but I also found commonplace innocence along with that profound sapience and susceptibility for Life, Love, and Death in her poetry. She has also written on various subjects like trains, shipwreck, surgeons, contract, lost jewel, etc. But she has filled those ordinary looking stuff around, with the fragrance of her craft and sensitivity.
Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions stirs the culprit,- life!
She herself has claimed that she has her phrases for every thought, but she confessed her limitations as well.
I found the phrase to every thought I ever had, but one; And that defies me,- as a hand did try to chalk the sun
While I was reading this bulky volume, I felt in the beginning as if I were getting acquainted with a young girl, who did not want to disclose her sentiments, and who felt irritated and looked sulky when someone read her and tried to empathize with her sensibility. I felt as if she wished to keep herself hidden. But at the very next moment, I felt as if she were daring me to explore too, proving my thoughts wrong about her hesitancy, telling me how audacious her approach was.
Who never climbed the weary league- Can such a foot explore The purple territories On Pizarro's shore?
Her poems on nature, love, and life are extraordinarily beautiful and touching. Her sensibility in writing about hope and hunger, about life and death, about exploring and returning is just wonderful.
Tomorrow night will come again Weary perhaps and sore Ah, bugle, by my window I pray you stroll once more!
She has scrutinized almost everything. Her subtle observation enlarged my common sense. There were four- liners giving a sound imprint to my sensibility and then there were beautiful longer poems taking me to her world of imagination giving an impression of her vision. She was humorous at times and expressed herself lightly as well, but she never looked futile. She maintained the depth and gravity every time.
I heard that though she lived a secluded life, she was never disappointed with life. I think she might have been an extremely sensitive introvert who invaginated her sentiments from the world and then from within her, came out such beautiful and impressive rhymes and verses, which made her readers feel instantly connected to her.
I am so pleased and joyous reading her and having filled myself with such unique and exotic poetry of this poetess that I am going to visit her poetic world again and again. That鈥檚 a promise!
The soul unto itself Is an imperial friend,- Or the most agonizing spy An enemy could send ...more
Loading...
