This is an unusual collection of insightful moments, people, relationships and life throughout the day into evening. Many will find something of value just by randomly opening the pages and selecting something new, including births, deaths, lovers, children, snooping, guns, the down side of Las Vegas, soap operas and birthdays.
Category: Poetry Reviews
A review of Reading Modernist Poetry by Michael H. Whitworth
Although the price is rather steep, even for a textbook, this isn’t a book you can just read through, put back on the shelf and forget. For those that want an insight, both as reader, and perhaps more valuably, as writer, into the techniques of poetry in general, and those specific to the giants of poetry that make up the ultra-influential modernist movement, this is a book that can be returned to regularly. It is well structured, well researched, clearly written, and full of innovative insights.
Three Hundred Tang Poems translated and edited by Peter Harris
The poems convey a diverse range of moods and themes: love and longing, celebrations of nature and music and drinking ale, sorrow and melancholy, mysticism.
A review of Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Though Millay plays to the gallery a bit, mindful that she has a bit of a reputation to keep up (Byron did it too), she is a poet of substance. This fine, generous selection of her poetry includes also Aria da Capo, a one-act verse drama about xenophobia and the suspicion of the stranger.
A review of Into the Yell by Sarah James
jpg” align = “left”> Throughout the book, the imagery is always powerful – drawing from myth, fairy tales, a painter’s palette, Blake, medical terminology, the beautician’s rooms, the seaside, and above all, the natural world.
A review of Music’s Spell by Emily Fragos
You will find it difficult to decide on favourites herein. Close to the top must come David Wojahn’s poem about the meeting between Dylan and Woody Guthrie at the Brooklyn State Hospital. Then there is Tomas Transtromer’s poem about Haydn (‘Allegro’), which is quite sublime.
A review of Russian Poets edited by Peter Washington
There is an abundance of that much vaunted Russian soul – spiritual and cynical, sometimes both at once; continually celebrating and kvetching about creation – in this fine collection.
A review of Introduction to French Poetry: CD Edition by Stanley Applebaum
Introduction to French Poetry provides a lovely and well-structured overview which will help show the relationship between poets – how one historical movement gave rise to another, as well as to provide a beginner’s sense of the many different styles and symbols of the poetic giants who shaped the French poetic landscape.
A review of Shana Linda – Pretty Pretty by Nanette Rayman Rivera
Language is used here as talisman – a means for escaping the ugliness of the present into something bigger and, if not better, more powerful. Rhythm and alliteration are used expertly, to create partial rhymes and a song-like metre that mirrors meaning.
A review of under the gums’ long shade by Beatriz Copello
Beatriz Copello’s under the gums’ long shade is a beautifully written, tender collection full of rich moments. It travels along a very national route, exploring the Australian terrain, and then moves outward to a place that encompasses all of humanity.