By the time the work gets to “Days of Violence days of Rages”, the extended poem becomes an incantation of pain moving Alice through an entire lifetime of sex, communism, childbirth, betrayal, loneliness, illness and death. It’s both intensely powerful and at the same time, self-indulgent and bitter.
Tag: poetry
A review of Whose Cries Are Not Music by Linda Benninghoff
I especially liked when she reaches a moment of spirituality in “Dream” that has a happy, feel to it “… Your eyes quivering in the light / Where is God / But in a dream where / the light between us, always yellow …” hints that there is something more one can obtain beyond our life.
A review of The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction By Dean Young
Throughout, there’s a lot of luminous polemic, a slue of terrific poems (Man Ray’s ‘Untitled’ was a new one on me), a bevy of insights about art and poetry. If you are looking for a classy thought-provoking rant, if you want something to stir and shake you up and perhaps inspire you to start writing poems (if you don’t already) then The Art of Recklessness is prescribed.
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 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.