Thursday, December 10, 2009
Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars is the beautiful collection in which author Jim Daniels contemplates the passage of time, reflecting on his growth from a youth restless in a small Midwestern town to a loving father and husband trying to absorb and draw out each fleeting moment with his family. Daniels handles his subjects – […]
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Although Sylvia Plath did not gain much recognition in her own time, her poetry is certainly worth a read. The Colossus was her first published book of poetry and has a lot to offer to today’s poets. Plath sometimes merges classic mythology with present-day issues and language. The poem “Two Sisters of Persephone” uses […]
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
I stumbled into the mansion one afternoon determined to find three volumes of poetry that I at least liked. Once I got into the lending library, however, I realized that I had no idea where to start. Enlisting the help of Professor Rafferty to find poetry for non-poets, we came up with a small stack. […]
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
In Declension in the Village of Chung Luong, Bruce Weigl writes poems about everything that should not be written about in poetry, according to how-to guides for high school creative writing classes. But he pulls it off magnificently. He writes about war, its aftermath and death blatantly, but while elevating it to a poetic […]
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
This collection, Maurice Manning’s third, consists of all untitled and unpunctuated poems, all addressing the same person or thing, “boss.” As the poems progress it becomes clear that “boss” means a creator of sorts, and the speaker addresses “boss” through questions and praise for their work on Earth. With out any periods or commas, each […]
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Poem a Day is a collection of poems put together by Karen McCosker and Nicholas Albery. I highly recommend it for any aspiring poet as a way to bring poetry into every day. The collection is diverse, giving the reader examples of many types of poems, and consequently many new ideas on what can be […]
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Temper by Beth Bachmann is a poetic page-turner, grabbing the reader at the first verse and refusing to let them go. It tracks the time and feelings the speaker has after the death of her sister. It flows in a storytelling manner, an especially good read for people who don’t normally read just collections of […]
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Woods and Chalices is the translated collection of poems by Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun. I picked up a used copy at Riverby Books, having been intrigued by the blunt brevity of the poems inside. Šalamun constructs verse with a disarming directness as he blends past and present, fantasy and nature, obscenity and sensuality, as well […]
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Magnetic North, the collection from award-winning poet Linda Gregerson, offers reflections on a variety of subjects, from religion to nature to cultural events. Gregerson uses scientific language and unexpected images to talk about larger themes like 9/11 and adolescent self-injury. In “Bicameral,” for example, she uses the terminology of embryology to examine the divide between […]
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Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Before reading this collection I was unfamiliar with Charles Bukowski’s work. Really the only reason I picked it up was because I liked the title, and skimming through it I liked what I saw. After finishing the collection, I have a love-hate relationship with it. The poems in the collection generally operate through […]
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