Poems Books

I don't usually write reviews but this book of prayers taken from around the world and throughout history is so beautiful and powerfully moving that I had to write to recommend it. Well worth the money - I plan to buy more to give as presents.

I read this book every day. It has enriched my spiritual life tremendously. Now I give it to friends and family. We all have places in our lives and selves that need to be healed-- this book speaks to many of those different dimensions.

Not only will the beautiful cover of this collection edited by Maggie Oman inspire you but the contents, a selection for each day of the year, will offer comfort, peace, and hope no matter what might be taking place in your life. There are entries written by an African-Ameican Abolitionists in 1863, one by Mary Baker Eddy in that same century, another by the Dalai Lama in our own day and yet another by Marianne Williamson. The entries are so good I find myself using the book each morning and then turning back to it throughout the day. I highly recommend it!

I have used this volume for several years in my personal prayer/meditation practice. I order so many copies because I give it to friends anytime there is a crisis, a health concern or a loss. There are meditation for every religious or philosophical style. ost are beautifully-written and touching. I recommended it highly.
Jane

I've loved this book for years. I didn't do it the daily devotional way the book is set up. I read through it and marked the ones that I found especially helpful and comforting. I turned to those when times are tough

I have given a dozen or so of these books to friends and to pastors. I wrote the dates of my favorites in the fly and encouraged them to add their own to the list.

Nearly everyone has told me how helpful the book has been. It's use of prayers from all religions and over hundreds/thousands of yrs helps us to know that our troubles and feelings are not ours alone but have been experienced by others engaged in this experience we call life.

It is really a wonderful treasure when the times are really tough.
Clarice Bates

This book of poems is really the best book of poems I have ever read!!! The introduction to this book is very touching but the poem "The Raven" took my breath away! I couldn't believe that such a poem can make me feel this way!!!

With the emphasis so much on his horror writing, the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe is often overlooked. Which is unfortunate, his poetry has many classic lines, and there is no segment better than the opening line of "The Raven."

"One upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,"

The following poems appear in this collection, The Raven, Annabel Lee, Lines on Ale, The City in the Sea, The Sleeper, Eldorado, Alone, The Haunted Place and The Conquerer Worm.
While some traditionalists may decry the "Classics Illustrated" approach to poetry, I have little time for those arguments. Poe is best when served up illustrated, and the illustrations in this book are excellent. My favorites are the caricatures of Poe in his study that accompany `The Raven." The big eyes and oversized cranium give him the appearance of dark despair. In my opinion, anything that presents the classics in a format that will appeal to young people is to be encouraged, which is why I recommend this book.

...while I pondered weak and weary over many a quant and curious volume of forgotten lore..."
Who can't pass up the mystique and somber terror of one Poe's poems? Don't deny yourself this chance at book full of great literature. Poe might have had a troubled life but his life's work was, and still is, incredible.

Many reknown Literary Critics who live in "Intellectual Ivory Towers" consider this collection of poems to be a so called "Classic". I however tend to disagree with them and unless I woke up in Russia or Communist China this morning I believe I have every right to exercise my Freedom Of Speech. My least favourite poem in this book would have to be "The Raven". Perhaps one can understand the erratic meter of this poem when one learns that it was written in one hour in a cocaine induced frenzy. Sadly Writing and Substance Abuse are not a good combination. I give this book 5 stars because so many people are under the impression that Edgar Allen Poe was a genius instead of a drug addled illicit substance abuser.

This is one of the many poems by Edgar Allan Poe. It is a very good poem but at first I didn't really understand it. It took awhile before I fully understood it even after I had been told the main idea. In this poem raven represents death. What I believe that that the man in this poem is going to die and death is tapping at his door. This poem uses lots of figurative speech and it makes it sound very pretty. Such as "Prophet!,' said I, 'Thing of evil! Prophet still if bird or devil! Whether Tempter sent or tossed thee here ashore, Desolate ye tall undaunted, On this home by horror haunted-tell me truly, I implore- Is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me I implore!' Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore." It would be a good idea to read The Raven.

From the editor of the Hoppin Readin Review on Blogspot

W.H. Auden is truly, as noted by editor Edward Mendelson, a twentieth century poet. Auden had a firm grasp on the essence of contemporary politics and culture and possessed a knack for bringing a reader into his world. This selection spans the entire body of Auden's work, and contains several early poems which are hard to find, as Auden refused to have them republished in later collections of his work. It is a good introduction to Auden, but I recommend reading it along with Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957, as that contains the revisions that Auden made to his poems over time, in his fervor for complete honesty in his work.

While Mendelson's selection is well put together and a good representation of Auden's early craft, the revised poems are generally much stronger (though often bleaker in tone). Many changes, such as the famous revision of September 1, 1939 to read "we must love one another and die" rather than "we must love one or die" were made to reflect the author's shifting attitudes. However, other poems improve significantly with Auden's editing, and if this book is the only Auden you read, you'll miss out on the full depth of his power as a poet.

Auden wrote much poetry in many different forms. He was a very learned poet with strong connection to English poetic tradition. Among his most known poems are those which are also my favorites,"Musee des Beaux Arts", "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" and "September 1,1939". The concluding stanza of this last poem gives a good idea of the special colloquial power of Auden's rhyme and rhythm.

"Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

In that poem also contains the great stanza, " Lest we should see we are/ Lost in a dark haunted wood/ Children afraid of the night/ Who have never been happy or good."
Auden was too a considerable critic of Literature, an outstanding Anthologist, a man-of- letters in a true sense.
I do not know the range of his poetry well, but the anthology pieces are filled with memorable lines.
Edward Mendelson, a well- known Auden scholar, in this work presents a number of original poems which Auden as he was wont to do improved for the worse.

For many of us,the poems that we read in childhood and adolescence are those that stick with us the most. When I was fifteen, I bought this volume and promptly fell in love with Auden's poetry. His work showed a restlessness with the social and political state of his world, and I found that I could connect with it both intellectually and emotionally. To this day, I can revisit this book's pages feeling like I am visiting a childhood friend. Auden expressed some feelings I shared with him, and I was moved by his ability to express them better than I ever could: with frankness, wit, and grace. A must for any literary enthusiast (or any curious fifteen-year-old, for that matter).

The poetry is splendid -- Auden is a brilliant, sensitive, musical and entertaining writer -- and the selection is fairly representative. Mendelson prefers Auden's later poems to his earlier ones, so the twee middle-aged sequences "Bucolics" and "Horae Canonicae" are included complete, while most of "Twelve Songs" (which has some terrific love poems like "Fish in the unruffled lakes", "Funeral Blues" and "Tell me the truth about love") is not. Still, there is enough in here, esp. in the first two-thirds of the book, to give you a fair enough taste of Auden's verse to entice you to buy his Collected Poems.

(You'll still need the Selected; it has a couple of good poems that Auden decided not to republish, and superior versions of some early poems.)

I can do little more than echo the other reviewers here. This is all a 'selected poems' shoud be: introductory and selective. Yes, "Funeral Blues" is missing. But no one can complain about what is here, which includes "In Time of War", the great sonnet sequence; "The Quest", another long sequence; and the entirety of THE SEA AND THE MIRROR, which is based on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST. If you are, however, only interested in his love poems, I'd have to steer you toward TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE, a nice little chapbook containing only those.

My own personal experience with this book may be relevant. It has served to introduce me to one of the finest poets of the last century and sparked a desire to read THE COLLECTED POEMS, also edited by Mendelson, to see how Auden re-wrote thirty of the brilliant poems here included. I'm continuing on my voyage; hope you are starting on yours.

Winner of the 2004 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry, The Sleep Accusations is an eclectic, intimate, and highly recommended collection of the greatest poetry from the intriguing and intuitive works by Randall Watson. A Dog's Life: I love the morning rain./I am like a dog in the street/with my ears up./It's as if I've been out all night/and I am hungry./I can hear the one who feeds me/calling me home.

Winner of the 2004 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry, The Sleep Accusations is an eclectic, intimate, and highly recommended collection of the greatest poetry from the intriguing and intuitive works by Randall Watson. A Dog's Life: I love the morning rain./I am like a dog in the street/with my ears up./It's as if I've been out all night/and I am hungry./I can hear the one who feeds me/calling me home.

Winner of the 2004 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry, The Sleep Accusations is an eclectic, intimate, and highly recommended collection of the greatest poetry from the intriguing and intuitive works by Randall Watson. A Dog's Life: I love the morning rain./I am like a dog in the street/with my ears up./It's as if I've been out all night/and I am hungry./I can hear the one who feeds me/calling me home.

Winner of the 2004 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry, The Sleep Accusations is an eclectic, intimate, and highly recommended collection of the greatest poetry from the intriguing and intuitive works by Randall Watson. A Dog's Life: I love the morning rain./I am like a dog in the street/with my ears up./It's as if I've been out all night/and I am hungry./I can hear the one who feeds me/calling me home.

Winner of the 2004 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry, The Sleep Accusations is an eclectic, intimate, and highly recommended collection of the greatest poetry from the intriguing and intuitive works by Randall Watson. A Dog's Life: I love the morning rain./I am like a dog in the street/with my ears up./It's as if I've been out all night/and I am hungry./I can hear the one who feeds me/calling me home.

what a fun book of poetry! all ages will enjoy the poems as well as the illustrations.

I waited for this to arrive and now it has. It is one of the most totally beautiful books I've bought. The illustrations are wood cut and water color. I love them. The poems just pull you into the pictures. The subject matter is new to me and now I realize what I have been missing.
Can't wait to read this a million times to my grandchildren.

This book is an absolute delight, and the 'pairing' of poet and artist is inspired. Beckie Prange's woodcuts are reminiscent of the genius of work by Gustave Baumann (1881-1971: Chicago, Brown County INDIANA, & New Mexico).

"Song of the Water Boatman" is given its wider readership just as psychologists are announcing concerns about "nature-deprived" children." Blessed be all educators who use this book to plan units & field trips that open eyes and hearts to the natural world so greatly in need of future protectors.

Joyce Sidman packs as much information per square inch as there are microorganisms in the drop of water showing off the "water bear," or "tardigrada." There are favorite segments on every page. In southern Indiana we already are being 'lullabied' by Spring Peepers, grateful for our woods and pond setting. Children are responding with glee to the repetitious "In the Depths of the Summer Pond" - - a musical chant in a four-page spread with 'lessons' about survival and the food chain. Not as beautiful as the dragon fly, the remarkable metamorphosis of the caddis fly, described as a "fashion story" of transformation, will nonetheless fascinate all. Other revelations include the water boatman, and its not-quite-mirror-image, the back swimmer which always swims on its back; both carrying their own bubbles of air with them.

This reviewer will never venture out-of-doors again without more finely tuning my senses to these wonders. We will definitely be exploring our creek with increased enthusiasm. Reviewer mcHAIKU urges that we not allow "nature-deficit" to creep into our souls, and allow our minds to limit periods of hibernation! LET'S THRIVE ON LIVING & LEARNING !

Since I had a baby this past summer, I have been looking for great books to read to her that are educational and just plain fun to read. She is now 5 months and I read her "The Song of the Water Boatman," and her eyes light up and she laughs and smiles. This is not only a whimsical little collection of poems about pond life, it is beautifully illustrated and informational on a pond's wild inhabitants.

Take it from one who grew up -- and still lives -- across the street from a pond, Joyce Sidman knows pond life! With the beautiful, strong first poem "Listen to Me" about the peeper frogs waking in the spring, SONG OF THE WATER BOATMAN introduces readers to all aspects of pond life, from cattails to painted turtles to the food chain. In addition to poems written a variety of styles, Sidman also includes a paragraph of interesting facts about the subject. And it's all capped off with the Caldecott-honor-worthy woodcuts created by Beckie Prange. All in all, a wonderful read-aloud for kids grade 1-4 studying ponds, ecosystems, or poetry...or just for fun. "Listen to Me" joins my personal list of all-time favorite poems. 2006 Caldecott Honor Book.

Sharon Olds is an incredible poet, and should be read by anyone interested in current poetry. The poems in Strike Sparks are powerful language evoking clear visuals and strong feelings. The seeming simplicity of her writing style, coupled with her focused attention, leaves one wanting to turn each page and absorb yet another. At the same time, she has a wonderful sense of humor--the first page that flipped open when I first picked up the book was "The Pope's Penis." How can you not explore further after that?!

After reading her letter to Mrs. Bush, I'm supporting Sharon Old's rejection of Laura Bush's invitation to participate in the National Book Festival and breakfast at the White House by buying one of her books. Thank you, Sharon Olds for making this brave and costly stand. I hope others will buy your books to support you and your honesty. I look forward to becoming acquainted with your poetry.

I have to admit I was not familiar with the work of Sharon Olds before today. Today I read her moving letter to Laura Bush explaining why she was declining her invitation to the National Book Festival in Washington.

If her poetry is one tenth as moving, heart-felt, and true as that letter, she's gotta be one terrific poet, and I look forward to the volumes of her work I ordered from Amazon this evening. If you've not yet read her letter yet, I urge you, do so.

As one of Olds' fans for many years, I am the owner of most of her books. Her book The Father still brings me to tears. I want to buy this additional one in support, as are others, of her letter to Laura Bush--and of her ongoing brilliance and honesty as a poet.

Her father is dying, and her plane's been cancelled, but there's another, leaving in just a few minutes, not in this terminal, but it will get her to her father before he dies, and so Sharon Olds runs --- I swear to you, she runs as no woman has ever run before.

She's making love. Though it looks like she's having sex, because the writing is so specific. But as much as Sharon Olds revels when he does [redacted] to her and she [redacted], she's clear what's really going on. ("How do they do it, the ones who make love without love?" she wonders.) And so, after, she knows what women know after.

Her son, he's so big now. And her daughter --- brushing her hair, Sharon Olds can't help thinking: What does it all mean?

Parents, lovers/husbands, children. Sharon Olds deals mostly --- I could almost say: deals only --- with the big topics. At least, the big topics if you have parents, husbands/lovers and kids. And she deals with them so directly, so bluntly, that it may come as a surprise to those who do not know her writing that she is a poet, and, for my money, the best we have.

The subject of a lot of poetry is poetry: the poem taking its place --- or wanting to --- in the great chain of literature. Sharon Olds has done her reading. And she has her influences. But the beauty of her writing is that you see none of that. All you get is a woman, looking and listening, and then talking. "Do what you are going to do, and I will tell you about it," she writes at the end of a poem about her parents, and that's the strength of her work --- it's just the facts she thinks you need, plus her take on them.

Sharon Olds can go this deep because she lives this deep. She does not read newspapers or watch TV. "The amount of horror one used to hear about in one village could be quite extreme," she explains. "But one might not have heard about all the other villages' horrors at the same time." Also, she doesn't drink coffee or smoke, and she limits her wine. Her life is marriage, kids, work. Which, she says, accounts for accessibility of her poems:

"I think that my work is easy to understand because I am not a thinker. How can I put it? I write the way I perceive, I guess. It's not really simple, I don't think, but it's about ordinary things -- feeling about things, about people. I'm not an intellectual, I'm not an abstract thinker. And I'm interested in ordinary life. So I think that our writing reflects us."

"Strike Sparks" is a selection of her poems from 1980 to 2002. It tells a story, though that wasn't her intent along the way. ("I'm just interested in human stuff like hate, love, sexual love and sex. I don't see why not.") In these poems, we follow the dying of a father, the growth of children, the deepening of love through sex. And more. Because Sharon Olds mostly does what the greatest poets do: She knows what you feel, but can't find the words to say.

Wanda Phipp's poems are deliciously spare and delightful to read. She balances the acutal with the metaphysicaL in some acute and beautiful ways through the spaces she moves in and out of:
"a kiss not a kiss but a city operational I am with tea and mobility" #28 Like a Wallace Stevens orange on a Sunday morning, but without the formalisms, these poems glow with a garden of City delights and sometimes, doubts. But underlying the collection is a journey, and a celebration of being an artist in New York, which can be both a city of constraints (survival work) and semi-or subconscious visions and serendipities...From many angles she portrays her own musings and the City's light. Read it!

I was given this book by a friend. Since I have very strong opinions about poetry--having grown up reading Anne sexton, May Sarton, Auden, etc--I thought, "I'm not even going to look at this. Nice cover, though."
Imagine my surprise when I glanced through it, and was so caught up that i sat down, poured a glass of wine, and read all the way through. i called my mom and read her a poem. I read one to my husband. I read one to the cat. I was surprised: the poems are seemingly unassuming, but their power accumulates, and they finally offer a true and piercingly insightful look into a modern woman's real heart.
This book had become part of my life. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Wanda Phipps' 66 Morning Poems, teaches us to be more in-tune with our own morning thoughts as we read the ones she has captured here in this book. Succinct crystal clear observation is the fuel Wanda Phipps provides her reader so to feel and see for themselves. Wanda Phipps does and will continue to make the world a better place. SEE HER LIVE!

Wanda Phipps' Wake-Up Calls 66 Morning Poems is a delightful read wherever and whenever you choose to pick up this book. This series of poems makes for the catalyst to a great day. I have enjoyed reading these poems in the early morning when I wake a prepare for my day. I love taking this book on the train and reading as I head to work. I feel a sense of being centered in Wanda's choice of words and feel like she's tapped into the early morning experiences we all go through in life. After finishing, I felt like I wanted more poems. I wanted each morning to continue reading through her colorful textures. Wanda evokes an energy that wakes this readers morning peak. At this point, I will explore searching for further reading material on Wanda Phipps. I truly enjoyed reading her poems not once, but several times since I've purchased this book.

Regards,

Thomas Paul

The style is so appealing, lyrical-sensual. Wanda Phipps evokes a kind of dreamy Bohemian lifestyle one doesn't hear enough about in this high-pressure type-A world. Thanks to her for helping to bring that back.

Even my friends who think poetry is boring and ponderous and Buddha a smiling statue (thanks probably to some stodgy professors 20 years ago) couldn't put this book down when they spotted it on my coffee table. With a sly sense of humor and enormous knowledge of his subject, Gary Gach has taken a single (and often misunderstood)theme and compiled a "panorama" of examples that give life and texture to Buddha and Buddhism.

What he has done is kind of like a hundred talented photographers, using radically different techniques, having their crack at one single image or subject, each in his or her own way. Uniting dozens of other voices, Gach has given texture and spirit to his subject.

What surprised me the most is that this book never gets old -- I read it over and over again, sometimes a page, sometimes a poem at a time.

The movement of Eastern religions to the West has been one of the most remarkable phenomena of the 20th century. Beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing into the late 1990s, the influence of Buddhism (along with other Eastern religions) has been evident, perhaps most strongly in the arts and particularly strongly in contemporary poetry. Here is an enormous anthology of poetry celebrating that phenomenon.

- NAPRA ReVie

These are poems that capture that shimmering moment in time and allow it to illuminate our lives. They are the poems, mostly small, that come from perfect attention - the result of a moment, rendered timeless.

The book also comes with some wonderful tips for writers from Allen Ginsberg.

The single problem: I could find the Beat, but where's the Hip Hop?

I am the editor of this anthology.

CORRECTION: The title is not WHAT BOOK - the title is WHAT BOOK!?

Exclamation mark, question mark.

And an UPDATE: it received the American Book Award this year. This is the greatest honor.

It has been a few years since I first read this book. I recently picked it up again, and found gems in it that I had either forgotten (not likely) or that I now connect with in a brand new way.

There is a timeless quality to this work -- so many of the pieces touch a nerve, or make me smile, or are a complete distraction, or take a few readings before I understand them. In any event, many of Awl's recurring themes speak to me: a craving for silliness, sense memories, seeing things backwards, out-of-body experiences, serendipity, loneliness, sharing, insomnia, and flavor. There are more. And maybe even some that you would connect with that do not resonate with me.

In a word, Brilliant. A great writer, who gives this sparkling collection. I look forward to re-reading WTSM for many years (and for reading Awl's next book whenever it comes along).

...buy it already! And prepare yourself for that wonderful tickling sensation that is the stimulation of your grey matter, in a way you've not experienced before. Genius.

I've now bought seven copies of this book to give to people. I've personally read it three times and find myself refering to it periodically during the course of normal conversation. Sure, people look at me a little strange as we drive down the road in their car and I say something like "Please drive. Please drive slowly." but I simply smile with a self knowing satisfaction of what I'll be getting them for their birthday. It's really a fine piece of work this book. A bargain at twice the price.

In this delightful debut, Dave Awl explores relationships, identity and creativity with a great mixture of sensitivity, lyricism, humour, honesty and surrealism. In pieces such as Bestiary, Talking to Myself, Talking to Myself: The Interview, Immense Buddha Under Fire, Points of Connection, The Idea of You and the deliciously mysterious What The Sea Means, the strangeness and poignancy of life is examined with a refreshing vividity of style and deprecation of self.

By far my favourite piece is A Perfectly Empty Room, in which a man makes repeated attempts to clear out his room and, by extension, his life, only for everything to constantly find its way back in underneath his door - something I and, I'm sure, many other people can relate to. Dave Awl has a penchant for taking metaphors like this for a walk and seeing where they lead him. If you go along with him you'll find the journey is repeatedly interesting and above all, entertaining.

The best thing about this book though is how much there is of it. Dave Awl has been busy since 1987, and there is plenty here for readers to get their teeth into. The book is bursting with things to say, and even when it's said them it goes into some fascinating notes about where many of the pieces originated and how they were staged.

If you sometimes feel like the man that Vermeer painted over, and know that nobody can properly articulate the sadness of the tea kettle, buy this book.

The wonders of Dave Awl's book became apparent to me within 12 hours of it taking its place on my Kramer-style coffee table. A friend, not one normally to be seen within page-turning distance of a book - let alone to be seen sitting still on the sofa for longer than a nanosecond - suddenly (and without prompting) began reading aloud some of these stories, poems and monologues. Then she started laughing. Soon, she was recommending stories for me - I hadn't even begun reading 'What The Sea Means' at this point. Soon, we were passing the book back and forth, each reading aloud, exchanging "the good bits" (and there are many), and suggesting the book would make an excellent Christmas present for our friends.
OK. I'm biased. But I highly recommend, in no particular order: 'A Perfectly Empty Room' (story); 'The Idea of You' (monologue); 'Glastonbury' (poem); 'What The Sea Means' (poem); and a poem about Magritte, which I can't seem to find in the index but which I know has to be there ... Reading this book wouldn't be complete without its own little mysteries.
In a nutshell, word paintings that are surreal and full of revelations. Best of all, at the back of the book is a section of notes. It answers questions you haven't asked yet and poses some you wish you had.
Diving into Dave Awl's work is like discovering a continent or a magical island: You thought it might be there but you didn't dare hope it would be this weird, this different.
Do your brain cells a favour.

This is a lovely book with poems ranging from the classical to the quirky, though without disappointment.

I like the variety of Love Poems in this book, from serious to ribald, from classic to modern. Also includes notes from the "author" which may offer some interpretive assitance.

The title says it all. Great Poets with great love poems equates to a pleasurable read. If you like romance and love, then this book Love poems are for you.

How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul?
How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote lost objects,
in some dark and silent place that doesn't resonate
when our depths resound. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Leslie Pockell has created a collection of 100 Love Poems in order to explore the many facets of love's expression. The poems range from passionate longings to realistic portrayals (Judith Viorst's True Love). There are images of love's transcendence and safety. Everything from ecstasy to grief is included. Classics like To Helen by Edgar Allan Poe are very familiar.

The River Merchant's Wife by Li Po brings elegant beauty and Strawberries by Edwin Morgan dips into memories of storms while eating strawberries in sugar, one of my all-time favorite poems because of the ending. Katherine Mansfield's poem about tea is warm and satisfying. The flow and rhythm in many of the poems is especially comforting.

The wide range of emotions within the poems also allows for a few moments of sarcasm (Love 20 Cents the First Quarter Mile by Kenneth Fearing) and even humor that is adorably funny. Your Catfish Friend by Richard Brautigan is witty and cute and looks at love from an especially creative perspective. This allows for poems with personality and lightens the heavier content and melancholy love often reveals.

Complete poems and extracts mingle effortlessly through the pages. Each poem is accompanied by an insightful explanation that also sheds light on historical facts and the life of the poet. In Love Song by Rainer Maria Rilke we learn of his lifelong melancholy and Leslie Pockell explains how he is conscious of the distance between lovers playing an "essential part in sustaining the mystery of love and life." Her ideas flow with the poems in a beautiful celebration of poetry. She gives only enough information to introduce the poem and does not provide extended commentary.

Poets featured in this collection include: Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Howard Moss, Christopher Marlowe, John Milton, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Burns, Robert Graves, Rumi, Sir John Suckling, E.E. Cummings, Frances Cornford, Sir Philip Sidney, Guillaume Apollinaire, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Walt Witman, Pablo Neruda, William Blake, Robert Frost, Catullus, Octavio Paz, Tzumi Shikibu, Sylvia Plath, Li Po, D.H. Lawrence, John Keats, Ted Hughes, Margaret Atwood and many more...

There are 100 poets featured in this book. Whether you are a hopeless romantic or enjoy thinking about the many aspects of love, this book has much to offer. I can almost guarantee you will find 5 poems to adore, 10 you want to read again and again and 20 new poets you are happy to have found.

~The Rebecca Review

This book paints a picture of love with the most beautiful word pictures, it decorates the soul with heartfelt visuals of passion.