Poems Books

Whether Audre Lorde is communicating about being Afro-American, a woman, a mother, a lesbian, or a survivor of cancer, she never pulls any punches. She definitely is an unsung leader. She accomplished quite a lot in her 58 years. Despite being the poet in resident of New York state, she is little heard of. And that's too bad. Her voice is strong and clear against oppression. May my voice, in my books such as "Forever Retro Blues" be as clear and as strong.

Collecting the work of the incredibly accessible and graceful Lorde, this book gives you not only all of her work in one fell swoop, but one of the best overviews of style and voice that can be found in one poet.

A must-have for poets and an incredible teaching resource.

This book of poetry should be required for life. It is one of the most inspirationational books ever. Audre Lorde's work will live forever through this work and I highly recommend it.

In my opinion, Audre Lorde is one of the best poets of our time. Her words create vibrant images in the mind, as well as indelibly printing their echoes on the heart. Whether harsh and dark, or light and singing, her verse is incomparable. This book, a collection of her works, can be nothing less than brilliant simply for being exactly what it is. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes poetry -- and even some who don't. Lorde can change your view of the genre if anyone can.

What a pleasure now to have the complete poems of Odysseus Elytis, the Greek winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Literature, thoughtfully and sensitively translated by the American poet Jeffrey Carson and the Greek musician Nikos Sarris. Elytis was born on Crete in 1911. His family was from Lesbos, the island of another great poet, Sappho, and Elytis often vacationed there. Carson and Sarris both live on Paros, and it is no doubt their familiarity with the nuances of Aegean sun and sea, and their love for that harsh clarity, that gives them insights into Elytis' poetry. The erotic and the sea are themes that Elytis pursues throughout his long life. (He died in 1996.) Eros is love, sensual love, for the kore, the young woman who appears in his poems; she is a muse, and she also embodies the truth that resides within, and beyond, the familiar things of the world-in particular, the archipelago, the sun-drenched world of the Aegean, of Greece. Any translation of poetry may be suspect, but these translations are not only faithful to the Greek but harmonious with the music and the spirit of the original. Elytis encouraged and approved Carson's and Sarris' twenty-year labor of love and diligence, begun in the late `70's when Elytis happened upon some poems of Carson's. Carson, already an admirer of Elytis' poetry, had written, in Greek, a series of notes on Elytis' work, which Elytis arranged to have published. Elytis encouraged Carson and Sarris to capture the flavor, rather than the literalness, of his poetry, but they found that a literal translation in fact best captured the spirit of Elytis' verse. Carson's Introduction and Notes provide informative and concise guidance to the reader new to Elytis. This is the only complete collection of Elytis' poems in any language, including Greek. The poems' bracing adventurousness is not only quintessentially Greek but uncannily American, too, in the tradition of Whitman's sensual inclusiveness and Henry Miller's cosmic exuberance. Elytis may be a healthy elixir for our present minimalist, formalist, confessional fashions. William Borden, North Dakota Quarterly

Odysseus Elytis (1911 -1996) was a very gifted Greek poet who dedicated his life to a love of hope, beauty, freedom and Greek tradition conveyed in words and imagery that leave the reader thirsting for more. It is this insatiable thirst for droplets of human comfort during life's anguished moments and visionary beauty which together give rise to rainbows of hope that is shared by people of all cultures that has made Elytis a "poete sans frontiers", or a poet without borders.

The Collected Poems of Odysseus Elytis published in 1997 is the first collection of the entire body of poetry of Elytis in any language, including Greek. The translations by Jeffrey Carson and Nikos Sarris do justice to the original poems, providing the reader with the same captivating lyricism and surreal imagery used by Elytis to give voice to the universally human consciousness.

The poetry of Elytis gained the attention of the Swedish Academy which announced in 1979 that Odysseus Elytis had been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature "for his poetry, which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clear sightedness modern man's struggle for freedom and creativeness."

Another honorable recognition was bestowed upon Elytis in 1964 when the renown Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis set Elytis' epic poem The Axion Esti to music and the resulting music and lyrics became so popular that today many Greeks know at least part of the song by heart. The Axion Esti was considered to be the poet's most ambitious poem and was described by the Swedish Academy as "one of twentieth century literature's most concentrated and ritually faceted poems". This poem recounts the world of Eros, including his battle against the darkness created by misunderstanding and hatred, his victory, and the ultimate justification and praise.

Elytis possessed an historical as well as a moral awareness that became a pivotal part of his poems and served as a counterweight to his deep and abiding love of the Aegean with all of its spectacular beauty. Elytis faced the prospect of his own human mortality as well as the manifestation of tragic human evil when he served with distinction at the Albanian front during the Second World War when the Greeks defeated the Mussolini's army in the first allied forces victory against the Axis. The horrors of that military campaign, followed by his brutal experiences with the Nazi occupation of Greece, a civil war and a military dictatorship, provided a significant catalyst for this gifted poet to continue to carry the literary torch in the tradition of Greece's best poetry which identified ideal beauty with moral good and truth.

The art, literature, philosophy and religion of pre-Classical Greece also greatly influenced the lifetime work of Elytis. In many of his poems, Elytis wrote about heroism in the context of the ancient hero upon whom risks, danger and even terror are thrust by Fate, after which the hero bravely confronts the challenge and is transformed by the experience. The hero, to whom the reader can relate from his own life's experiences, is given this opportunity for growth and development through the inevitable wounds, wisdom and willfulness that result from his encounter with Fate's challenge ... wounds that will heal and sculpt scars of remembrance; wisdom that is born of reflection, generosity of spirit and adherence to life's values; and willfulness of the inner strength of our spirit. A reader of his poetry cannot help seeing himself in many of these poems that at the same time serve to inspire and throw down the gauntlet.

I will always remember Elytis as the Poet of the Aegean Sea. He was born in 1911 and began writing poetry in 1929 in the Aegean islands. He later established himself as one of the leading voices of a generation of literary giants, including his fellow Nobel Laureate George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos. Unlike Seferis who spent a lifetime struggling against melancholy, Elytis is widely appreciated by his readers because he finds hope even in tragedy. His poetry clearly reflects his relentless search for the paradise that lives deeply within all of us and his conviction that the discovery of paradise is within our capability as well as our grasp. Elytis' poems celebrate the vitality and vibrancy of the Aegean landscape, the energies of man and his soul and the spirit of nature. He uses the power of language to link myth with history and to confront good and evil. His poetry clearly reflects his love of hope, freedom and the beauty that is in all.

This first collection of all the works of the great master is a must for anyone who endeavors to explore the Modern Greek culture and discover its representation of the universal human experience. This book has become a source of constant inspiration and discovery in our home.

This translation by Jeffrey Carson is a delight for the senses. The poetry of Elytis has stimulated a great number of intellectual reviews, but there can be no true appreciation without experiencing the context of his work. These poems present a life that could be lived only in Greece. No translator who has not tasted that life would be able to capture this essence of Elytis. Carson was chosen for this task partly because of his own life in Greece: because he truly does understand.

An awesome book, but readers should be aware that the "collected" in the title is somewhat misleading. "Collected", yes, "complete", no. In August 1998 _Eros, Eros, Eros : Selected and Last Poems_ by Elytis (his real name was Odysseus Alepoudhelis, by the way) was published, containing his last poems.

This was a refreshing book of poetry which took you back in time. The author covers many decades and marks specific earth shaking events in a way many authors have not. I also enjoyed her viewpoints of younger children then her growing pains of being in love, experiencing death, as well as the coping of life. I highly recommend this to everyone. Here is a great book for children to learn from.

Here is a glimpse at what all of us go through in life. You can easily see how the writer grows not only with in herself but in her work. Here is a great book for young adults to read as well as any age group. It let's you realize that we all have growing pains and we do live through them. There are some beautifully written poems on nature that will be around for ages to come. I recommend this book highly to everyone.

This is a very unusual book of poetry. It adds thoughts of what was going on in the world in the past allowing some of us to remember how things were. The view points of many different age levels are apparent throughout the book which lets the reader feel how the various age levels react to their surroundings at the time. I would recommend this book for young adults as well as those older. They themselves will be able to reflect upon the struggles we all go through during life no matter at what age.

This is an intriging collection of poems that the author shared with us. She has brought laughter and thoughtfullness. I highly recommend this book to others!

I'm a solid atheist. I also love Herbert's intimate dialogue and often battle with his God. Stylistically, he dominates better known poets of the Metaphysical era, such as Donne. His backround as a musician comes through in all his work. He inherits the Metaphysicals' use of vivid metaphor. He looks ahead to Gerard Manley Hopkins in his fusion of music,image and conversation. "Love bade me welcome" and "Prayer" are among the jewels of poetry.

If you are religious, Herbert will be of great comfort in his deep and moving spirituality. If you are not, that spirituality is still so compelling and resonant that you will feel with and for him. He in many ways reminds me of Emily Dickinson: the poet of the quirky, gentle, wry and elegaic short poem. Do read Prayer with its lovely last line "something understood" and Love with its last line "And I replied, my Lord."

Herbert os a treasure. In my sixties, I respond to him with the same respect and warmth as in my twenties when I first discovered him.

Herbert is ordinarily classified along with Donne, as a Metaphysical poet i.e. one who use extreme metaphor and makes connections between completely diverse matters to forward a rough and energetic argument in verse. Herbert is , as I sense it, gentler than Donne. He is a more quiet devotional poet, one with deep religious faith. There is a certain sense of his humility and great power of concentration in his devotion.His love of music plays a central role in the metaphoric structure of his work.
Among his often anthologized poems are " The Collar" " The Pulley" "To the Jews" "The Altar"

Over the centuries, there has been a great deal of Christian poetry written by a broad range of poets, but only a tiny handful of that can stand comparison with the very best nonreligious poetry. The later poetry of John Donne, Milton, Dante, some of the early American Puritan poets, and the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins does not quite exhaust the list, but it consumes most of it. And, of course, George Herbert stands at the head of any such list. Of all these poets, Herbert is probably my favorite as a religious poet. By that, I mean someone who is religiously satisfying while at the same time writing exquisite poetry. There is simplicity of expression in Herbert that is missing in Donne, and a personal piety that I do not find in Milton, whose poetry, while unquestionably religious in spirit, is somewhat spiritually dry. One wouldn't read Milton to inspire piety. Hopkins is brilliant, but I find myself focusing on his over alliteration.

George Herbert was one of those either fortunate or unfortunate younger sons of a landed family who was forced to enter the Church because the family title passed onto his older brother. That brother, very nearly as well known as his younger brother for his own writings, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, was the author of several books, including what could be regarded as the first history of comparative religion written in England. The religions compared were not, however, Christianity, Judaism, Islam with Buddhism and Hinduism or with so-called primitive religion, but with Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian religions.

This is an excellent edition of Herbert's poetry, but one should note the title carefully. Herbert, in fact, wrote a fair amount of poetry in Latin. That unfortunately, is not included either in original form or in English translation.

Other poets can write about the beauty of the woman that they love, but Hebert writes of the true source of beauty, the source that most deserves praise in poetry: God. Hebert's poetry is a tribute to God, for whom he gave up everything to go into ministry. A musician, Herbert writes much of his poetry in a way that is almost musical, and may have at one time been set to music. A collection of his poetry can be an incredible devotional tool for personal reflection and praise. It can also be wonderful to study in the classroom because of his brilliant use of literary devices. My favorite poem of his is The Holy Scriptures. For a taste of Hebert's beautiful tributes... "Oh book! Infinite sweetnesse! Let my heart suck ev'ry letter...."Your heart will suck every letter from Hebert's beautiful poetry.

Very old book, I think I could not find it in any bookstore (you have to look for it very intensely). Thanks for the service!!!

The Earl of Rochester lived a life worthy of Tom Jones. He was indeed a deabauched libertine, slightly less worthy of censure than the Marquis de Sade. Yet he was something that De Sade was not, a great wit. Though nowhere near the range or genius of Pope or Swift, he nevertheless compiled a great body of satirical poetry in the Juvenalian tradition. His "Satyre Against Mankind," Like Swift's Houyhnhnms chapters, present human beings in their true place in nature, despite all the panegyrics and biblical references placing us at the top of the chain. If you are lover of satire, as I am, and don't mind observations that place us amongst the lower orders rather than atop some Parnassian peak, give this volume a try.

It's only in the past deacade that we have re-discovered the fine English art of swearing, and here we have a classic wrighter to remind us how its done. Rochester's poetry is both funny and irrevirent, and his genuine hatred of mankind is tangible and heart warming. And he's not afrade of calling someone a c##t either! The perfect antidote to all that crap about love they made you read in school

The 2nd Earl of Rochester (John Wilmot) is one of our greatest love poets in the English language. He and his work have been neglected in previous times because of the debauched lifestyle he had led and what was once perceived as the obscene nature of some of his poetry. Today, these poems are recognized as some of the most beautiful erotic verse ever written. They speak of every kind of sexual love, from unrequited love to fulfilled love, from young love to the nastalgia of remembering long-ago love, from ethereal love to barnyard lust--it's all there. Many of his more racy poems have been lost down the centuries through lack of publication, censorship and other similar factors, but much of his best work survives.

I like Rochester's poems for the colorful use of language they possess, the depths of passionate sentiment they convey, and the understanding of eroticism that is so characteristic of this great poet's work[...]

David Rehak
author of "Poems From My Bleeding Heart"

The book was in excellent condition and arrived as promptly as one could expect. As of this date I really haven't had a bad experience with any of my book orders. Thanks so much.

Hardy had a life-long fascination with the paradox of memory: how people, events, and even isolated feelings can be buried by time and later resurrected in the fullness of emotional memory. His central aesthetic principle is that of `the exhumed emotion,' which one can wryly interpret as a graveyard variant of Wordsworth's "emotion recollected in tranquillity." But for Hardy, it was a mysterious capability, like his comment that "I am cut out by nature for a ghost-seer." Hardy's aesthetic of the "grotesque" frequently features past lovers as ghosts or elusive phantoms.

In "She, to Him III" he muses on the "souls of Now" who would disjoint / The mind from memory, making Life all aim, / And nothing left for Love to look upon." In this brief phrase, from the start of his career, can be found four of the major themes of his entire life and work: the present ("Now"), memory (past), Life, and Love, all in tension with one another.

The volume contains innumerable poems of unrequited love, regretted love, guilty love, repentant love, etc. etc. One of the great English poets of the 20th century. Ranks with Yeats and above Heaney.

Perfect! What more needs to be said? This collection was delicious and is a treasure for any Hardy fan. Enjoy every bite!!

Considering how depressing Hardy's novels can be, his poems are curiously uplifting, full of descriptive power and a love of rural England. Among his classics are "The Darkling Thrush", "Channel Firing" (great World War I poem), and "The Oxen" (beautiful Christmas poem about nostalgia and faith).

Like his novels, the poems illustrate Hardy's capturing of the past and his sense of something greater than us shaping our lives and our feelings. These are apparent in "Last Words to a Dumb Friend", his lament for his deceased cat. In this, the very home where the cat lived seems to resonate with the cat once he has passed to "the Dim" (i.e., beyond Death):

"And this house, which scarcely took
Impress from his little look,
By his faring to the Dim (NOTE: faring = travelling)
Grows all eloquent of him."

A little difficult to read (content and form). There's alot more here than the small letters.

Not being able to remember a first line, which could be easily found in the Index of First Lines starting at page 849, I just looked through hundreds of pages trying to find a poem whose last line is spread over seven lines on page 700. These poems are not always easy to read, and now that I have found this one, I would love to share it with anyone who might be interested:

as joe gould says in

his terrifyingly hu
man man
ner the only reason every wo
man

should

go to college is so
that she never can(kno
wledge is po
wer)say o

if i

'd
OH
n
lygawntueco

llege

There may be some problem, like am I being retro? with the way that I think about the poems in this book, because I tried to read the whole book more than twenty years ago, and was so impressed that when an Etcetera collection of additional poems came out in 1983, I bought that too. I'm not sure I know anyone now who would even consider reading a book this big if it was just poems. The big revelation in the 1913-1962 collection, as far as I was concerned, was the poem "the boys i mean are not refined," which was first published in a limited edition of nine copies in 1935, according to the first paragraph of the inside flap of the First American edition 1972 of Complete Poems 1913-1962, which I still have. That poem, in particular, taught me a lot about culture, and how someone (famous) who knew what culture was could know what could be said, while others might just "speak whatever's on their mind." This might be close to what the verses in Proverbs that try to describe the difference between a wise man and a fool are trying to say, and it was great to find that someone who might be considered almost as modern as myself could be sensitive to this kind of thing, almost like hearing John Prine wondering if it would be possible for him to still blush in some song he wrote.

Even I don't read much of this book at any one time, anymore, but I appreciate how well it stores its pleasures. One of the curiosities of poetry is that it can be incredibly difficult to find a poem unless the first line is the one that pops into the appropriate recall mechanism, whenever a poem is thought of, and this book has been around a long time because, even when I don't know if I will be able to find what I am looking for, it is interesting to look through it trying to find the last line of a great poem that was greater at the end than at the beginning. My favorite poem in this book starts out with "jake hates/all the girls" but the great thing is an unexpected rhyme scheme, which jumps around from bold, meek, sleek, cold in the first verse to lean, mean, clean, green in the last. Actually, this poem might be considered utterly devastating if there was anything personal about it, but thoughts about all the girls have been on the conscience of philosophy about as long as books have been maintained for the future, and it does my heart good to see a poet try to join in the mess surrounding this topic. What I mean is, I think this poem is good in a way that centuries of being modern might try to deny, but it is here, under a number 21 in a section titled XAIPE, originally published in 1950, when I was alive and maybe even speaking, if something reminded me of my mother. Actually, she might not like this poem, so I think it's funny, if anyone can understand the humor in that. These reviews aren't supposed to be by great critics; they are just supposed to say: buy this book.

'anybody lived in a pretty how town
with up so floating many bells down'

The poetry of ee cummings is something that most Americans gain exposure to during secondary school (and very rarely in the education of those outside America) -- he is often seen as an acceptable example of one who broke the rules -- rules, the teacher will often hasten to add, which must be mastered before they can be acceptably broken.

Yet this is not what ee cummings would hope had come of his legacy. In reading his poetry in this edition, his prose, his theatrical writings, and his unpublished manuscripts (some of which have been published under the title Etc.), a new vision begins to emerge of a real maverick--not someone who wanted to break the rules, but someone who eschewed the idea of rules so completely that breaking them was beyond the question, for that would have to recognise the value of the rules.

And yet, some rules creep in:

'the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters, unscented shapeless spirited)'

This is a classic example of a cummings sonnet--adhering to rhyme and meter, yet very original.

Or, perhaps not that original. Unfortunately, ee cummings has become a conventional unconventionality. He was a success at being different--at one point only cummings and Frost, New Englanders both, with very different vines growing on the respective sides of their fence, were able to make a living solely from their writing while concentrating on poetry.

This text almost all of the poetry cummings produced in his lifetime. In this we find his faith, his politics, his social criticism and his social prejudices, and his ideas of love and desire. There are other poems that go beyond this text (including ones never published in his lifetime) that are not included here, but this contains everything major, and all for which cummings became known.

Some of his poetry is best meant to be read aloud, as all good poetry ultimately finds its best expression not on the lifeless page but in the spirited, feeling telling. There is an incredible sense (try reading it aloud, slowly).

Some of the cummings poetry, however, is simplicity and verges on the concrete. These sometimes resort to cleverness that might have been genius of observation at the time but unfortunately due to overexposure now just seem an elementary type of cleverness. Of course, simplicity is so often overlooked, that when it is seen, we often react not as we should.

Arrangement on the page is so critical to cummings perception of how things must be that the lastest editions of his poetry are put in typewriter typeset (the way he composed and envisioned his poetry). The medium is part of the message, he would have said.

Try to read cummings with a new eye, and look for that which would have been shocking to the more standard and rule-bound Cambridge soul.

This is the best collection of Milton works available that I know of: sturdy, with thick white pages offering ample room for note taking, numerous footnotes, rare works such as Christian Doctrine (which is extremely interesting)and writings from people who knew Milton. Nothing more needs be said. The price, $40 something, is insanely cheap if you consider how much you're paying per work - probably comes out to a couple dollars each.

A lifetime of Milton resides between the durable covers of this book, inexhaustible hours with one of the greatest writers of the English language. Truly, this is one of the most enjoyable books I own.

Coming from someone who was so frugal that my choice of major in college was influenced by the fact I could find most required reading for a dual degree in philosophy and English literature in the library rather than pay my hard earned money for books that were not worthy.... this is my strongest possible recommendation: This was one of the few texts I actually shelled out money for in college without regret and would even purchase AGAIN! ( My copy was destoryed by Hurricane Isabel) I have fond memories of studying Milton, and when he seemed at his most confusing the notes in this text were wonderfully clear.

Others have suggested the Norton is the edition for college students. I disagree. The Hughes edition is definitely worth the money. The notes are the best -- in reading criticism on Milton, there's usually plenty of references to Mr. Hughes's notations themselves. This is the standard, accepted text. This is the complete poems, with his Latin and Italian poetry appearing ajacent to an English translation. There's a generous selection of Milton's prose, too.

Spend the wad and buy the book. If you're reading this, then you're a bibliophile, no doubt. For the rest of your life wouldn't you prefer to have the best edition of Milton on your shelf, or will you be satisified with a $9 Signet Classic? (I tossed mine.)

Check out the Dore Illustrations for PL, too.

BTW, after reading Areopagitica, I believe that everything Jeffereson said was a debt to Milton.

This is still the most extensive, best-annotated, one-volume Milton set available. As the blurb above indicates, Hughes presents all the poems and prose in chronological sequence, so it is easy to trace the great poet's increasing facility, and later mastery, in both areas. We start with Milton, the fifteen-year-old student, translating Psalms from the Hebrew as well as passages from the love poems of Ovid and Properius. We then follow him to Cambridge, where he really starts assimilating all his classical studies, first fashioning imitative Latin elegies followed by his first poems of native genius, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," "On Shakespeare," "L'Allegro and Il Penseroso."

Hughe's edition is invaluable as a tool for students, scholars, or general readers. The notes never get in the way of the text, but will lead the reader to relevant sources should he/she desire to learn more about a given allusion or want more background. If the reader is patient, and actually reads all the material that comes before "Paradise Lost", he/she will be rewarded with a richer understanding of Milton's magnum opus. Please be advised that if you have made it that far, don't stop there. "Paradise Regained" and "Sampson Agonistes" are powerful examples of epic poetry as well. I personally feel that "Paradise Regained" has had almost as large an impact on modern fiction in particular (Dostoevsky and Flaubert are prime examples)as has "Paradise Lost."

Blake said that Milton was of Satan's party without knowing it. Actually Milton's prose does open up some interesting possibilities in that sphere. In "Areopagitica" he advocates for the necessity of evil. He was, as history has amply recorded, hardly a defender of central authority. He was emphatic about individual liberty and wouldn't be dictated to by Pope or King.

There are several short early biographies of the poet at the end of the book. All paint a portrait of an idiosyncratic genius who suffered numerous setbacks both physical and political, particularly in his last decades. He was an extraordinarily brave man, who has taken some heat from Virginia Woolf and later feminists for his "ill use" of his daughters, who, the line goes, he kept in ignorance and near slavery so that they could aid him as ameneunses after he went blind. If such detractors had actually done any wide reading on the subject (Shawcrosse is an excellent source) they would not have made such charges. Though not what could be described as a "loving father," Milton certainly never inveighed against his daughters to remain "indentured" to him, nor did he subvert any marriage plans they arranged (none were forced into "arranged marriages" either, though the practice was still common in that era). He didn't tutor them in the Languages he asked them to transcribe, per se. But this begs the question, if they were'nt taught Latin, Greek and Hebrew, how would they have been able to act as scribes in those languages in the first place?

I'm sorry to see that this volume is now almost $100. In this day of large trade paperbacks, perhaps a more affordable edition will be forthcoming.

The poems in this book are very prose like. You feel like there are a lot of simple observations from John and his surroundings. I had always wanted to meet him and walk with him in Conamara. He may be gone to the other side, but I'm sure he's still there in spirit.

John O'Donahue wrote poetry with the grace and passion of a waterfall -- a grand IRISH waterfall. He was wonderfully Irish in the musicality of his work. His poems are marked by whimsy, humanity, and spiritual power, but they are readily accessible too. I was driving when I first heard a recording of him reading a selection of his poems. Sadly, it was just after his untimely death. (Everyone says "untimely," but he was still in his fifties when he died. What glorious poems are we missing?!) I had to pull over to recover, to steady up. When I got home, I immediately went online to search for his books of poetry. This is the best I've found so far.

Celtic spirituality distilled into a language so rich it makes you swoon. John O'Donohue has synthesized his formidable intellect, the depth of mature spiritual experience and his love of the nature of his homeland into poems of great beauty and poignancy.

At first glance, John O'Donohue's poetry appears simple. That deception is largely due to its brevity and form. Yet it is complex with tiered symbolism. As is frequently the case with poetry, the reader may not "get it" first time through but these verses are worth a second, third, even fourth read. Some, like "Decorum" are so short as to approach the level of Celtic haiku.

"Conamara Blues" is divided into three parts. Since O'Donohue is a Catholic scholar, this may or may not be an intentional acknowledgment of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Family, etc. The middle portion bears a distinctly religious slant, though not unpleasantly so.

The first and final sections are more secular in tone. They touch on diverse topics: nature, the attitudes of foreign tourists seeking the "true" Ireland, the emotional discomfiture of meeting an old flame (" . . . let nothing slip/ From the invisible ruin/ We carry between us"), even death ("you can almost hear the depth/ Of white silence, rising to deny everything.") As befits Irish literature, there are occasional moody, melancholic notes, threaded like quicksilver through an otherwise optimistic flow of imagery.

Americans are unlikely to have encountered old European customs like using the wide wings of a slaughtered goose to sweep the floor around a wood-burning kitchen stove. We hear O'Donohue's sad perspective in looking past human practicality to see those wings no longer ". . . being folded around . . . Embracing the warmth/ And urgency of a beating heart/ . . . Never again to be disturbed/ Every year by the call/ Of the wild geese overhead".

Few of the 54 pieces take the shape of traditional, rhymed verse. If you are in search of that, I suggest the Hallmark section of your local store. O'Donohue's poetry follows its own rhythm and internal rhyme. In so doing, it reminds us that it is the desire and duty of each writer to see beyond the obvious, to take less tangible connections and gently define them for the rest of us.

At the very least, Mark Strand is one of the most readable poets around. He's neither too obscure nor too obvious, and if his example were more widely followed then contemporary poetry might find a sizable audience. The poem "The Continuous Life" says everything that needs saying about the joys, hopes, fears, tensions, and emptiness of middle-class existence--or perhaps just plain human existence--and note how well the cascading rhythm matches its theme. It reminded me of James Salter's novel "Light Years," but Strand manages to compress his vision into a mere 28 lines. As an observer of the human comedy, he's quite perceptive.

My only major complaint with this volume is the somewhat repetitive subject matter--there is too much musing about the Nature of Art, too many descriptions of verdant scenery. Considering this was his first volume of original poetry in at least 10 years, we could have reasonably expected a little more variety. Or perhaps I'm being churlish. Don't let me discourage you: read this book.

I highly recommend these poems! Experts will have their reasons for loving Strand. As for myself, I find them accessible, moving, musical, visual, and just flat out great to read. Forget "what they mean," this guy can write. But then, I also find them edifying in the same way that Ecclesiastes is edifying. Good stuff.

I gave this book the desert isle test; would I want it on a desert island if my library were limited to 100 American poetry books from 1990 and since. The answer is yes, this is Strand's best, it honors beauty as only the most refined aesthete could do. In these pages you will find Strand's quivalents [my equivocal way of saying `equivalents'] to "Ode on Melancholy" and Stevens's "Sunday Morning" and "Comedian as the Letter C." In a word, this is an elegant volume, as elegant as it is romantic.

You can count the great american poets who are writing today on a thumbless hand with mark strand as the palm. The poem "The Continuous Life" has been refered to as the perfect poem and I've asked my grandchildren to read the final poem in the volume "The End" at my graveside. We need poetry as a people and as individuals and if you have the nature to hear and feel it,poetry is the only truth there is.