Poems Books

I really enjoyed this book. The poems and essays are diverse, fun, thoughtful and extremely well written.

This is a beautiful, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking book about frogs and toads. I gave a copy to my sister who is a 7th grade biology teacher and she has used it in some of her classes. Many of her students loved it. It's a wonderful little book to keep around when you need to read something to relax your mind. Everyone I've given a copy to has been delighted with it.

A friend sent me this as a gift. I couldn't have been more pleased. There is something in here to suit every taste, from poignant to humorous. And all about FROGS! (Well, maybe a salamander and a newt here and there, but all little Rana creatures.) What a clever idea for a poetry anthology.

What a great collection! If you like frogs (and who doesn't?) and poetry (and you should if you don't), you'll love this book. I keep a supply on hand for presents, have given away a dozen already. This is a wonderful book to keep on your bedside reading table, read a poem or two a night, go to sleep with lilting lines and green splashes in your dreams.

It is hard to find much from or about Beecher in print, so this collection certainly fills a void. The Whitman comparisons are legit, and this book provides a solid overview of his work.

John Beecher taught that poetry can literally save your life. It was certainly true in his own case. These poems were written by a man who, given the choice of signing a loyalty oath or being true to himself, knew what to do. Steven Ford Brown, who knows Beecher's work better than anyone else, is the perfect editor for this volume. Grab it while you can.

My computer ate up and so vanished my thoughts on John Beecher. Let suffice: I knew him from 1978 to his death two years later. I put his name in Amazon slot to see what would come up. Except for this new book, (thank you dear Studs) I must say I have been disappointed at how little interest apparently exist in reprinting his other books--especially that interested one in 1955 a long narrative poem on abortion. Where are the researchers? He should have a biography by some clever whip smart student of social protest writers from the 1920's to the Seventies. I think it is right to say he and I were friends--said we were fellow New Englanders. I believed in him in the time of his last roar, as person-brave, writer-truthful, and I still do. Particularly today. JB lived a full life in his time--no icon he!

For anyone who doesn't know about John Beecher, he was THE American social protest poet. (He died in 1980) His poetry is not technically complex, it's far from high art, but that's the point: it's poetry for common people about common people. His voice of protest is so heavily laden with the truth that it's impossible to ignore. In one poem in the book, he describes how standing up for the right thing isn't hard when you accept what the right thing is and don't accept anything less - in a world where money interests rule so many parts of life, Beecher's is a much needed voice.

What a pleasant surprise to find new poetry that is carefully crafted, intelligent, and genuinely moving. If only more poets writing today took their craft as seriously. I hope Mehigan is working on a second book!

Had we a genuine literary culture I believe The Optimist, the debut collection of Joshua Mehigan, would enjoy the reception accorded Delmore Schwartz's "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" in 1938. These are poems of expressive, never hide-bound formality. In "A Questionable Mother" the realization that every perfectly modulated line of blank verse has a feminine ending can make one laugh out loud, yet also, together with the ghost of a refrain, contributes to a growing unease.
"Promenade" furnishes Mehigan with a hilarious excuse for an overripe rhetoric, as it appears to be a dramatic monologue for a fatuous, middle-aged bachelor, ending on a beautiful, nonsense mock-aphorism. This poem's companion piece could be the brilliant "Another Pygmalion". Both evince the poet's eclat, somehow reckless and modest at the same time. "Promenade" is written in rhyming couplets, yet so sinuously and with such a sure touch at enjambment that the effect is rather peekaboo than Pope and "Another Pygmalion" although printed in a solid block reveals itself to be written in perfect, albeit run-over, terza rima. "A Bird at the Leather Mill" has the eerie quality of a parable by Kierkegaard or Kafka. "Buzzards" feels like it may have its origin in family anecdote, but also reminds this reader of the underappreciated metaphysical lyrics of Leonie Adams. In this poem and many others he can be moving, "In the Home of my Sitter", "The Optimist", "Introduction to Poetry" among them.
That Mr. Mehigan can write such tender, bitter, ruefully comic scenes of upstate New York working-class life and also write very good poems with titles such as "Imperative of the Minor Florentine Chapel" and "Alexandra", about a fourth century anchoress, testifies to his range.
The collection's title may seem sarcastic after so many cynical chuckles, but after closing this book on the lovely "Merrily", I am reminded that stoicism and existentialism are positive philosophies.
I have a personal ascending scale for poetic worth. These poems are worth reading, rereading, memorizing, and then repeating.

Joshua Mehigan, America's premier younger poet, has a rare combination of gifts: a flawless ear and an eye for the eerily right detail. In poem after poem, he startles the reader with images that seem drawn as much from nightmare as from life. For example, in the haunting poem "The Pig Roast," a farmhand about to slaughter a pig exhibits a surprising tenderness before pulling the trigger: "Outside, the farmhand closed his day. He crouched / beside the rifle hanging from the fence / and scratched the pig's broad head, then slowly rose / as though he'd left a teacup balanced there." It is hard to imagine a more apt and beautiful way to describe the fragile gesture that the farmhand's next action will shatter.

Sometimes Mehigan's imagery borders on the grotesque and comical, as in the dreamlike "Merrily," where a Rimbaud-like speaker, drifting downstream, remarks on the mesmerizing scenery in a series of bewildered questions: "West, through the trees' meshed crowns, light scattering / toward such specific ends! Why those? And why / these flexed roots? Why that oak's failed rendering / of coupled elephants in living wood?"

Perhaps the most memorable image in the book appears at the conclusion of the opening poem, "Promenade," when the wind at an outdoor wedding in Queens creates a climactic spectacle that is both grittily urban and wittily urbane: "Every face turns to look; / and when the bride's tall orange bun's unpinned / by ordinary, inconvenient wind, / all, in the breath it takes a yard of hair / to blaze like lighted aerosol, would swear/ there was no greater miracle in Queens. / Wish is the word that sounds like what wind means."

Good luck trying to forget that last line. Now go buy the book and discover for yourself why Joshua Mehigan is already a poet for the ages.

Optimism means the tendency to hope for the best. It is possible that Joshua Mehigan wrote this book hoping that it would be liked by many. So far, many critics have enjoyed this book.
He uses violence and cruelty, and adds in a sense of humor. His writing in brilliant and he is extremely talented. Although his work portrays some violence and cruelty, his work qualifies as
mysterious. The word optimist meaning a hope for the best coincides with his work. Possibly, when writing about "A Questionable Mother" or "Last Chance at Reconciliation", the hope was that the mothers daughter would be found or that reconciliation could be a factor for this certain man. These
two are not only the two poems that deal with hope. They all do in some way. The Optimist contains poems on different subjects such as the weather, a house fire, noise pollution, murder,
suicide, love, ideal love and reconciliation. These poems contain themes such as suicide and death. "An Ideal Passion" almost seems like a poem about a guy who is stalking this woman. He loves this woman whom he can not have and dreams of her. The poem "Riddle" is set up as a riddle. It leaves the reader to figure out what exactly the poet is talking about or of whom. "The Murder" had a deep impact on myself as the reader. The last line "The way to a woman's heart is through her chest" left me uneasy. "Post Partum" deals with depression after the birth of a baby. I would recommend that everyone take the time to read Joshua Mehigans book. He converts deep emotion into powerful art. The language he uses creates power over the reader, that one can't help but keep reading. This book overall, was very good. It is the first of many to come.

I find this book a wonderful introduction to art for children. It is inspiring, and delightful. I love especially how in some of the works of Art chosen by Mrs. Rowden , she identifies colors with music and instruments. It truly makes the paintings come alive. It is a beautiful book, and one that I would highly recommend to all my students!

These simple, energetic poems dance, bounce, and swirl across the pages, drawing even the youngest kids in, making them laugh and use their imaginations. A fun way to expose kids to classic paintings (as well as poetry), letting them find enjoyment in the unfamiliar and surprise in the ordinary. What a pleasure to see children as young as three pointing to the pictures and finding their own "poetic" words. A great circle time book or gift.

I was so enthralled by this book's unusual and dramatically successful approach to great art that I ordered four copies, one each for my four grandchildren. Glad I did, since already each child has strong favorites among original poems and great reproductions contained in this beautiful, technically flawless book. I only regret I haven't yet ordered a copy for myself!

The rythmic simplicity of the poems should reach young readers and help them to appreciate a work of art. The choice and use of colors with the different poems should help the young reader to retain both the images and the vocabulary. In all, I found Paint Me a Poem by Justine Rowden to be a very interesting and enjoyable experience.

This book was very relaxing to read. The poetry is very visual and it's almost like you are standing there with the author. It's fascinating. Each poem offers a new sight to see. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves poetry.

"Pardon Us Ms. Writer" is the most exciting and interesting poetry book I have ever read. Within it are pages of beautiful poetry that address topics like art and nature. This book also addresses the important topics of avoiding stereotypes and taking pride in yourself. This isn't just a literary delight, but it makes you feel better about yourself and gives you valuable insights into life. The poems aren't only serious though, there are also poems of wit and words to make you smile. Not only are the subjects great, but the poems flow so smoothly that they seem to float like music on the ear. The poet's faith and views on equality emerge from these beautiful words. This book is not to be missed! It is a classic in the making and reminds me of some of Robert Frost's poems. Buy one today and tell all you know about it!

Wow! This is a wonderful book of poetry. It will make you smile, laugh, think, and inspire you The poet has an amazing talent for bringing words to life and painting pictures with the words, enabling you to see what she has seen. The opening poem is written so cleverly, that the words themselves become characters in the book - taking you on poetic journeys and providing insights into the journeys of life. Pardon us Ms. Writer has poems for all ages and all time. I love this book and heartily recommend it to others. It would make a great gift. I'm looking forward to reading more books by Megan Easley-Walsh. Her writings are superb!

First off, I really liked this book. Infact I loved it! What puts me off poetry is how poor it can be but this book, the poems are awesome in it! They are well written and if your looking for a cool little poetry book, I think you should get this one. What I really like about the poems is how descriptive and elegant they are. Something about them just seems to flow. I commute to work each day on the train and this book of poems is a great way of diving in for a quick poetry break on the train. The poet is a classic in the making. I can't wait until she has another book out!

Well, for the record, I like the cover. I am a young man who appreciates simplicity in design, but the rest of the book is very good as well and I did a book report on it for school. I enjoy the realistic relationships between the characters that is developed in the midst of all the science fiction chaos. I am not normally a big poetry fan, but a few of these I could really relate to. They reminded me of good rock songs...and this book rocks!

A flawless combination of adventure, humor and heart, this book is obviously the work of an author who is in touch with his wonderful imagination and how to express himself, a unique but worthwhile read. I never judge a book by its puke-green cover. LOL

Well, that shade of green is certainly not my favorite color, but regardless, this book is fabulous! The most imaginative and wonderful collection of stories and poems that I have ever read. Exciting, funny and heartwarming all at the same time. If that shade of green were not so hideous, I would have given it five stars easy. LOL. Still a good read.

At first I thought that the combination of sci-fi stories and poems was just some kind of a gimmick, but it turns out that the combination really works. Not only are the stories very imaginative, but the poems tug right at the heart strings. I don't know if this is the only thing that this author has written, but I would love to see more. A great read.

I found her poetry wonderful in the sense that she can articulate the voice of every narrator in each separte poem. Each with its own author, the storyteller, be it a worm or an old woman has a story. I'm not sure if that makes perfect sense, but I really loved her book.

This book is so excellent that I've already purchased three extra copies to pass along to friends. Andrews' poems explore the instability of memory, family, and ownership, drawing on the experiences of the narrator and her Southern family, the dissolution of their land, the objects of their history, time and the past. Andrews exhibits amazing control of her art form; her poems are breathtaking in their clarity--emotional without seeming overwrought, as beautiful as they are brutal, and as personal as they are universal.

The obvious thing to say is that this book will appeal to fans of Faulkner and other great Southern writers, but Pharaoh, Pharaoh will be appreciated by anyone who likes good poetry.

Arrests your consciousness with its imagery and language. Rewards thoughtful reading with its insight and wisdom. The fundamental themes of generations and inheritance are a modern echo of Ecclesiastes. This is the best debut collection of poems I've read in years.

Claudia Emerson Andrews's Pharaoh, Pharaoh is the rarest and best kind of discovery: a book full of poems by an author who has found her voice and allowed it to free, rather than limit, her explorations. Demanding to be read aloud alone or to others, the rhythm and language bring the reader along on a remarkable journey. Full of gentle reminiscences and powerful histories, Pharaoh, Pharaoh is quiet and profound, capturing moments in time and meaning with a heartbreaking and familiar clarity. The first book of the Southern Messenger series, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, like all the best Southern writing, contains messages for all its readers. Become one.

I would have known nothing about this book had Tony Mitton and Mary GrandPre not come to the school where I teach and given a fabulous presentation. Tony shared many of the wonderful, imaginative poems he had written - performing some of them with an incredible amount of flair and pride. Mary showed off her gorgeous, colorful and magnificent illustrations, which serve as a marvelous complement to the words Tony has written. The poems and illustrations will delight children of all ages and will bring a smile to the face of any adult, as well.

My first grade student love to hear me read the poems in this book and then show them the amazing art work. This book is almost always chosen by someone during free read time. My favorite is the poem about how to grow poems in your mind.

Tony Mitton's Plum provides a host of warm and original poems for kids, with plenty of cultural zany fun underlying them. From Mrs. Bhattacharya's Chapati Zap Machine to a giant feline flea, this is loaded with fun. Fold-out pages may not lend to rigorous library lending but parents will want this for their kids.

Plum, written by Tony Mitton and illustrated by Mary Grandpre, is a conjures confection of whimsy and pure delight. Not since Where the Sidewalk Ends has there been such an extraordinary book of poetry written for children. The combination of Tony Mitton's words and Mary Grandpre's illustrations are most enchanting. Their work in Plum has a real chemistry. Together they've created a book which truly becomes it's own universe for the reader. The poems run the gauntlet from mysterious and scary to silly and sad. I especially loved two of the poems in particular. One about a giant. The other about the legendary figure of English folklore, the Green Man. Plum is a delicious way to introduce children to poetry.

Preston McClear...

Poems is an inspired and inspirational collection of Britain's leading late Modernist poet J.H. Prynne. Prynne's highly acclaimed collection of poems, now expanded upon in this second edition of Poems, will alter the perceiving nature of the reader as the words manipulate the language to induce questioning on the minds of every reader. Poems is a highly recommended read for all dedicated poetry lovers as well as students of philosophy. Swallow Your Pride: At work on the potash table/reckoning up for a new song/put one, put one, from between the fingers/or at the checkout you are lost to view;/just a little better/making a fresh start/in promise to see all these signs/sit stable and by heart: so long/further to got, about to part.

It's hard to know how to review this book: Prynne has been for several decades now the most important "unknown" poet in the English language, his work earning a reputation for its sybilline authority & beauty. A nutshell description would be: imagine a collision between Charles Olson, William Wordsworth & Paul Celan--& if you don't have quite Prynne's work, you'd have a rough idea of its excitement & its extraordinary summing-up of an entire poetic tradition. Whatever you think of the poetry (& if you're not sometimes frustrated or bewildered by it, you're probably an unusual sort), it cannot be ignored: Prynne is a major figure in the last century of poetry.

Prynne's career has been an unusual one. His first book, _Force of Circumstance_ (1962), was written in mostly conventional verse-forms (rhymed quatrains, blank verse, etc.) & was informed by the work of Donald Davie & Charles Tomlinson. (Prynne has suppressed this early book in the volume under review.) Then there's a gap--the next three books, _Kitchen Poems_ (1968), _Aristeas_ (1968) and _The White Stones_ (1969), are the first example of the "mature" Prynne. Unlike _Force of Circumstance_ (published by the trade publisher Routledge & Kegan Paul), these three books came from two "underground" presses (Ferry & Grosseteste) & one underground press recently gobbled up by Jonathan Cape (Cape Goliard). The writing shows that there's been a complete switch of allegiance to the poetry of Ed Dorn & Charles Olson; it is dense, impassioned, politically-aware & informed by recondite investigations into archaeology & anthropology. The urgency of this work is still stirring: many of the poems appeared as "news items" in the ultra-obscure worksheet _The English Intelligencer_, & their sense of participation in a community of poetic discovery & inquiry can still be heard.

What next? Well, that's a good question: the work after this, beginning with _Brass_ (1971), is an a startlingly different style: if you're familiar with the work of Celan, this might give some idea of the mysterious quality of the later Prynne. But it's not hermetic work: its bewildering array of linguistic registers offers startled recognition at every turn--from quotations from the poetic tradition (one poem in _The Oval Window_ [1983], for instance, weaves back and forth through a passage from Shakespeare's _All's Well That Ends Well_), to the jargon of science, politics, computers & economics, to demotic utterance. Most of these books came out in the most fugitive editions--_Bands Around the Throat_ (1986) for instance is a stapled chapbook of poems spat out of the author's wordprocessor, while _Word Order_ (1989) is a gorgeous rust-coloured book printed on an old-fashioned printing press. The author, meanwhile, scrupulously abjured from "explaining" his work (unlike in his old _Intelligencer_ days: Prynne has since the 1960s published very little prose--just a few lectures, letters & afterwords). He's also scrupulously avoided the engines of poetic publicity--for instance, preventing his work from appearing in most anthologies of contemporary poetry. (There are a few exceptions: check out _A Various Art_, a collection of work from the Ferry/Grosseteste poets; or _Poems for the Millennium_, vol. 2, an anthology of world modernist poetry.) The appearance of this volume from a "mainstream" publisher is unexpected, and welcome. I'll end by quoting one poem from _The Oval Window_ (1983), which might give some idea of what Prynne's like: [I'll have to double-space it to avoid its getting formatted like prose!]

Standing by the window I heard it,

while waiting for the turn. In hot light

and chill air it was the crossing flow

of even life, hurt in the mouth but

exhausted with passion and joy. Free

to leave at either side, at the fold line

found in threats like herbage, the watch

is fearful and promised before. The years

jostle and burn up as a trust plasma.

Beyond help it is joy at death itself:

a toy hard to bear, laughing all night.

I personally think that being a lyric poet is just about the strangest, most redundant thing to be in this day and age. The poetry sections of our bookshops are crammed with volume after slim volume (Slim Volume: Cowboy Poet) consisting of little but short-winded, doggedly high-minded whinging about utterly trivial events in the poets' lives. If, like me, you are terminally bored by people setting down this or that evanescent perception

in a series

of barely rhythmical

syllabic groups

that would seem intolerably boring

if the poets'd bothered

to write them out

as prose sentences,

then you're probably the kind of person who'd appreciate J.H. Prynne.

Prynne is the most illustrious of a fairly small number of English-language poets (others include Barry MacSweeney and Iain Sinclair) who still cleave to a sort-of modernist idea that poems ought not to say things that can be said any other way, but instead are verbal artifacts unto themselves, with all the hazards of connotation that that implies. His early work is in a shabby, low-rent Four-Quartetsy sort of mode, but during the late Seventies he really hit his stride. His best works are glossy, sexy, sardonic, thoroughly worked-over verbal machines that do what few other poets have dared to do since the death of Pound. Prynne is not _primarily_ interested in communicating some amazingly primal and/or psycho-sexual-cultural-political-transcendental experience, he's interested in the glint and spark of words put together in a certain way, and this saves him from being either kitschy (as the worst work of Ted Hughes can be) or trivial (as, well, pretty much most poets usually are.) His work is a wonderful corrective to the linguistic slackness and sentimentality of so much modern poetry. Give him a go. This is definitely a desert island book, if only for the sheer amount of allusion and density Prynne is able to pack into a short poem - even at his most recondite, he's pushing you towards the world you've vainly tried to leave behind.

Shocking that only two reviews up for this. I suppose as most of the work from `Brass`(1971) onwards is gunning for bogus aesthetes, it is hardly pleasant to find it`s you, you media-produced swathe of complacent compliance. This kind of distance sets the chances of you aiming to interface with your own complicities - in what would no doubt have been a rather hit and miss affair - at next to zero. If you agree that looking gift horses in the mouth is hardly sensible, look this bunch of negativities in the teeth and see why you fail to agree to fail, want to understand what understanding might make untrue, or start wondering how contaminated your egotistical sublimation may actually have become, and ask what translates as the best thing to do about it. Bonne chance!

Although I am not an expert, I am a scholar, and I found this book of poems by Sappho who lived in 700 BC Greece a pleasure to read. I liked the design and layout, and the translation is geared to today's readers.

This polished translation brilliantly reflects those spare but sparkling lines from the winsome poet of a lonely isle and heart. I find it still superb after many readings. Highly recommended.

"To Eros: You crush me." The tenderness and splendor of Sappho's poetry has never been so lusciously rendered as in this translation. Every little word sings with love and warmth. Thank you, Willis Barnstone, for omitting the cumbersone ellipses and brackets of translations past. Now we can enjoy Sappho's passion undisturbed.

More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos west off the coast what is present Turkey. (Due to political upheavel she went two times in exile, the second time to Sicily for a short time ).

Sappho takes a special place among the poets of Antiquity. She was already famous in her own time. Plato said that she was the tenth Muse and someone called her poetry " as refreshing as a morning breeze ". Her poems are vivid and she needs only a few words to describe essential human feelings. She calls solitude for instance " this icy numbness of being alone ".
( Nice to know: from Sappho's poems remain about 500 lines. All Tragedies by Aeschylus have a total of 8144 lines. Conclusion: What's left of Sappho's poems is next to nothing. )

" Wedding of Andromache " is one of the most vivid descriptions in the poetry of Antiquity. It gives an almost journalistic account of the homecoming of Hector and Andromache. A fragment of Barnstone's translation:
" ...
and all set out for Troy
in a confusion of sweet-voiced flutes, citharas,
and small crashing cymbals
and young girls sang a loud heavenly song
..."

Sappho excels also in describing landscapes and nature ( something you don't find often in Ancient literature ). A fragment of " Aphrodite of the flowers ",
"...
Here ice water babbles through the apple branches
and roses leave shadow on the ground
..."

This translation was published in 1998 but as a work of art in itself, it's by no means outdated.