Poetry Books

I was looking for a book about manners for my four year old. I came across this one, and decided to give it a try. It's charming, and he LOVES it!

The book is written in a rythmic poetry that really appeals to young children and the stories are funny -- and while they do convey bad manners, they simultaneously make it clear why the behaviors are unacceptable. (I was a little concerned about that, but I needn't have been.)

I recommend this one!

What a great book! Thirty years ago (when I was five) I discovered this book. These are manners children used to be taught. Now parents expect teachers and others to raise their children for them. Etched in my mind forever is one of the phrases from this book. "The goops they lick their fingers, the goops they lick their knives, they spill their broth on the tablecloth , oh they lead disgusting lives. The goops they talk while eating,and loud and fast they chew, I'm glad I'm not a goop are you?" Buy this book!

Time moves on, we make technological advances and things change. However, people remain the same. No matter what happens, right is right and wrong is wrong.

What impressed me the most about this book is that it is fun to read. I don't want to bash Emily Post, Martha Stewart or any others lecturing on the dos and don'ts of life, but books on manners and etiquette can sometimes get pretty dry.

I have a feeling that children everywhere will love the whimsical drawings and happy little rhymes.

The subject matter may seem simple, but Goops and How To Be Them provides a wonderful opportunity for parents to speak with their children about the issues that face today's youth.

The editor of the latest release of Goops and How To Be Them has set up a website devoted to training kids and families about manners........................

I grew up with Goop books, and I have fond memories. There are numerous poems on what good little children should do (manners) and what the round faced goops do to be naughty. A very fun children's book.

My mother read me this book when I was very young, and it stays with me still. A great way to teach kids manners!

I unashamedly admit I loved this book. It was such a glorious flash back to my youth. And the silly songs/rhymes we used to sing/chant. I even shared this with my 11 year old son. Who was rather confused by this practice of "stupid songs" but enjoyed learning a few with me, and I even caught his singing "greasy grimey gopher guts" to my baby the other day..who adored it.

As the other reviewers have stated, this is a great collection of naughty rhymes and chants from childhood. However, I have to agree with the psychiatrist. I would have liked more analysis. This seems to be a great topic for somebody's doctoral thesis. How do these verses originate? Are most of them created by children for children? What can we learn about children from them?

On second thought, maybe it is best that these verses remain under wraps. There is something to be said about an under the radar way that children have to harmlessly express their rebelliousness.

If you love subversiveness, I'd also suggest Nick Bantock's , "Averse to Beasts," a book with a cassette filled with creepy little ryhmes!

I had two immediate reactions on reading this book: "Yep, we had that one - words aren't quite right, though" and "Wait a minute! Where's (such-and-such) rhyme? How did they miss that one?" This is a great book, and a very useful reference for those who didn't realize that they do, in fact, know the tune to "The Old Gray Mare" (see title of book), "The Colonel Bogey March" ("Comet! It makes your lips turn green. . .") and "The Whiffenpoof Song" (several insulting versions lampooning schools). This book will take you back to your childhood. That's not the childhood that you're going to claim to your kids that you had, but the actual one where you made up nasty names for school food. Mind you, if you allow your children to read this book, you will receive many, many indignant phone calls from the parents in your neighborhood, but I'd say it's worth the risk.

i swiped this book from my brother who swiped it from my mother who got it at a used book sale- so its been around the block a few times. i am now 16 an begin using this book at the age of 10. manny a days were spent at the lunch table with my frineds laughing at- and using these rymes( such as; hark the harold angles shout! # more days till school gets out! grab you ball and grab your chan, and run like hell to the nearist train) sooner of later it became known as " the bible" to my groop.all thse yesrs it has been a tresured posetion of mine, and from time to time i bing it out once more to my friends- and it still keep us laughing.

This book is, a hilarious look at wordplay, images, and symbolism towards a very serious subject... war. A lot of the literal ideas I do not totally get (give me a break, I'm 27) but I read it has to do w/ vietnam. It relates to any inane/insane fight based on questionable info... a breath from that... it's humor is really funny... the games he plays with words are genius, (a horse named I = I is a horse)... stuff like that. I would have given it 5 stars if I understood it more... but a great read, if I had not researched it and found out it was about Vietnam, I would have enjoyed its funkiness, just the same.

The epic is conceivably the endpoint of the modernist implosion into premodern aesthetics and anti-formal/anti-perspectival tribal art. Whether that makes GUNSLINGER modern, postmodern, or premodern is anyone's guess, 5 of 8 dentists prefer "postmodern." The book smears semantics and Heidegger and cocaine into a psychedelic, post-industrial dreamscape. Ed Dorn studied an americanized version of "psychogeography" at the Black Mountain College with Charles Olson and Robert Creely which contributed to the development of his slow-acid-laced-western-sound poetry aesthetic: "I have no wish to continue my debate with men, my mare lathers with tedium, her hooves are dry. Look, they are covered with the alkali of the enormous space between here and formerly."(Gunglinger, Book 1). This should be read with some cigars and cactus and MM's cover of Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show's "Get My Rocks Off" and Beck's parenthetical "Lazy Flies" ("The skin of a robot vibrates with pleasure, Matrons and gigolos Carouse in the parlor").

It's great that Ed Dorn's poem (in book form, though it was originally published in a sequence of smaller parts, and assembled) is back in print, after the single-volume version took a short drop to the OOP lists. There are few poems that so effectively capture a decade -- and a century. Read it; fight with it; enjoy the sensibility. This is a book about the American West and, like the work of Charles Olson (one of Dorn's teachers), it is about poetry as a means of understanding aspects of the psyche, motivation, and acquisitiveness that is so American.

That's the good new; you'll read this and laugh about parts, and agonize over others, and relish still more. But be wary of the "Introduction," which is a heavy bolus of words (read the back cover excerpt, if you doubt me). Yes, the folks at Duke (a University Press) felt it necessary to drop a scholarly "Introduction" on the book, but Perloff's offering will inspire you to reach for your Metamucil. As a scholar, she is accomplished (publications on Beckett, Plath, Pound, O'Hara, Lowell, Stevens, Yeats, Williams, Berryman, Rimbaud, Zukofsky, Blackburn, John Cage, Goethe, Ginsberg, Ashbery, and a dozen others), but her treatment of Dorn is at best wooden, and with 35 years of writing on poets she musters great range without summoning either a notable depth or enthusiasm.

Buy the book for Dorn's own work and fight to cherish the results.

An epic poem so richly filled with wisdom, wordplay & laughs that a little of it is often enough. Dorn's characters - who are derived from both John Bunyan & Paul Bunyan - wander through a landscape that feels like a spaghetti western existing inside a Star Trek wormhole. All of the rituals of the Great American Desert are honored & performed in ways that surprise & delight. The cinematography is nonpareil. Does the Zlinger fall in love with Lil? Does he ride off into the Sunset of Happy Trails? Does Walter Brennan make a cameo appearance? Read on, fellow pilgrims, read on.

Bob Rixon

The late Ed Dorn wrote a masterpiece with "Gunslinger", an anti-epic poem that prefigures many post-modern gestures from its 60s era starting point. Funny, cartoonish, erudite to the extreme, it also locates a tuned lyricism in the Western vernaculars that Dorn uses: the metaphysical aspect of our legends, the sheer questing for answers as Euro-Americans come treading closer to a West coast that will stop them and force them to settle and create lives from dust and ingenuity, comes alive in way that never escapes the zaniness of Dorns' narrating inquiry into the nature of the search.

A masterpiece

I'm glad to have seen such a diversity of topics in the book. Many authors don't mention certain things for children such as illnesses that might touch their own personal lives. Of course they have grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends that might be affected by Alzheimer's disease. I also enjoyed the different moods of happiness and sadness in other poems. The information about inventors through simple rhymes was great!

This was a very good book. I loved it alot. I almost died of laughter. I almost cried with some too.

I liked this book so much i'm going to read it again and again.

View the Glass Half Full! Imaginative Collection of Poems Offers Young Poets Insight and Inspiration
Monday February 3, 3:22 pm ET

MIAMI, Fla., Feb. 3, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Writing poetry is never easy, whether it be a simple rhyme about cats wearing hats or a monumental epic detailing grand adventures and great deeds. Fortunately, award-winning teacher and author Ana Monnar is here to help! Monnar explores and explains the basics of writing poetry and much more in her new book, Half Full, Or Half Empty?

Written for children ages ten and older, Monnar's simple to use, easy to understand book offers examples of different types of poems -- from couplets to limericks, from haikus to narrative pieces, on a wide variety of topics, including faith, hope, compassion and unity. She also includes tips on reading, recitation, and composition as well as links to helpful Web sites such as online rhyming dictionaries, translations and poetry contests.

Inspired by her own love of poetry and in recognition of its therapeutic value, Monnar writes, ``This book is different from other children's poetry books because it offers humor, and awakens emotions, both happy and sad.'' Drawing on a culturally diverse background as well as two decades of teaching experience, Monnar's book effectively and expertly instructs even the youngest of poets to express his or her feelings, in a structured, productive way.

Author Ana Monnar was born in Havana, Cuba. Having spent her early years there, she immigrated to Miami at the age of seven and became a U.S. citizen. She earned a master of science degree in early childhood and elementary education from Florida International University and has been teaching ever since. A wife and mother of three, Monnar explores photography, reading and writing in her spare time. Although she has inspired countless students to write and publish their works, Half Full, Or Half Empty? is her first book. Her second book, Adoption? Thank God for that Option! is due out in 2003.

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I have truly enjoyed reading the inspirational and uplifting poems. The poems are very simple and clear to motivate children as well as adults. As an educator and parent, I highly recommend this wonderful book of poetry.

This wonderful book of poetry about everyday family goings-on reminds me of a Dr. Seuss read. What a great way to introduce children of all ages to poetry. Clever illustrations keep young children engaged while being read to. A book to make the whole family smile (and maybe laugh right out loud).

This book is unique and reminds us of the perspective of a child. I'm a big fan of Dr. Suess books. Each of the poems in this book could be a Dr. Suess-style story. Enjoy!

This book is great! I loved the fact that the proceeds go to a great cause, but more importantly the book is very well written. There is a wide variety of poems that range from silly and fun to thought provoking. Every child has their own favorite and the colorful illustrations are wonderful. A great book to read to the kids no matter how young or old they are. There is something for everyone.

I love these poems as much as my grandchildren do, maybe even more! I think it's as entertaining and funny for adults as children. The last poem in the book was so beautiful it made me cry!!

I have three children, and this book is their favorite book! We read it every night before bed. It is very entertaining and enjoyable for us all. A must have!

It may seem like a bizarre sort of set of verses to read to children, but my mother grew up with it, and I think my grandfather did, and it didn't give them nightmares! Kids get caught up in the pattern of the words and adults enjoy these catchy verses as something quaint and charming.

Unlike most of the appreciators of Hilaire Belloc's comic verse for children, I first came to these wonderfully droll verses as an adult (I was brought up on Samuel Hoffenstein and Ogden Nash), but I have grown to love them as if I had known them since my earliest years (hey, that's the start of "Lord Lundy"). In his "Beasts", "Cautionary Tales" and "Peers" verses, Belloc achieves a delightful synthesis of the fearless straight-ahead gaze of childhood (in the tradition of "The Story of Augustus, Who Would Not Eat His Soup") with the style of absolutely dead-pan English humor (e.g. Stephen Potter's "Gamesmanship"). Do not neglect the verses in "Peers" and "More Peers"; "Lord Hippo" and "Lord Lucky" are the equal of "Matilda" and "Jim". Note for Lord Peter fans: Dorothy L. Sayers has Peter Wimsey quote several times from these Belloc poems.

I learnt lots of these poems as a child in school - perhaps I had a teacher with a wicked and somewhat warped sense of humour! And I have never forgotten how wonderful they are. My personal favourite is about poor Jim, who gets into so much trouble, but the others are equally delightful.

These gleefully moral tales are never out of date. Children will be naughty, and a good rhyme has a timelessness of its own. Share them with your own children and be amused together!

Outrageous, yet, delivering a straight-forward moral lesson, Belloc's cautionary tales are classic.

This is an excellent book. It is small and pocket-sized so my children can handle it very easily. This book is advertized as being a hardcover when it actually is not. It is still worth it to get it, though.

It is debatable whether or not this collection of poems is confessional or not. However, I feel that is not the important thing. What is important is that Hass has taken events in his life and emotions and forces the reader to feel and see them as well. It causes one to look at things in a different way, a new way.

These are great poems, be it to read deeply and study, or to just read them casually and sink into the emotions and thoughts Hass' words provoke.

A must for any collection of poetic works.

I must begin by saying that Robert Hass' body of work is without many rivals in the world of contemporary American poetry, thus to call this book his "most accomplished" -which I wholeheartedly believe- is not to say that the rest of his poetry volumes are not wonderful and, in some cases, stunning.
Still, "Human Wishes," in my opinion, stands out as a work of delicate craft and compassionate thoughtfulness. Hass achieves something extremely uncommon -among modern poets, of course, and so much rarer among our politicians!- he conveys strong conviction without smearing you with righteous rhetoric.
Each of his poems invites you to enter his vision gently but not without requiring you to engage your heart, and risk whatever borrowed ideas one may call one's view, for the sake of attaining a new depth of thinking and seeing.
Poems like "Paschal Lamb," an extraordinary example of his prose poems, show this conclusively. I can honestly say that reading -and often re-reading- this poem, has changed me. What may appear at its beginning to be a scholarly meditation on the idea of the "sacrificial lamb," moves beautifully to a reminiscence of passionate young friends dealing with the Vietnam War, and becomes a moving reflection on how regular human beings could change the world. So, ultimately, this poem achieves all three: it is a meditation on sacrifice, a reminiscence of people with strong ideals, and powerful proof of the transformational capacity of language to have us see and engage with life, more deeply.
Now, of course, that is just one of this many, gorgeous gifts in this collection. This volume is full of great poems, for instance "Human Wishes," "The Privilege Of Being," "A Story About A Body," or "Tall Windows" which, each in its own way, are remarkable in their gentle wisdom and unassuming, flawless craft.
It is important to note that, in Robert Hass' case, words I chose to describe his work such as "delicate" or "gentle" are, by no means, chosen to convey fragility nor mild manners. Mr. Hass' words manage a different kind of strength, of fierceness even, without raising their voice nor sounding alarms to convey their urgency.
Robert Hass has been an inspiration to me as a fellow poet, and as a human being earnestly attempting to live an authentic life.
Lives not unlike the people he speak of in "Privilege Of Being", who, at times, may live their lives ...

[...] clutching each other with old, invented
forms of grace and clumsy gratitude, ready
to be alone again, or dissatisfied, or merely
companionable like the couples on the summer beach
reading magazine articles about intimacy between the sexes
to themselves, and to each other,
and to the immense, illiterate, consoling angels."

Hass shows us why it's more important to release a great book every decade or so than to publish a mediocre one annually. This is absolutely one of the best collections of poetry ever. It blurs the line between prose and poetry in its pages, so I recommend it to fans of fiction as well as fans of poetry.

You can do much worse than to emulate Robert Hass.

I feel in debt to Robert Hass for this illustrious collection of poetry. I happened to be browsing a local bookstore one day a few years ago, and some strange impulse (the like of which I usually disregard) provoked me to purchase it. I was just out of high-school then, and wasn't too familiar with how emotionally engaging "free verse" could be. In fact, it took me a little while to absorb his words so that I could feel the true significance of them. Hass paints his poetry with tiny, delicate brush-strokes, and is very uncompromising in what he is trying to say. This is what I've come to adore about free verse: you can use the word that most accurately portrays what you're trying to say, without worrying about rhyme.

Hass often sheds light on the subtle (and often overlooked) undercurrents of daily life. For instance, take this dialogue between an adult and a very young child from "Santa Barbara Road," one of my absolute favorites:

"Household verses: "Who are you?"
the rubber duck in my hand asked Kristin
once, while she was bathing, three years old.
"Kristin," she said, laughing, her delicious
name, delicious self. "That's just your name,"
the duck said. "Who are you?" "Kristin,"
she said. "Kristin's a name. Who are you?"
the duck asked. She said, shrugging,
"Mommy, Daddy, Leif."

Very simple, yet it perfectly illustrates how, from a very young age, were taught to search for our identities semantically; in the narrow labels that are given to us.

But enough of my rambling, just buy the book.

Robert Hass (UC Berkeley, English Dept.) is a wonderful poet and teacher. Human Wishes demonstrates that he is one of the most interesting poets on the scene today. His verse is vibrant and energetic. I highly recommend this collection of poems. Also, Hass has done much to introduce poetry to the general public.

Hass is a Northern California poet who has an eye for subtle movements in the natural world. Whether his setting is Tacoma, WA or Mt. Tamalpais, he always manages to capture images of life at its most fundamental source. For example, in "Spring Rain": "...the light will enlarge your days, your dreams at night will / be as strange as the jars of octopus you saw once in a fisherman's boat / under the summer moon...."

The strongest work here is the prose poems, such as "Museum" (describing a couple at a Kathe Kollwitz exhibit), "Human Wishes" ("This morning the sun rose over the garden wall and a rare blue sky leaped from east to west"), "Tall Windows," and "The Harbor at Seattle."

Also, the third section of this little book contains some gems, such as "Misery and Spendour," "Santa Barbara Road," and "Berkeley Eclogue."

Hass loves word craft and the spirit that inhabits diverse poetic voices. His enthusiasm and zeal for the 'poetic' is much felt in this rich, little volume. In reading Hass, one feels as if the printed page could crawl or even perhaps fly away with the beautiful life that is found there.

I also recommend: C. Milosz, R. Jeffers, and A. Zagajewski.

Every story even the happy stories captured the essence of utter doom. This collection was written in a way that turns the thought of the reader. In my case I felt deep sadness for the characters and their eventual destiny.
Yet, while reading I was also brought to a certain kind of ecstasy. This feeling was during the process of the performance before the point of eventual doom. After my experience with this book I learned what one understands is not only what is written on a page or what is seen in the mind. Understanding can be whispered to the heart. Truth can be felt in deep wires of the brain and the bones. Done in a way only a talented author such as Anthony Tognazzini can achieve. I liked and enjoyed.

Here's a guy who knows how to pack a punch in one page, or even less. Read the title piece, for example. Oh, yeah. Interestingly enough, he has a few longer pieces in this collection (maybe 3 or 4) and for me, while they're competent, they just don't have the same oomph the shorter pieces do.

You have to be really inventive to do flash fiction, and for sure, Mr. Tognazzini is in that category. Once you move into longer form fiction, narrative takes over (it has to; no choice in the matter) and that's a totally different type of writing--or usually is, anyway. Flash has its own unwritten 'rules', for lack of a better term, and they're chock full of the need for intense imagination.

Lots of really good stuff here. Two of the author's pieces in this collection were originally in a great flash fiction anthology called PP/FF, which I strongly recommend; another (the title piece) was in the anthology Mammoth Book of Sudden Stories, another superb flash fiction anthology.

Watch for more stuff from this guy; he knows how to do the flash thing, for sure.

Highly recommended.

I didn't just devour this book, I licked every word off every page and cried when it was all gone. I also loved the aftertaste.

If you like Aimee Bender, Barry Yourgrau, Lydia Davis, Donald Barthelme, you'll enjoy Tognazzini.

Buy it, read it, spread the word. His stuff is yummity-yum good!

I ordered the book after discovering it in "Poets and Writers" and was immediately captivated by the brevity, frankness, honesty of Tognazzini's brilliance on every page. A real treat, must-read, literary gem--underrated.

I often long for a simpler life, with fewer complications and distractions, in which my attention span can occasionally linger to enjoy a particular moment. The sun in my life reached its zenith a few years ago and is picking up speed as it drops toward the horizon and so I tend to resent that, as a society, we boast of our superior ability to multi-task even as we sheepishly admit to the negative effect of refusing to take time out to occasionally clear the mechanism. That said, I've resisted "flash fiction" as something that caters to our ever-shortening attention span.

For the uninitiated, flash fiction contains all of the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, and resolution; but unlike the traditional short story, the limited word length often leaves some of these elements to only be implied in the written storyline, which is perhaps best exemplified by Ernest Hemingway's six-word flash, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Although it can be traced back to Aesop's Fables, with the likes of Chekhov, O. Henry, Kafka, H.P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury contributing, flash fiction is enjoying a resurgence on the Internet. Although I sometimes cringe from the niche it fills in our fractured society, despite all of its professed connectivity through cell phones and email, flash is a viable art form that presents a challenge to the writer he or she doesn't normally face when writing a longer piece: strictly meat and bones writing without all of the side dishes.

Anthony Tognazzini seems to have mastered this literary art form with his collection of flash fiction, I Carry a Hammer In My Pocket for Occasions Such as These. Tognazzini understands the concept, in flash fiction, that what is left unsaid is as equally important as what is said. In flash, less is more.

Composed of fifty-seven pieces ranging in length from a single paragraph to several pages, none hit the reader over the head, yet most hit the nail on the head with their brevity, focus and message. From the opening piece, A Primer, in which a naked man paints himself into the landscape, to the title piece about a brief encounter between strangers on the street, to A Telephone Conversation with My Father (yeah, they really do love each other), to The Enigma of Possibility -- how can a man with the longest tongue in the world manage to find a way to pay the rent in the aftermath of having just lost his job? -- to Working Out with Kafka, where Kafka meets himself while riding a bike crossing a bridge, to Old House -- "I know how lonely the house is when there is no one to live there," to Baseball Is Dangerous but Love Is Everything, where love cures a young man's "not-right scramble and his thinking irregular slightly," the result of a childhood beaning on the head with a baseball bat, I Carry a Hammer is a fine collection of flash that ranges from the fantastical to the commonplace, that contains humor and portrays grief and loss, that turns the mundane into the fascinating, and is almost always thought-provoking.

Tognazzini's voice is fresh, his narrative sharp: My stomach jumped like an angry, barking dog and I spun, throwing up in every direction. When I finished, I regarded the abstract, brown-red splashes on the tile. I thought, Pollock, and it seems tailor-made for flash; yet for some reason, perhaps because their text lack a surgeon's precision with a scalpel, the longer pieces, particularly Gainesville, Oregon -- 1962 -- don't work as well. Tognazzini's talent seems to "flash" with brilliance more often in the flash element.

Still, the overall effect of reading I Carry a Hammer is addicting: you never know what you're going to get when you turn the next page, but you can't refrain from taking a peek.

Recommended.

-- From "The Smoking Poet," literary ezine, Summer 2007 Issue

This book has blessed my life and a few of my friends who has it or has read the book. Angela is straight to the point and she breaks things down for your understanding. If you desire a closeness with God and you are tired of satan's tactics this is the book for you. It doesn't matter where you come from or what you have done "I'm Fed Up With Your Mess" will bless you.

1st thing Angie I would like to thank you for using the KJV which makes the WORD more understandable for some of use old schoolers.
2nd Putting this book down was one of the hardest things for me to do. I shouted, cried and rejoiced in ways I can not put on paper. Thanks for helping me recieve my deliverance.

I love you My friend and My sister in Christ. Danielle Davis

The book was very inspiring and was a great personal testimony of her struggles and how she overcame them with the help of the Lord! Would recommend the book to anyone.

I must say, It's great for your first book!
I identified with your book in so many ways. Your book has inspired me, encouraged me and gave me confirmation of what God has been speaking to me in my own circumstances. Thank you for being obedient to God's Will by writing this book.

I must say, It's great for your first book! I identified with your book in so many ways. Your book has inspired me, encouraged me and gave me confirmation of what God has been speaking to me in my own circumstances. Thank you for being obedient to God's Will by writing this book.

Alexander Pope was undoubtedly the most talented versifier ever to walk the English-speaking portions of this earth. Forget Shakespeare, forget Milton... they don't know anything about iambs compared to Pope. Once you've taken in the first 1000 couplets or so, you'll see what I mean. Plus, this is an excellent, faithful translation of Homer, no matter what the purists think. Sure, Rouse is great for prose, but if you want beauty and grandeur, Pope is your man. This book deserves a special place on your shelf: file under PERFECT.

This, the definitive translation of Homer's classical epic The Illiad is a rip off. It's really too bad because the other translations (yes, my friends, silly ignoramouses have actually tried to translate something that was made perfect by the greatest English poet) ARE CRAP! It's almost unbelievable that all the other sh!++y translations are easier to find than the definitive translation by the Great Alexander Pope (1688-1744).

A professor at Cambridge University summed it up quite nicely. He notes, "You could not memorize Fagles, or Lattimore - or Hobbes, a few phrases apart - while Pope, even at his least Homeric, is memorable." Compare the following VERY BRIEF excerpts to see what I mean. Iliad xxii (483ff.)

Robert Fagles:

The day that orphans a youngster cuts him off from friends. And he hangs his head low, humiliated in every way. . . his cheeks streaked with tears.

Alexander Pope:

The Day, that to the Shades the Father sends,

Robs the sad Orphan of his Father's Friends:

He, wretched Outcast of Mankind! appears

For ever sad, for ever bath'd in Tears;

Pope clearly conveys the emotion better, and as a poet rather than an academic, he is probably closer to Homer's original, at least in style, than most. It is only too bad that this edition is not available in hardcover, since I would like it to grace my library wall for years to come. Also, I do not know how Penguin can justify such an exhorbitant price for a paperback edition. Perhaps because it is the only edition currently available by Pope.

Why is this rip off so hard to find?

Alexander Pope's translation of this epic masterpiece from 1725 is THE ONLY TRANSLATION THAT I CARE TO KNOW ABOUT

The two classic verse (English) translations of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey are by George Chapman (1611) and Alexander Pope (1725). A classic prose translation of both works is the one by Lang, Leaf, and Myers (Iliad), and Butcher, Lang (Odyssey). A good, literal prose translation from the 1890's of the Odyssey is the George Herbert Palmer. Good literal, modern prose translations of both works are the ones by A. T. Murray. The better prose and verse translations of the latter half of the 20th century (E. V. Rieu, Fagles, Lattimore, Fitzgerald, Lombardo, Mandelbaum, etc.) are all, though they obviously have different approaches, pretty much at the same level of inspiration. To get most of Homer in English you have to first learn the poems from ANY translation that speaks to you (even starting with a paraphrased prose version for 'children' is a good idea), then you have to read the Chapman and Pope along with a good, literal prose version. This Penquin Classics edition of Pope's translation of the Iliad includes all of Pope's notes for each book as-well-as his Preface, Essays on the nature of Homer's battle scenes and on the Shield of Achilles, and the three remarkable indexes (Index of Persons and Things, Poetical Index, and Index of Arts and Sciences). The notes contain, along with Pope's original notes, numerous extracts from ancient and modern commentators of the poem including the allegorizing of the various scenes and events and so on. Pope's verse itself makes Homer a startling new experience for anyone only familiar with 20th century translations. Because the verse is in heroic, rhymed couplets each detail of the poem stands more clearly on its own. Details that get blended in and painted over in modern translations stand out in Pope's verse. The verticalness of the poem (hierarchy of levels of being from beneath human to human to semi-divine to divine...) is made more visible. Architecture and natural description is more vivid. Pope also brings out the higher psychological play between the characters and gods and goddesses. This edition is definitely worth its price.