Poetry Books

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I was helping my 11 year old son with his Boy Scout reading merit badge. He needed to read different types of books and was adamant about hating poetry. We went to the library and found this book. Twenty-one poems and paintings, each about a different, specific insect. All the way home he was "Mom, listen to this one. Mom, you've got to see this picture. Mom, look at the way the poem is written in the shape of the insect!!!" We quickly shared it with two older sisters and two younger brothers. We loved the poems and artwork so much we immediately ordered our own copy. The poems are witty, humorous, include words to raise your childs vocabulary, and they are just plain FUN!

Insectopedia is a delight! I found myself reading these poems aloud to my class during silent reading time. They thought the poems were funny too. The book is perfect for all ages, even adults!

We just love reading Insectlopedia! My 6 year old daughter andmy 5 year old son both think it is a great read. Ethan & Alissalike the poem about the Whirligig Beetles the best.

This is a book of poems about insects. The poems are great; their content is funny and rhythmic. Through the poems we learn about the various insects. Some have very creative text formatting such as the inchworm; the text is shaped like a humped-up inchworm. The illustrations are very creative collages that are unique compared to most other children's books.

I began reading this when my first son was 2 years old and he loved the poems then and he loves them now. Neither of my children are otherwise very interested in reading about insects but this book captures their interest and they laugh hysterically at some of these poems. After reading these they have found some of the more unusual insects such as the walking stick outdoors and called it to my attention. We've owned the book for 3 years, every once in a while my now-5 year old will find it and get excitedly proclaim "we haven't read this in a long time" and begs me to read it again (and again and again).

Some of the insects featured are the inchworm, tick, walking stick, praying mantis, monarch butterfly, daddy long legs spider and army ants.

The poems are so much fun I don't mind reading the entire book two or three times in a row. A fun book to read to young children. This is good reading for just plain fun or to introduce poetry or to enhance learning about insects and nature.

Another in the series by this talented author/artist, Insectlopedia is a great adventure for adult and child alike. Children are encouraged to learn about the natural world in a series of poems and illustrations that are engaging, humorous and informative. Florian writes charming verse that informs, but even better, when read aloud, the tongue-twisting alliteration stimulates curiosity and laughter.

"Mosquitoes are thin.
Mosquitoes are rude.
They feast on your skin
For take-out food."

Insectlopedia is fun for beginning readers, certainly a bonus in engaging their interest in words and images. The nonsense menu includes: the dragonfly, the daddy longlegs, the inchworm, the walkingstick, the giant waterbug, the termite, the locusts and the ticks.

As for "The Praying Mantis":
"A caterpillar,
Moth
Or bee-
I swallow them
Religiously."

Luan Gaines/2005.

Ben Lerner is fantastic at what he does and not only is his material fresh, but his approach at poetry is quite miraculous. Each time I sit down to write a poem, I think of his collection and how it inspired me to become more creative and flexible with my voice. This is a must-read. -->Ben Lerner<-- is way cool...A true artist and genius in his gift.

This book signals that Copper Canyon has turned an important corner. Formerly more concerned with publishing established poets than with discovering new ones, Copper Canyon has now produced the most impressive debut collection I've read in twenty years.

Lerner's sonnets are authentic explorations in an old form. Jargons and cliches combine with the poet's plain observations to illuminate a far-ranging curiosity...and a modern assimilating heart.

While Lerner's work has much in common with L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing--an interest in the materiality of language, in postmodern theory, in visual art, and so on--it also has the discursive precision of a more traditional poet--Auden, for example. The Lichtenberg Figures is one of those rare books in which beautiful and playful linguistic surfaces coexist with moments of sincerity.

In the 1998 Hal Hartley movie Henry Fool a perverted garbageman writes a poem that becomes the "best selling poem of all time," eventually earning him the Nobel Prize. Ben Lerner is not a garbageman, but he holds a degree in Political Theory from Brown University, which is close enough to the script that he ought to be in line for recognition by the Swedish Academy. Lichtenberg is a sonnet sequence chloroformed by the lies and swindles of the English language circa 2004. I adore this book. I adorate it.

Check out some of its lines:

What am I the antecedent of?
When I shave I feel like a Russian.
When I drink I'm the last Jew in Kansas.
I sit in my hammock and whittle my rebus.
I feel disease spread through me like a theaory.
I take a sip from Death's black daiquiri.

...

O slender spadix projecting from a narrow spathe,

you are thinner than spaghetti but not as thin as vermicelli.
You are the first and last indigenous Nintendo.

In Life Lines, Anthony Edey draws upon his experiences with Parkinson's Disease and Cancer to craft a poetry which is both serious and hilarious at the same time. Enhanced with line drawn illustrations by Iris Edey and a section of black & white photographs, the poetry comprising this slender volume is as unique as it is memorable. The Final Cure: I hear that I ought to tart smoking,/Just try a medicinal pack./Inhale all the nice levadopa/My little gray cells seem to lack.//I hear that the feeling-good factor/Is just what I'm missing of late./A packet of Gaulloise should fix it,/I'd happily asphyxiate.//It's really a strange contradiction/That smoking could see this thing off./Instead of a long life of shaking/I'd die nice and slow of a cough!//On balance it seems quite apparent,/The treatment is worse than the cure./Through Parkinson's may not be perfect,/It's better than smoking, for sure.

We think that the book is a real light that shines on the fundamental questions of life that many of us manage to ignore.

Life Lines, especially the poem about Sam, made us think again about what is important in our own lives.

Edey captures his feelings and shares his personal revelations with wit and humility as he goes through his acceptance of the diseases that have attacked his body....the art work that accompanies each poem was lovingly brought to life by his wife, a gifted artist. The book is a joy to read and upon which to reflect.

Anthony Edey has written a wonderful book to be appreciated by all, but particularly by those facing serious illness. The book shares humor and sensitivity, and demonstrates how keeping a positive perspective has allowed him to find hope for the future and cherish the simple blessings of everyday life. Parkinson's disease and cancer are tough challenges for anyone. The lesson Anthony teaches with this book is that they can readily be faced with the best medicines: positive thoughts, the love and support of friends and family, a fighting attitude and humor. Bravo, and thank you, Anthony!

Life Lines was meant as a double-entendre by Edey -- "life lines" as throwing them out to save someone drowning in adversity, and lines by the words used by this man who charismatically wrote about his experiences in being treated for skin cancer and Parkinson's Disease. We've heard actor Michael J. Fox talk publicly about his life with PD, and like Fox, Edey provides a service to those who read his words. In Life Lines, Edey takes a "that's life" attitude with his health issues, and makes us chuckle in the face of reality.

Robert Lowell's poetry is praised for its technical brilliance, metrical complexity, and verbal ambiguity. In an earlier review of Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle (awarded Pulitzer Prize of Poetry in 1947) I compared reading his poetry to studying mathematics, too advanced mathematics.

Furthermore, I am often uncomfortable with Lowell's disaffection, mistrust, and anger (one critic calls it apocalyptic rage) evident both in his criticism of contemporary society, and in his confessional topics such as marital difficulties, drinking problems, and mental illness. And yet I keep coming back to Lowell's work to savor his remarkable command of language.

Life Studies, a blend of prose and poetry, is more explicitly personal than his earlier work. The prose section, titled 91 Revere Street, is quite exceptional, not simply for its dispassionate candor, but for its literary excellence. Lowell is almost brutal in his depiction of himself as a boy, offering no excuses for his insensitivity toward others. He is no less severe with his parents. Lowell's portraits of his grandparents, aunts, and uncles were equally candid, but more sympathetic.

Lowell reserves his later difficulties, including struggles with mental illness, for his poetry. Waking in the Blue, a haunting picture of fellow patients in a mental hospital, is immediately followed by an unsettling description of Lowell's return to his family, Home After Three Months Away. Soft Wood, dedicated to Harriet Winslow, who "was more to me than my mother", is deeply moving. Other family poems - like Dunbarton, Grandparents, and Sailing Home from Rapallo - have a poignant beauty. I also liked Beyond the Alps, the first poem in Life Studies, which reappears with an additional stanza as one of the last poems in For the Union Dead.

For the Union Dead has a broader span, addressing social issues and historical subjects, as well as confessional topics, and is thus more similar to Lord Weary's Castle. Hawthorne, Jonathan Edwards in Western Massachusetts, Water, The Old Flame, and the title poem, For the Union Dead offer a good sampling of this work.

The quality of a writer for us , it seems to me, is often defined by how much of ourselves we are willing to put into knowing their work. I read the poems in this collection, but am not tempted to reread them. They make sense and tell of Lowell's childhood, his relation to his father, his meditation on the way he first met his first wife and the way they have grown distant through the years, his sense of his grandfather's grandness as he takes him with him on a local tour, his friendships with other writers. I can read the poems and feel their meaning and sense quite clearly. This to my mind raises them above much poetic language which in many modern poetry writers does not have a context or a sense. Lowell does often tell a small story in his poem.
But there is for me , anyway, a certain absence of music , a certain lack of those kind of memorable lines I find in my beloved poets.
Reading other reviews of Lowell's poetry I see others see more in his work, feel it deeper than I do. They are the truer readers.

Robert Lowell is a giant in American poetry. He is pretty much unanimously considered one of the best of his generation. This book combines two of his volumes of poetry. One of those volumes is his masterpiece Life Studies--the reason why he is a giant in American poetry. This is his seminal work. No matter how you look at it, this is an important book of poetry. And an excellent book of poetry. Most of the poems are good and there are several phenomenal poems within. Life Studies alone belongs on any serious poetry connoisseur's shelf. Also in this book is arguably Lowell's second best collection (only Lord Weary's Castle might be better) For the Union Dead, which contains another masterpiece, "For the Union Dead" (and a favorite of mine "Hawthorne"). This is a book that poetry lovers of all kinds should have.

Lowell is of the vanguard of American twentieth century poets, a man who created many brilliant works other than the two joined in this volume. In such poems in Life Studies as Beyond the Alps and A Mad Negro Soldier Confined in Munich, as well as his portraits of various friends and family, we discover a man capable of both acid humor and outright sadness. However, in Life Studies, these excellent poems are overshadowed by the towering biographical essay 91 Revere Street. In this touching memoir, Lowell describes distant, illustrious relatives, Amy Lowell being a famous but ostracized example, friendships wrecked in childhood, disquietude over a girlfriend who soils herself in class (in his embarrassment, Lowell sits in it), his formative years on the periphery of polite, conservative Bostonian society, and his fathers coarse, difficult superiors and buddies that cropped up in the father's job with the Navy. Though his poems here are outstanding, an uncomfortable question arises when one considers this essay: Would Lowell have been better off to employ his time as a prose stylist, not a poet?

For the Union Dead validates Lowell's decision to declare poetry his mode of expression. Poems such as the dolorous My Last Evening with Uncle Devereaux Winslow and Terminal Days at Beverly Farm expose a man groping for hope after the deaths of close relatives; Waking in the Blue and Myopia: A night explore, respectively, Lowell's mental illness and attendant three month hospitalization, and a night of insomnia that becomes a maelstrom of tortured reflections and half-hewn thoughts; The Drinker explores alcoholism as a product of foiled love, with a question as to whether pathology or sheer carelessness and love of idleness is the underlying shibboleth. Water, the poem that stoked my love for Lowell, uses a maritime theme to express sorrow over a lost love. Beyond the Alps, from Life Studies, is reprised here with an elided stanza reinserted at the behest of coeval John Berryman.

Lowell is one of those poets so gifted, so erudite, so steeped in classical literature, it's hard to grasp that, as he explains it, he was "less rather than more bookish than most children." Much of the isolation evinced in Lowell's poetry, as well as the restlessness of his life, both as youth and adult, are radiantly eviscerated in these two collections.

I read this poem again on Martin Luther King Day, a fitting day for this poem, a tribute to the Union dead of the Civil War and a particular remembrance of the black soldiers who wore the uniform of the Union-- particularly of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment (made famous to non-Civil War students by the movie Glory several years ago).

The 54th Massachusetts was the first black regiment to march from the North to fight the Confederacy. These men were quite brave knowing that in battle they would likely get little or no quarter, and if captured they would most assuredly be sent south back to slavery. These men had much to prove, what with years of racism from North and South to be broken and defeated by their bravery and sacrifices-- not to mention the Confederate army that they would later face on the battlefield. They would win ever-lasting fame for their courage during their doomed assault on Fort Wagner at Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, July, 1863. The attack would be a night assault on this heavily guarded fort. The fighting would be intense and the 54th would not be successful. Their white colonel, Robert Gould Shaw would be killed, and almost half the regiment would be lost. The first Medal of Honor for a black man would be earned there.

They marched down Beacon Street, with the Massachusetts State House on one side and Boston Common on the other - off to war, off to death and glory on a twin mission; to fight for the Union and show the world that they were equal in ability to whites. Directly across the street from the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Street there now stands the brilliant monument by Augustus St. Gaudens, forever commemorating the 54th, the first black regiment and their white commander Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.

This monument on Beacon Hill is one of the finest monuments of any kind in the United States. As a tribute to Shaw and the 54th it is unparalleled in the physical world; but in the emotional world, the world of poetry, Robert Lowell comes quite close. Lowell brilliantly describes the monument to the 54th and works it into the life of Boston that foremost of abolition cities of the North. Standing before the 54th monument on Beacon Hill, as the crowds walk swiftly by and the traffic speeds along past the State House, one can almost hear the men breath as they are forever frozen in bronze on their march south to battle. There are few monuments in bronze as lifelike as this one: it is an incredible tribute to the 54th and their commander and adorns the city of Boston as fittingly as the obelisk at Bunker Hill or the colonial historical sites of Adams, Revere, Hancock, and several miles to the west, Lexington and Concord.

Lowell's "For the Union Dead" is a successful poem on so many levels and succeeds completely where Tate's "Ode to the Confederate Dead" so totally fails. It unifies time and place, and brings context and permanence where everything seems to be shifting and changing. As a tribute to the 54th and the Union dead of the Civil War its elements run as deep as the waters off the coast of Boston seen from the top of Beacon Hill so long ago when the skyscrapers didn't block the view.

Having started his education at Harvard, Lowell transfered to Kenyon College to study under John Crowe Ransom another of Vanderbilt's Fugitives, like Allen Tate and Donald Davidson. It is an astounding thing that the two greatest Civil War poems of modern times ("Lee in the Mountains" and "For the Union Dead") and the worst ("Ode to the Confederate Dead") should be written by poets with Nashville connections. Lowell went on to graduate school to study under Robert Penn Warren, another Vanderbilt "Fugitive".

St. Gaudens placed a Latin inscription on the monument, the motto of the Society of the Cincinnati (a society of Revolutionary War officers started by George Washington and Henry Knox): "Relinquit Omnia Servare Rem Publicam". The translation is: "He left behind everything to save the Republic". Lowell opened his poem with this Latin phrase but changed the singular "he" to "they" in the Latin so that his poem would refer to all the men of the 54th not just its white commander, Robert Gould Shaw, to read: "Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam".

"For the Union Dead" was published in 1964 during the height of the Civil Rights movement. Active in Civil Rights efforts, it is perfectly understandable that Lowell should have written this poem of unity and appreciation with concern, too, that the past should be remembered and its lessons learned. The battlefield of Fort Wagner had been by then reclaimed by the sea at Charleston Harbor and the monument to the 54th had fallen into disrepair. In fact, it was during this time that the St. Gaudens monument had been removed and stored in a crate to prevent damage from "shaking" from the construction of the underground Boston Commons parking garage. So, the battleground is gone, and Shaw's monunument is gone (but only temporarily), and history fades while "progress" continues speedily obliterating the memory of those that have come before.

"The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier
grow slimmer and younger each year-
wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets
and muse through their sideburns . . ."

Lowell's brilliant poem is his way of retaining the past and ensuring that important historical memory is not lost forever. The men of the 54th Massachusetts, black and white, were leaders in bringing an end to slavery and establishing equality under the law for blacks in America. The story of their bravery and sacrifice is important to understanding American history and the Civil War. These men demonstrated with their actions and their blood that they were equals and merited equal positions in American society. As Americans North and South we ought to continue to embrace their memory and appreciate the many challenges that they overcame and the lessons that they taught us with their sacrifices at Fort Wagner and elsewhere.

We can look back to the 54th Massachusetts as a standard bearer in the struggle for Civil Rights in America. In the 1980s, my husband was privileged to be part of an effort to restore the St. Gaudens monument to its original beauty and power. Lowell's poem is a tribute to this beautiful work of art, and the men of the 54th Massachusetts who so inspired it. It is our duty a to remember our past, appreciate and commemorate our war dead, and learn those lessons that they underscored for later generations with their lives.

"Two months after marching through Boston,
half the regiment was dead;
at the dedication,
William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe."

This is one of the finest poems of the 20th century and stands with "Lee in the Mountains" as one of the two great modern poems of the Civil War.