Poetry Books

This is one of the most beautiful combinations of poetry and art. The poem is really quite beautiful. The art is inspirational. I don't knwo that I'd give it to a couple for their wedding though, cause the poem is about a man who is cheating on his wife....So don't take the advice of the other reviewer, the couple might look at you funny!

I was given this book several years ago when I was out book shopping with a teacher I love to be with.

We were both rather caught up that day in the spirit of the art and poem.
Feels almost a decade ago, so it probably was.
I liked Chagall's pictures some of which here I had not seen, will never see (though I've made a good stab at knowing his work)and appreciate this book form and maybe, in my way, felt that the poem was pushing me to consider them from a perspective I might have seen differently sans text. It would be typical that my friend was drawn to the words reading it to me several times, and I think drawing a bit of customer interest, while I was held by the images. Well we were in a children's bookstore in the art books looking for things to use in teaching...so I guess in a way...we were behaving rather like a child might finding the National Geo holding pictures of "naked people" something I recall of my brothers days. I imagine the internet fills that role now.....

This said I would contextualize this...I was raised in another "time" and in the arts and literature. In my era if creating a piece we were asked frankly to shock, disarm, question to engage with literature and art for its ability to speak the human truth that often is hidden or obfuscated. That love contains a side that exists physically ....a kind of accepted truth. Thus you have Cummings poem. Which is a bit..risque. Or these paintings. I don't know why I find reality TV not this or expressions in culture now different but I do. I am aware that changes in outlooks now conclude that a book like this one would be kind of a scandal in school.
Not that I was taking it there, but in my time I think "nobigdeal". I find this odd with what goes on media wise...but enough said.

I would imagine the persons exchanging this as a gift would be talking of love, or like my friend and I feeling silly happy about an aspect of living. If I put it on the coffee table in a stack of art books my kids read it, enjoy the pictures, like the book but I doubt think much one way or another besides its sweet. To me at the time I found it spoke to journeys in our lives, positive aspects of this thing denoted as love functioning in our days....funny...irreverent. Rather a playful relationship to the viewer maintained, nice diversion. I'd give it to someone with a heart.

If you are a Chagall or e.e. cummings lover, this book is not to be missed. It is an absolute treasure and such a beautiful marriage of words and art! The images perfectly complement the text. Highly recommended, even as an introduction to either of these two artists.

Just got this book and I love it. I purchased it based on reviews that I read and they are 100% correct. Beautiful pictures and a touching poem. Great as a wedding gift.

A terrific combination of art appreciation classes and literature for reading outdoors--took me back some 35 years to college days in its content, and then back up to the present in its pervasive wisdom. A joy for the ear and eye, just like its message--lovemaking is for lots of ages and stages and a delight to the senses. Should be on every bookstore's front tables.

A friend told me he was going to listen to David Whyte and it intrigued me enough to look him up and download this CD for a long drive this weekend. I find myself rather numb from the depth and breadth of it all. So very much to think about and what its implications are in my life that I'll be having to relisten many times I'm sure (I've already listened twice). He gives us his experiences with such clarity I can almost smell the Celtic grasses under his feet and feel the mists swirling around his vision, occasionally parting for a view of distant and promising lands. This wrapped up in his and others poetry that he reads and his reflections about it has caused me to further explore new poets, to talk about them with my friends, and to ask what can we do with this. David has obviously thought about such matters deeply and I can think of no higher tribute to a person than they made me think profoundly about profound matters.

A NEW NOTE OF CAUTION: I purchased this as an introduction to David Whyte, thinking if I liked this "unabridged" version I'd buy his "Clear Mind, Wild Heart" (CMWH) audio. Long story short: this is actually CD 2 and 3 of CMWH. I think this is like taking all the odd chapters of a Tale of Two Cities, renaming it "Story of a Town (Unabridged)". It is misleading labeling. I will keep the five stars because it is an amazing foray into poetry and life in general but beware--if you're thinking you'll buy CMWH then go straight there. Fortunately the audio download server with a name almost identical to the publisher of this CD refunded my money so I could just buy the 6 CD set.

I bought this to listen to as we traveled through Scotland.(Seems like an odd plan, but I wanted to do some reflection on my own mid-life.) I LOVED it! David uses poetry in such a meaningful manner, and he's an excellent story-teller. I've listened to this many times since that trip, and each time I REALLY listen. I have to say that I am a little better for the listening.

This CD is one that you will want to listen to over and over again, and with friends. It is not just for people in midlife, it is for anyone in life. Get it and you will learn what life is all about and how to live it.

As awkward as it might be to consider oneself at mid-life, it is a genuine relief to have such a clear and open-hearted guide such as David Whyte help make sense of it all. This CD is profound and inspiring. I could listen to Mr. Whyte's voice all day long. He draws on not only poetry (his own and that of others), but on basic life observations and recollections. The only caution I'll give is that some material seems to be lifted directly from another of his CDs, entitled "Clear Mind: Wild Heart". It's possible that it's just the same words and themes...I haven't done a side-by-side comparison. The duplication is a bit disconcerting, but has more to do with the publisher than the author. Anyway, David Whyte's talents are amazing, and this material is one that I'll listen to again and again. Best wishes,

I wish the "midlife" reference were not in the title as it made me hesitate and delay trying this product for way too long. It is such an exquisite treat and so powerful in way more ways than I can convey through words. David Whyte's uniquely powerful delivery adds further punch to his great insights that reach ever deeper the more one listens. Thus I found it amazing the first time I listened and keep being blown away by finding it ever more powerful every time I listen. In addition to the content, the place David Whyte speaks from is itself profoundly impactful. At the time I ended up deciding to buy this product I had greatly lamented Amazon not selling David Whyte's "poetry of self-compassion" as I had adored that tape. Although I still regret not having yet been able to find it on CD as it is even more powerful yet, I am so glad that it ended up pushing me into giving this product a try as both are invaluable and well worth owning and repeatedly listening to over the years as special treats that get ever better over time.

Miss Woman is Ann Vaughan Richards' first novel. Married to a scientist, a self-proclaimed recluse, A.V. Richards is a member of a large Alabama family who she says all gathered in the same spot...for generations.

Victoria is a town where everyone knows each other and their business. Told from the viewpoint of Willie Kay, a divorcee who has returned to the bosom of her family, Miss Woman at first seems to be a typical Southern story about racism. "Miss Woman" is a sassily dressed African-American woman who suddenly appears on the scene of Victoria. When she throws open her window to treat the residents of Victoria to an impromptu, loving blues performance, people don't know what to think. Then Callie Thomas runs into the street and gets hit by a car, and Glenna Bedsole, whose personal problems leave her deranged, is suddenly murdered. Willie Kay is in the middle of the action, but feels powerless:

"We didn't know what happened, but Glenna Bedsole knew and Callie Thomas knew. And, sitting in the alley beside the Victoria Dry Cleaners, O.K. Maylo knew. He had seen it all. He had seen Glenna Bedsole heap curses upon Callie's head, and he had seen her enter her store and come back with a handful of wire coat hangers, he had seen her throw the coat hangers on Callie's unsuspecting body, and he had seen Callie start in fright and run into Mr. Stroud's car. O.K. Maylo knew, all right."

As Ms. Richards' quirky but fascinating tale unfolds, her equally quirky but completely compelling characters roll out one at a time. Her tale is slow and ponderous; the type of story that appeals to any woman on a mission of self discovery or any man who craves insight into the workings of the female mind. Miss Woman operates on many levels: social; political; emotional; intellectual; philosophical. It is as much a tale that Oprah would like as it is a tale with a whodunit theme.

Miss Woman showcases a strong Black role model with the ability to make our hearts sing. Willie Kay is probably more a character whom most of us can relate to. The story itself is fascinating. Willie Kay herself uncovers emotional levels unplumbed by most of us. A great tale.

Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer

Ann Vaughan Richards' first novel is a lush celebration of all things Southern: a tale as rich as homemade pecan pie and as tangled as a kudzu vine.
"Miss Woman" is set in fictional Victoria, Ala., where nothing much has changed in decades. When 45-year-old Willie Kay, newly divorced, returns to her hometown to start over, she finds that litttle has changed since her departure. Even the unyielding attitudes of the local folks seem frozen in an earlier, less enlightened, era. Old loves and old hatreds are still firmly in place here, and old secrets still fester underneath a veneer of politeness.
The town's rigid social order is cracked wide open with the arrival of Miss Woman. She appears without warning in the upstairs window of the Victoria Thrift Store on a steamy summer day, and as she bangs chords on an upright piano and sends her "low down, gut wrenching...You Can Have Him I Don't Want Him Didn't Love Him Anyhow Blues" floating across the town square, she embodies everything that the town is not. Her ample body shimmers in rainbow satins, her smiling face is framed by a turban; she is flamboyant, mysterious, uninhibited, spontaneous and generous.
These qualities alone would be condemnation enough for Glenna Bedsole, a vicious gossip bent on unraveling the lives of her neighbors. But even more alarming, in Glenna's eyes, is the fact that Miss Woman is black.
Glenna's own father was a notorious bigot whose ruthlessness earned him a bullet through the heart long ago. When the embittered woman launches a campaign of personal destruction against her fellow townspeople, probing her neighbors' best-kept secrets, a late-night visitor uses a shotgun to silence her. As the evidence around the case slowly unfolds, the list of possible suspects grows, and a small-minded band of residents turn suspicious eyes on Miss Woman.
Unsuspecting Willie Kay finds herself at the heart of a struggle that will transform her own life, and change the townspeople of Victoria forever.

I love books with descriptions so vivid, I can smell the flowers, hear the rain, and feel the sweat drip down my neck. Miss Woman by Ann Vaughan Richards is exactly that kind of book. And her characters!! If you've ever felt overwhelmed or outflanked by your family, you will feel an immediate connection with Willie Kay, the narrator. The rest of the towns people of Victoria quickly become people as well, leaving you at times laughing at their antics and then completely shocked by their behavior. But don't make the mistake of dismissing this book as a light, frothy description of southern charm. This book also tackles serious subjects like adultery, abortion, racism, and murder. The framework of the novel is a murder mystery but it is really an in-depth look at the characters in a small southern town and their interactions with each other. I especially appreciated Ms. Richards' treatment of race relations. Although she does describe the racism most associate with the South (white man kills black man for being "uppity"), she also explores another, far less publicized side of these interactions. The love and care provided for an aging black woman by her "white family" and the courageous determination of a group of white people to provide Miss Woman a safe place to live are vivid counterpoints to the racism brutally portrayed in other parts of the book. Even a week after I have finished this book, I find myself revisiting the town of Victoria in my mind, wondering about the little mysteries left unsolved and the big question of "What happens next?" Good books always leave you wanting more and Miss Woman has done an excellent job of just that. So, grab a comfy chair, turn on your favorite blues music and let Miss Woman take you to that rainy, hot day in June when the blues notes first started falling from a second story window. . .

In the late 1980's, a stranger comes to town and settles into an apartment above the local thrift shop. A large black woman who dresses in rich jewelry and shimmering fabrics of red, green, and gold, Miss Woman exudes "presence" and mystery. Who is she? Why has she come to this sultry Alabama town? Why, from her open window, does she lean out and sing the blues?

On the surface, the town of Victoria appears respectable enough. To be sure, it harbors eccentrics like O.K. Maylo, who lives with his dog in a kudzu-covered school bus; Vereena Lucille, a former trapeze artist now almost inaccessible beneath mounds of body fat; and Lurlene Langford, who, according to local legend, calls out at night to visions of her dead brother. For the most part, however, Victoria seems like any other small town. One by one, the inhabitants emerge-the sheriff and deputy; the mayor, beautician, and jeweler; the mute child Callie; the renegade clan "strong enough to steal, but too weak to work"; and Willie Kay, a recently-returned divorcee through whose eyes much of the story is filtered. The reader empathizes with the Morrows, who grieve for their deceased daughter; the faithful Claude, whose aged body is "shrunken to an everlasting chill"; and even Granny Lou, who, until her dying day, will never know how she has managed to raise such a wasteful family. In Victoria, adult children still show up for family dinners, and an ice-cold Coke can transform a bad day.

It is Glenna Bedsole, however, the embodiment of small-mindedness and mean-spiritedness, who reveals the town's darker underside. Oppressed by financial difficulties, prejudices, and family skeletons, Glenna at first strikes out at Miss Woman and then, as her antagonism mounts, begins a tale-bearing crusade against the neighbors. Since most of Victoria's inhabitants are living "critical deceptions and essential lies," Glenna touches first one nerve and then another. Methodically, she exposes and alienates the townspeople--until she is discovered--dead.

Who killed Glenna Bedsole? This is a second mystery. Read as a whodunit, MISS WOMAN becomes a study of character and possible motive, a crime novel replete with likely suspects. Still, MISS WOMAN is much more than a detective novel. Even as it captures the flavor of small-town life--the gossip and prejudice, the interconnected web of relationships, the intrigue, the fear of being "found out"--it reveals a more fundamental conflict. For years, Victoria has resisted change, maintaining its identity--and stability--as a closed, insular system. As she sweeps into town like a healthy Earth goddess, Miss Woman brings with her both opportunity and threat:

"We didn't have a place for her in our society. She didn't fit our labels. She was dark-skinned and sensuous, and she was threatening us by her boldness. She was unsettling our world and exposing the insecurities that lay lightly buried under its ordered surface."

Through her spontaneity and humanity, Miss Woman models a new, more authentic behavior. In a very real sense, she has come to give life. To receive her gift fully, however, Victoria must be willing to relinquish at least some of its long-cherished patterns. It must forge a link to the outside world and open itself to change. This is the challenge Victoria faces. This is the theme MISS WOMAN explores.

Prefering to read non-fiction and finding enough "drama" in my own life to fill a book, I rarely read novels for pleasure. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't put down Miss Woman! Yes, the characters are colorful, the setting provocative, and the plot intriguing, but it's the mysteries left unsolved that linger and inform one's contemporary world, especially here in "Florida's Great Northwest." Florida's best-kept secret is rapidly becoming less so, thanks to unparalleled expansion by the St. Joe Co. Like Victoria, our own sleepy, very-stereotypical, small Southern towns like Apalachicola, St. Joe, Mexico Beach...even larger Panama City...are struggling with growth's purported opportunities. Miss Woman's Glenna embodies the "insanity" that is symptomatic of the "threats" of change and loss of power/control. What is especially provocative is the reader's own examination of herself/himself as both akin to and murder suspect of Glenna. What lingers for me is appreciation for being at this place in Florida's evolution...at this time. I find myself challenged to be less apologetic about all that makes my culture rich and unique and to take a more active role in preserving worthy heritage while embracing those dimensions of change that enrich it and move us forward constructively. A compelling book.

The illustrations as well as the sentiment are beautiful in this book! We find new details in the pictures each time we read it. The way this story is presented does a great job of making the idea of having two "real" mothers more concrete for our 6-year old daughter. I could almost see the lightbulbs popping up above her head! We have dozens of adoption related titles; this one makes my top 5 and is easily in my daughter's top 10.

This book is absolutely wonderful! I would recommend this to anyone who is adopting internationally.

Beautiful illustrations and a lovely poem about the adoptive child's two mothers (birthmother & adoptive mother).

We brought our two adopted daughters back to Jiande orphanage as preteens in 2006 and addressed the birthmom question not for the first time ... we had relied on the "Choco" book and other fables available in the mid-90s when we first had these discussions of the "tummy Mom" and the "real Mom." Too bad this book had not been available then. However, it is such a graphically beautiful book and has such a simple message that I thought I would add it to our China book shelf. The girls tend to act disinterested in those books now--unlike when they had been younger--but a book like this is easy to flip through in a few minutes and can easily re-ignite that on-going conversation our family has been having about how it feels to be adopted.

Motherbridge of Love is a masterfully illustrated and touchingly eloquent tribute to both birth and adoptive mothers. This beautifully illustrated version of a fairly well-known poem truly illustrates how the love of two women for one child come together to make the child who she is...the result of both of their love...expressed in very different ways.

This is a fascinating life story, told through intricate, strong poems. If you like poetry, or storytelling, this is a fine collection.

Native Guard
by Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard is a superb example of storytelling through poetry. Her seamless imagery flows like lyrical essays inviting you into her world of "southern living" as seen by a woman whose mother was black and father white; a product of the infamous unwritten law of the two races mixing in the 1950's.
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, there is no denying that Trethewey has a distinctive style and demands the attention of word artists. The title poem, Native Guard, is not only a poignant excerpt of Civil War history buried in the hidden archives of the south, Trethewey professes the contributions soldiers of African decent who served this country in the name of freedom for all men.
Native Guard opens with a story/poem of the disappointment of her mother at 16, who left "the dirt roads of Mississippi" on a train to California to meet her father only to find him nowhere in sight. Trethewey sweetly illustrates the torment of physical abuse by her stepfather, mourns the passing of her mother, the cross burning in her front yard, and the beauty of the South with all its degeneracy. Her stories flow in sonnets, a pantoum, and a verse form I have yet to identify illustrated in "Myth" (page 14) which left me awestruck. Her poetry exudes a gentle anger that is soothed with a balm of historical lessons.
Native Guard is familial history and southern history. Trethewey provides notes for the epigraphs she used as well as the sources used to create the title poem "Native Guard."
I highly recommend purchasing this book, if for no other reason, for the fact that the sister won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry! I only wish I counld have purchased the first edition!

As I read these poems, each offers a an insight which calls me to visualize the scenes that are portrayed. I've reread several passages to confirm their impact.

This book is great example of powerful modern poetry. I'll recommend it to many. it offers a profound mix of history and personal experience. Trethewey reveals her life and thoughts fearlessly.

Weighted with temperament and the presence of graveyards, Trethewey paints vivid images of a past aware of its own history and the death of loved ones:

"It rained the whole time we were laying her down:
Rained from church to grave when we put her down.
The suck of mud at our feet was a hollow sound.

I wander now among names of the dead.
My mother's name, stone pillow for my head."
(Graveyard Blues)

Finding portents in simple childhood acts, the more mature poet replays such impulses in a new light:

"how they'd dry like graveside flowers, rustling
when the wind blew- a whisper, treacherous,
from the sill. Be taken with yourself,

they said to me: Die early, to my mother."
(Genus Narcissus)

Bi-racial, the poet blends the spirit of her parents with the inevitability of their destinies and the legacy to their child:

"Already the words are changing. She is changing
from colored to negro, black still years ahead.
This is 1966- she is married to a white man-
And there are more names for what grows inside her."
(My Mother Dreams Another Country)

Recounting the discoveries of childhood with a history in the south- war and miscegenation- I am struck by the poet's embrace of time and place, the troubled years of war and the ubiquitous presence of race in daily life; yet she instinctively draws beauty where there is none, an intimate awareness of her parentage and position in a black and white world she treads so intuitively. There is much to be learned simply by listening to Trethewey's words, caught in the magic of her introspective nature. Luan Gaines/ 2007.

This is one of the best new poetry books I've read in years: from the haunting and surprising poems of elegy to the author's mother, in the opening section (including a hymn!) to the middle section's integration of Southern history with personal fact, to the striking end section's reflections on personal history, race, and the impact of being biracial in the South--this is an intricate, accessible, beautiful book. And, the range of forms and subtle but powerful techniques the author uses make this the most unified varied body of work since, maybe, the Beatles made the White Album.

Milosz came highly recommended: by Anna Akhmatova, Irina Ratushinskaya and Joseph Brodsky! (I even think that I read that Pasternak was a fan late in life!)

The cover blurb says that he contains the twentieth century within himself like no other poet, and this certainly is true. But this is not primarily "historical" poetry. It covers deep issues, but remains intensely honest, open, personal, experiential and biblically spiritual. Having said all of that, I don't do Milosz's poetry justice. It is not there for anybody's encyclopedic curiosity of "honest Christian experience". It is a scalpel that cuts open his own heart, and mine. Repeatedly. Clearly. Without descending into the self-consciously avant-garde. He opens me in more ways than I sometimes think I want to be opened.

Particularly interesting in this volume, and not I think available in any of the individual volumes alone, is the whole experience of his 70 years struggling with the demons of war and Communism and his own survivor's guilt. Many people have written about such things, many good and enlightening things have been said. But here is a man who struggled for seventy years, whose attitudes and balances evolved, who can comment not only on the experience, but the experience seen from perspectives of ten and twenty and forty and seventy years--and can comment on his own perspectives with an additional insight. You can, and should, read this volume like a novel, cover to cover, straight through, and watch him as he finds his accommodations, and as they crumble and are remade.

Milosz's poetry has a kind of energy that makes you want to shout on a rooftop: read this book. Any poet of any stature writes poems that fail to rise to the level of masterpieces, but in this book of 750 pages they are few and far between. The translator deserves much credit for these poem read as if they were originally written in English.
I used to think that Paul Celan captured the horror of war torn Europe the best, but Milosz now wins the title. The first books of this collection are harrowing and wistful.
The books written from California and France take a more metaphysical tone but never fail to be touching and humane.
The most recent poems detailing growing old are often funny but always reminiscent of just how much he has paid for growing up during wartime.
Shakespeare and Milosz had their fingers on the pulse of the human condition and have created poems that will truly last forever.
I recommend this book even to people who do not normally read poetry. It has changed me--- for the better.

In the very last poem of this, the greatest collection of Milosz's works, he so lucidly begins.......

Late Ripeness by Czeslaw Milosz

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.........

******************

This wonderful collection spans a lush and lavish 70 long years; years magically molded in the hands of a cunning and capable and wise prophet of our times.
Milosz yearns for a 'tangible reality' to maintain the health of poetry. He is accessible even to the untrained ear.....for it is ultimately in the lack of illusion that his work shines and reverberates.

In his introduction, he concludes that "poetry has always been for me a participation in the humanly modulated time of my contemporaries."

And we see this simple humility reflected in the last verses of his final poem of this collection.
*************************

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

**************************************

This rich collection will transport you back and forth in time with a gifted, yet humble master of distillation, distance and destiny!

Few poets have as eloquently and profoundly mapped out the manic contours of the twentieth century as have Czeslaw Milosz. And even fewer poets have truly lived through what they wrote. In both categories, Milosz stands as a towering giant, a massive oak which has weathered the most savage of storms and the sweetest of sunshines. Anyone interested in walking along the trial and tribulation-filled path of the last century would be wise to pick up this ultimate testament to Milosz's life and work.

This tome covers the entire expanse of Milosz's writing career, from his early years in Lithuania, where he followed the Frnech symbolists in writing image-dense lyrics, to his twilight years in Berkeley and Krakow, where his majestic voice evolved into that of a prophet's. Each poem exudes the light and darkness of the various stations along his life. Young student in Vilnius, journalist in pre-war Warsaw, the contemplative and distanced survivor of the Warsaw Uprising, the awe-struck immigrant never quite at home in his new land. All of these stops are painted with a wry and mediatative hand. Milosz's work is that of the thinker. His mind soars above the peaks and abysses of his life, well-distanced from the churning seas of emotion. He never delves into the passion of the moment, into the realm of the subjective. Milosz spent his childhood years wanting to be a naturalist and his objective, scientist-like perspective dominates throughout his work. In the Miloszian world, we are all parts of a much greater whole, our individual tears and spurts of temporary joy matter little in the grand picture of things. And it is this global picture that Milosz attempts to put down on the canvas. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the physical world is Milosz's favorite backdrop, and even when it appears absent, it's scent is still traceable. His formative years spent in the wilds of Lithuania gave him a fatalistic faith in the indestructible permanence of things, that no doubt helped him endure the hell of WW II Poland.

While detachement is Milosz's telltale signature, our human presence in the machine of history is really what these poems attempt to divulge. Like his country, Milosz experienced firsthand two totalitarian beasts, that of Nazi Germany and of Soviet Russia. Yet, Milosz's credo is not one of naive heroism, as is much in Polish poetry. His message is far more universal with its 'human, all too human' colors. For him, the true heros were those who managed to survive, to exist and to stubbornly hold on to some semblance of human dignity whilst all around bestiality reigned. The boy on the barricades of Warsaw who died nameless and faceless, this is the best we can do. Milosz avoids pointing the finger at the big beasts themselves, but instead asks us to examine our hearts. 'Did you really need to plunge into an abyss, To compose systems rather than settling into the fairy tale.'

Milosz's later poems carry the weight of a life lived through extraordinary circumstances. A life neither excessively noble nor excessively evil. Milosz's writes of and for the survivor, for most of us, who reach life's end with a complex mesh of guilt and content. 'I feel relief thinking I was no better and no worse than many, and that together with them I wait for forgiveness.' Like Shakespeare before him, Milosz's lasting message is one of humility before our sad condition, before our sad history, and most of all, before our merciful Maker. The hardest of lessons, but also the most important.

People--especially the young--who are headed for the first time to the feast New York provides will appreciate the wit and wisdom of David Carroll, 'one time lad, now a druid sage.' He knows the menu! For those who have already partaken of New York, Carroll's poetry is a feast in itself. Marilou Awiakta

People--especially the young--who are headed for the first time to the feast New York provides will appreciate the wit and wisdom of David Carroll, 'one time lad, now a druid sage.' He knows the menu! For those who have already partaken of New York, Carroll's poetry is a feast in itself. Marilou Awiakta

New York: A Feast of Memories weaves a poignant path of poems highlighting the wondrous 20th Century history of the "Big Apple". H. Wm. Card, Jr.

David D. Carroll has captured with sensitivity, insight, and humor the exuberance of a New York of yesterday . E. Blagbrough

A delightful, nostalgic, rollicking remembrance of the wonders of New York, by one who knows it well. In his unique, masterful style of writing, and amazing powers of memory, David Donald Carroll has given us not only unforgettable pictures of New York but also of this remarkable nation. The book is vintage Americana at its best. Dr. J. Moreland

This book is worth the read. If you like Homer. You will love this book. It is like an add on to Homer. I tell everyone I meet to pick this book up.
Easy to read. A wonderful story and written with such grace.

Lesa Trapp

By all the gods on Mount Olympus, I have never seen mythology presented so clearly! A poet is dictionary-defined as: a person of imaginative power and sense of beauty; one who presents a subject in a unique way. Marc Ladewig truly has the soul of a poet. My favorite lines, (and there are many) are:
"The strands of god run deep in mortal man
and in the stars and every blade of grass."
Marc has a way of making the gods and their times come alive in a fascinating and memorable way. This epic tale itself is a work of art, the pictures make it even easier to envision the story and the afterword is a wonderful reference tool as well. With the map, the family tree and the glossary of names and places, further study is certainly made much easier. After reading this book, even those who are not poetically inclined will want to read more. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R9ILUHVJXE75V Odysseus Bids Farewell to Calypso is a video with original musical introduction by the author.

I have loved the tales of Homer since a child; reading everything I could get my hands on in my school's library about the Trojan war and the wanderings of Odysseus. My life choices were influenced by my internalization of the warrior ethos found in Homer's immortal poems.

But the old stories grew stale, and I have been unable to get back into them in decades.... Till Marc Ladewig's amazing retelling of the Oddyssey!

This is indeed Homer for a new generation of modern readers. Marc writes in clear and understandable poetic-prose. He serves-up the epic myth in the style of Homer, trimmed of the "fat" that weighs pure translations down for modern readers.

I recommend this book to any reader of any age who thrills to the ancient tales or who enjoyed the film "Troy". But especially I hope this book is picked-up by educators, who will find this a fine piece of literature and a great tool for introducing young minds to the world of Homer. To the "fierce-bred" heroes of ancient Greece; to lovely nymphs and cleaver wives; and to mega-hearted Odysseus, doomed to wander the wine-dark seas before at last returning to hearth and home.

With "Odysseus, the Epic Myth of the Hero," the California poet Marc Ladewig has undertaken a noble task: a contemporary retelling of the adventures of Odysseus (aka "Ulysses"). The ancient king of Ithaca's deeds were originally described by the Greek poet Homer in the 8th century B.C. in the epic poems "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," which respectively depict the Trojan War and Odysseus's magical and harrowing journey home. The two works are still the most famous epic dramas of Western Civilization, their mythology permanently etched into our collective culture. We know the stories from the original Homer and from adaptations (such as Wolfgang Petersen's 2004 movie "Troy"), elaborate re-workings (James Joyce's "Ulysses" and Joel and Ethan Coen's "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" are examples), references in story and song (including Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses"), and innumerable renderings in painting and sculpture. Who has not heard of the Cyclops, Achilles' heel, the Lotus Eaters, the Sirens, or the Trojan horse?

So, it is with a chill up the spine and a rush of nostalgia that one reads Ladewig's opening words: "Sing about that long lost man for me, dear Muse of epic song...." And we plunge into the Homeric reality of legendary warriors and fierce battles, helpful and wrathful gods, oracular and vengeful wives and mothers, seductive goddesses and terrifying creatures, and the homesick Odysseus and his ever faithful wife Penelope. In Ladewig's book, "some parts are translation, some parts are adventures upon which Homer is silent, some parts are pure invention." He is true to the spirit of the original, yet strives to fill in gaps and to interpret. Ladewig, of course, is not the only author to augment Homer's accounts: Euripides and Aeschylus wrote plays more than two thousand years ago that dealt with characters from the Trojan War. For the 21st century, it helps to have a new telling that bridges the gap between the ancient and modern worlds, and their manners of storytelling. Ladewig succeeds admirably in this. His language is fresh and modern, his poetry is vivid and sweeping, and he retains an epic tone, transporting us to faraway, mythic events that have informed our dreams and our strivings for three millennia.

These poems are amazing, haunting, beautiful. Full of emotional quicksand to pull you down into a miasma of broken dreams, lost love, aching, joy and wishing for things just out of our reach. I will be giving this book as gifts over the holidays.

Poetry is a funny thing. Poems considered epic, famous or great usually put the reader to sleep. On the other hand, a saucy limerick scribbled on a bathroom wall might be remembered for a lifetime. So, when one opens a poetry book one usually expects the worst. These days, most poems tend to be long-winded, self-indulgent echoes of rock lyrics and soap-opera dialogue, and read like free-association bonanzas. Therefore, poetry is suspect from the word Go and carries an onus of high-falootin' ridiculousness. What a pleasure to come across a book of poetry with all the classical trappings of "great poetry," rendered in a hip, modern meter, that actually speaks to current states of mind.
At first glance, Michael Andros' new collection, On Cloudless Days The Insects Sing, presents a Victorian visage, but as one takes the trouble to read the individual poems therein, his looseness and aloofness becomes apparent. What at first glance seems formal turns out to be fun and erotic. Andros must be aware of his difficult situation, and he never shies away from addressing the architecture of his inspiration (in the poem And Uncertainties, Put Away he even says, "My dreams come, unbidden to me, in twilight..."). Andros shows us what the romanticism of the Twenty-first Century might look like. He draws on much that is established and cliched, yet the result winds up in new, unexplored territory. Anyone needing reassurance about the state of the art need only read such doozies as Her Scent Of Pine And Dogwood Trees or In You I Sail Forever.
Those familiar with Andros' previous work his hard-hitting sexy graphics and take-no-prisoners poems might expect something harsh in this book. Not the case. Andros' verbal versatility takes a different path. With lilting loveliness he caresses the senses. He lets it all hang out with everyday expressions of love and desire. He likes things the way they are but doesn't mind transforming himself into something new when necessary. Therein lies a lesson for today's wannabe poets: don't be afraid to let the past shape the future.

Wow, this is now my most cherished book of poetry! Imaginatively forceful. Dark and mysterious with deep expression of pain, loss and sensual longing. Making it a meaningful, eloquent, evocative gift for lovers and poetry lovers everywhere. I can't wait for this author's next book so I can start a collection of his beautiful work.

Usually I am not fond of poetry. Sometimes poets lay it on too thick, try too hard, or don't make sense. This book is art with words. It's not forced or simplistic. At the same time, it's not too fantastical as to be a contrived product, where "deep" poems all too often spiral out of control, sucked into a vortex of narcissism and irrelevance that is fueled by their creation. Michael Andros is a talented writer. His poems touched me deeply. These are poems created by an author who wears his heart on his sleeve, and the naked honesty made me ache on many levels.

If you are looking for a journey...and you can relate to passion,loss,pain,love,and words not spoken by most, definately pick up this book. I find myself impressed by his style and honesty. Poetry is meant to represents passion, and I found it in the writer.
Deborah

This book is a great intro to Mr. Qabbani's poetry. Everything about it is well done. Cover art, binding, paper stock. All excellent. This volume will have the reader searching for more of his work.

So powerful, so sensual, so incredible. His poetry is earth shaking and primal.

I had thought your love would end my estrangement
but you passed like water between my fingers

~Nizar Qabbani

In my eternal search for poetry infused with images of water and passion, "On Entering the Sea" appeared on the Amazon horizon. How I love this site and the ability to locate life-enhancing selections of great beauty.

The poetry of Nizar Qabbani requires atmosphere and an imagination willing to travel beyond the daily drudgery of existence into longings for home, passionate encounters and the mysteries of sensation. At times his poems have echoes of ancient works that intertwine themselves with modern complexity. His work celebrates the love of country, women and sensuous images of coffeehouses and Andalusian experiences.

I write
to save the woman I love
from the cities of no poetry,
of no love
the cities of frustration and gloom
I write to make her a misty cloud

Only woman and writing
Save us from death.

As an introduction to Nizar Qabbani, On Entering the Sea presents his work in a pleasing arrangement by translator. While the introduction by Salma Khadra Jayyusi presents an overview of the book, how I wished for a section at the end to explain the details behind many of the poems. Would this enhance my enjoyment or do the poems speak of moments so profound, no other explanation is needed? It could be said that many of his poems have a universal appeal and need no further explanation.

While his words glow with a love for the female essence in life and in women, he also explores thoughts of protecting his home, lands he loves and a different perspective on war and loss. "Posters" may be shocking to some and yet it is a representation of how Nizar Qabbani sees the world and wishes for peace all while declaring war on pride. It is highly political and yet he delves into the heart of freedom for all people. Although, I think there are poems I have yet to read which apparently display a more revolutionary approach, although this is not foreign to poets the world over. I enjoyed reading Jerusalem:

Jerusalem, beloved city of mine,
tomorrow your lemon trees will bloom,
your green stalks and branches rise up joyful,
and your eyes will laugh...

He experienced so much pain and loss and was very controversial, especially in his hometown in Damascus where he challenged cultural taboos. Too often I think we as a society have condemned the erotic, all while longing for erotic pleasures of our own. Nizar Qabbani not only sets desire free in poems, he sets women free from oppression. In "Diary of an Indifferent Woman," he writes as a woman:

I want to escape from my own skin
from my own voice, from my own language
and stray like the fragrance of gardens
I want to flee from my own shadow
and from all addresses

By the end of the poem he talks about crystal bottles with dead butterflies and the images become revelations of eternal struggles for independence and for the freedom to love. During his teenage years, his sister committed suicide, because she could not marry the man she loved.

Time after time Nizar Qabbani displays an exceptional understanding of what it means to be female all while revealing what it means to be a man. Insatiable physical love and ecstasy from the sheer vision of a woman become spiritual expressions of love for God himself. "The Book of Love" is worshipful and timeless.

The name of my love.
I wrote it on the water.
I did not know
That the wind rushes by without listening,
That names dissolve in the water.

He also asks: "What is Love?" Then he humorously explains how he cannot change the woman he loves for she is "a storm trapped in a bottle."

Most of the poems are pleasing and passionate, but there are poems displaying private pain and horror as love is ripped from his hands by the ravages of terror. He perfectly describes his grief in an unusual moment where he is standing in the rubble of an attack and remembers his wife and the cadence of her name.

As he finds her handbag in the rubble, we are convinced no man has ever loved his wife this deeply, and yet the universal message makes us realize how many have loved and lost and longed for a woman like Balquis Al-Rawi. The vision he paints of honey, jasmine moons, rubies and roses will remain in my memory for as long as I love poetry. As in many passionate poems, the feelings of the poet flowed through me and appeared in tears. His poem about his mother's death is equally poignant and we are left with the scent of coffee, cardamom seeds and orange blossom water.

If you are a lover of world poetry, the poems of Nizar Qabbani are essential reading. Through his poems you feel the ancient longings of all people in all lands and in his uncensored thoughts, we can truly experience life through his eyes. I can only hope more of his work is translated in the near future. The exciting element of his poetry is often how he absorbs experience and then defeats his own inner tyranny by writing exactly what he thinks to display the beauty of truth. You will hear echoes in his writing and realize how many contemporary spiritual teachers and poets have been students of his poetry.

To peace...

~The Rebecca Review

These are the most passioante poems ever written. Some wail after unrequited love. Some bemoan the one that got away or an opportunity missed or ruined by thier own action. Many express devotion to the love that is present.

And then there are the political poems of longing for a lost land, agony for the end of a way of life and indignation at injustice. He was a great advocate for women's rights, but that work is not included in this collection.

I do not undestand why Qabbani is not better known in the US. In my opinion, he is far superior to Neruda (who was my favorite before I knew Qabbani). Less cliches, but more direct at the same time. And you hear what he has to say and reflect "that is exactly my feeling in this situation, why did I not think of that expresion...could it be said in any other way?"

I discovered him overseas, a few days before he died. I was so distressed to hear of his death, even though I only was familiar with his work a few days. In the Arab world, musicians of all stripes and capabilities attempt to use his poems as lyrics for their music. He has poems for every mood and every problem, each of them speak straight to the soul with emotion. Even people who can not normally appreciate poetry will become obsessed with Qabbani, when reading this collection.

Don't let the fact that his words have been translated from their original Arabic dissuade you from believing that somehow the work isn't as honest as it should be. Qabbani's work is so powerful it hardly matter shwat language it is in. In short, easily read dollops of wit measured out with a voice of quiet urging, he has given us work that transcends time and politics, while being above-it-all.

"If you know a man
who loves you more than I
guide me to him
so I may first congratulate
hom on his constancy
and later, kill him."

If poetry ever had a Luther Vandross, it was Pablo Neruda. If it ever had a Barry White, it was Qabbani.