Poetry Books

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.

It is difficult often to take to heart a poet in translation. It is difficult too for the modern reader to focus on a Poet who does not dwell in his own subjective consciousness, and does not have 'I' at the heart of his world of perception. For these reasons it took me time to 'get into' these poems but once I did I felt in the presence of a specially wonderful world of poetry, an especially rich and observant sensibility. The 'wake- up' poem for me was one of Milosz's most famous, 'Campo dei Fiori'. In this poem Milosz compares the square in Florence in which Giordano Bruno was burned with the square in Warsaw close to the burning Warsaw Ghetto. He richly details the life which goes on all around in the two squares, and the indifference of all to the great suffering.
"Someone will read as moral
that the people of Rome or Warsaw
haggle, laugh, make love
as they pass by martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
of the passing of things human,
of the oblivion
born before the flames have died."
In this same collection Milosz has a set of three small remarkable poems one on Hope, one on Faith, and one on Love.
"Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it from various ills-
A bird and a tree say to him. Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things,
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves.
Who serves best doesn't always understand.'

Milosz wrote poetry for seventy years, and his poems line by line do not cease to surprise. He shows an astonishing combination of intellect and feeling. His poems are rich with observations of the external world. Naming the things and the phenomena of the world seem in one way at the heart of his vision.
But it should not be forgotten that his poetry has a strong political and historical dimension. He was one who sympathized deeply with the victims of the Nazis, who fought against Communist oppression. His poems show a feeling for an understanding of freedom. They are also rich in religious feeling though this comes mediated by irony and questioning.
Milosz is too a Poet deeply in touch with the earth, who sees it in detail and from afar at once. In his Nobel Speech he quotes the writer Selma Lagerlof who said that the way of the Poet is to at once fly above reality and at the same time be down close observing it. This double - perception of seeing from afar and seeing from close- up pervades all those long- lined multi- stanzad poems so remote from what has been much poetry in our time.
Milosz's work is full of surprise and irony, and can suddenly wake the reader to a sense of revelation in delight.
I have not even in this review begun to hint at the riches of this incredibly wonderful book of poems - poems of a great poet indeed.

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.

Vico's immense view and creativity is expressed at the outset with his Tableau of Civil Institutions: a graphical representation of his incredible work; this alone underscores the reason for Joyce's sparked imagination. The greatness of this work is in its deep structure and layers of examination. I came upon this work looking for references to Sanchuniathon, a little known historian preceding Herodotus. Vico inspires many epiphanies particularly the regarding the kernel of wisdom as piety, mythologies: the allegories of myths, and the origin of aristocracy, democracy and monarchy. Vico moves across many subjects making extensive and resolute political analysis of each one including, notably, the origin of Roman Assemblies and the oath of enmity the heroes swore against the plebeians. Any student of politics can find notions truly relevant to the present, such as under: Section 13 Chapter 1 "Further Proofs Drawn from Mixed Commonwealths Which Combine Earlier Governments with Later States" Where Vico writes: "The newly free peoples found themselves masters of their own sovereign powers...By pursuing their own private interests, free peoples let themselves be seduced by the powerful into subjecting their own public freedom to the ambition of others." To sum, as almost only a great epic can yet in an entirely explicative, vast and reflective manner, Vico dives deeply down to the grit and spirit of the ties that bind us and that forge our societies: citizenship, marriage, religion and death.

Most people come to Vico for one of three reasons: historical perspective (fans of Spengler), philosophical curiosity (fans of Marx), or literary insight (fans of Joyce). Regardless of the motivation, the reader will be confronted with a highly unconventional text at first: the open of the book is an overlong explanation of the bookplate. Then we are faced with a collection of Nietzschian aphorisms. By the third part of the book, if the second part hasn't trigged an interest, the explication of parts 1 and 2 grab and take hold of the reader. The result? Once the reader finishes the book, the seemingly obtuse open seems perfectly reasonable for in the course of the text for Vico assimilates history, anthropology, philosophy, philology, and genealogy into a comprehensive whole which is perfectly symbolized by the bookplate. Though, at times, his premises seem rather far-fetched (Vico himself notes this), the intent of the work is rarely obscured. The only complaint? Perhaps Vico could have expanded the work more to make his attempted scope and range cohere better. But then, Frazier did this in a similar work (The Golden Bough) and we have 12 volumes to show for it!

That Vico is largely unknown, even by the so-called experts teaching in our universitiues, while mediocrities and worse of the past half century are lauded and taught widely is yet another indication that our educational standards are dumbed down considerably. Vico is difficult to read, and we are increasingly an intellectually lazy people who prefer simplistic platitudes that sooth our postmodernist prejudices.

I give this Penguin edition only a 4 not because New Science is not itself a 5 or because the translation itself is weak, but because Vico requires copious notes. Most who read this work will do so on their own, and they need considerable help unless they are already as well read in the Classics and works of the Medieval and Renaissance eras as was Vico himself. Perhaps soon we will see an edition that meets that need, which also might encourage a few more to teach Vico, before we fall into the re-barbarism.

Several people asked where Vico is taught / who studies Vico. The Graduate Institute at St. John's College (Great Books program) studies Vico in the History segment, which is really Philosophy of History, for 8 classes, 1/4 of the one of the three History classes. The Great Books people seem to have thought Vico was worth reading. The late philosopher Eric Voegelin wrote an essay in the compendium "Order and History" singling out Vico's work for its insights and calling for scholars to take up the "New Science." At Emory University Donald Philip Verene runs the Institute for Vico studies. There are also many collections of essays on Vico by both American and European scholars. St. John's College library in Annapolis has a good number of them.

"Reading Vico" is a new experience: This ain't a novel, it's written in numbered axioms and conclusions, but it's rewarding work, like Plato's Republic or Tocqueville's Democracy in America. You see versions of Vico's ideas in movies today like I Am Legend. As to how to approach the book--I would suggest reading according to the schedule/order listed on the St. John's College Grad Institute website. You can download the Graduate Reading List for the History segment--it's free. Don't stop until you reach the end--therein lies the big finale (it's much better if you don't read ahead)!!

When I read Vico in a public space--subway, park bench, stoop--I always fear that someone will approach me and ask what his "general thing" is. Even after reading this book for a few years, I still really don't know. I'd probably say something like "it's about history and poetry and salt marshes and thunder."

Still, Joyce said that reading Vico made his imagination grow. I completely agree. Even if you get frustrated with a few vague aphorisms, you can always blame the fact that Vico fell off a ladder as a child and damaged his brain--whatever. Read to understand, but if you don't understand, still read. This is a truly remarkable book.

Mr. Gwynn is my poetry teacher at Lamar Univerisity Beaumont, Tx.
He is a master of wit and intelligence (speaking of poetry now).
His insights and advice has helped my poetry emmensely, but surely not my spelling. If you are a poetry writer or fan from anywhere in the area, then you should definetly think about taking one of his poetry classes, for he is a legend in the making. His poetry and knowledge thereof is awesome and awe inspiring. Pick up his work whenever you find it.

Being a teacher and writer, I had heard Gwynn's name through the years and associated him more as an editor than as a poet. However, I read a review of this present book in an esteemed literary journal and decided it was time to check out the creative work of R.S. Gwynn.

He's a delight, a master, a brave soul in a world of timid poetasters. He has no fear in using traditional forms and regular rhytms to write his poems. And he is equally unafraid to skewer what Orwell called the "smelly little orthodoxies" which strangle both society in general and literature specifically. Read his "Narcissiad," the great center piece of NO WORD OF FAREWELL. It's a wonderful, dead-on swipe at the Lit Biz today, where poetry is a commodity and celebrity is preferable to excellence.

NO WORD OF FAREWELL is a generous compendium of Gwynn's work, dating back to 1970 and going up through 2000. The selections show that Gwynn is capable of most everything - satire, ballads, love poems, etc. He is a man of uncommon sense who nevertheless does not allow his level-headedness to obscure his heart. That his work is not better known is a commentary only on the present state of poetry and reading, not on R.S. Gwynn.

Nevertheless, I feel confident that when the rubbish of all the poet manques who currently crowd our magazines and college campuses is wiped away, Gwynn's work will finally emerge, a diamond in the rough finally revealed.

Please read this book and give copies to your friends. It is an inestimable source of pleasure and wisdom.

Full of wicked humor, slyly wrought pathos, boffo couplets, stunningly relevant sonnets, at least one startling take-stock epic, and giddy cynicism: there's simply no poet in America like Gwynn, and there's no one as funny, period. This is the REAL self-help book! Help yourself cope in this most angst-ridden of seasons: read Gwynn's wisdom and laughter.

Gwynn is smart and funny, but his poems move the reader's emotions as well as her intellect. More readers should be familiar with Gwynn's work.

R.S. Gwynn is not nearly as well known as he should be; if there is any justice in the world, No Word of Farewell will change that. The poems in this book are written in an impressive array of forms, but their attitude is far from formal. Gwynn writes about pistol-packing old ladies ("At Rose's Range"), Samson and Delilah ("Among Philistines"), conjoined twins ("Chang and Eng"), and much more. Like all the best satirists, Gwynn joins wit with compassion for the characters who people his poems.

One of the many pleasures of No Word of Farewell is seeing Gwynn's humorous poems side by side with the more serious ones. My short list of favorite poems--both funny and serious--includes "Cleante to Elmire", "The Classroom at the Mall", "At Rose's Range", "Snow White and the Seven Deadly Sins", "Body Bags", and "The Garden Parasol". And that's not to mention the hilarious "The Professor's Lot" (which can be sung to the melody of a certain Gilbert & Sullivan song).

This is a wonderful book of poems, filled with warmth, wit, and variety. I can't recommend it highly enough.

How we live in a world where this book was at one time remaindered and now out of print is simply beyond me. Dorothy Parker is not only one of the finest poets who ever ran pen across page, but a wit and a charm as well. This collection of works that fell through the cracks (mostly because Dottie didn't like them) is a gem fit for anyone's library. The obligatory biography is peppered with footnotes of a more informal and personal nature, giving many of her scathing witticisms in given situations. The verses collected are also quite good, even though viewed as rejects by the author. Scathing, sarcastic, brilliant and at times, very personal, your Dorothy Parker collection isn't complete without them. The conclusion of the book are the "Hymns of Hate" not collected anywhere else and are wildly funny and pertinent even in our modern world. Don't miss this fun and fine book which has, hopefully, not seen its last visit to the printing press.

She was a Rothschild --- just not the right kind. Her mother died a month before her fifth birthday, her hated stepmother died when she was nine, her father died when she was 20.

Born lucky, you might say.

It should be no surprise that Dorothy Parker had a close relationship with alcohol (great quantities, taken in small sips, so she was always drinking but never completely smashed). Or that she had bad luck in love (two husbands committed suicide). Or that she'd fail at suicide on four separate occasions (once she slashed her wrists, but only after ordering dinner to be delivered, thus guaranteeing that she'd be found alive).

Dorothy Parker was one of the most celebrated writers of her time, but she's much better remembered for her big mouth. Day after day, she sat with America's greatest wits at the Round Table in the bar of New York's Algonquin Hotel and quietly devastated the all-male group with her one-liners. She was as much a symbol of the 1920s as the flapper, the flivver and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Or so the legend has it.

The fact is, Dorothy Parker had no trust fund. She was a working writer. And much of her work involved --- try imagining a career like this now --- poetry. She sold her first poem to Vanity Fair in 1915 for $12, a tidy sum back then. And she wrote about 330 more during her life; over thirty years, that's a poem every other week.

She downplayed her poetry. She said she wrote "verses" --- not poems. And they weren't, she noted, original: "I was following in the exquisite footsteps of Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay, unhappily in my own horrible sneakers."

Her poetry was collected at the peak of her fame. It has since languished. A decade ago, "Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker" appeared. As with many things Parker, don't believe the title.

Is Parker a great poet? By no means. But she was one of the first American women to speak her mind --- her smart, contrarian, troubled mind --- openly on the page, and that gives her a certain historical import. And, setting aside all serious considerations, she's just plain fun. Fun and funny.

The book opens with a poem about...bridge. ("Didn't you hear what I bid?") It moves on to "Any Porch," a pastiche of overheard conversations. ("I really look thinner, you say?") She decries "the lady in back," who invariably ruins her night at the theater. She touches on every popular subject, even psychotherapy: "Where a Freud in need is a Freud indeed/we'll always be Jung together."

Parker's stock in trade is the last line that dramatically reverses the energy of the poem --- and slaps the reader in the face. Thus, a poem about Hollywood ends: "The streets are paved with Goldwyn." Well, how else?

And there are many poems that are just droll jokes:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.

And:

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live

If Parker were only cleverness and verve, she'd be worth a paragraph in a chapter on the `20s. What makes her poems interesting is that her pain shows through the wit. In a great poet, this is no big deal; when the poet in question is paying her rent with her poems, it means something that she goes beyond froth. As, here:

When all the world was younger.
When petals lay as snow.
What recked I of the hunger
An empty heart can know?
For love was young and cheery,
And love was quick and free;
Tomorrow might be weary,
But when was that to me?

But now the world is older,
And now tomorrow's come.
The winds are rushing colder,
And all the birds are dumb.
And icy shackles fetter
The brooklet's sunny blue--
And I was never better;
But what is that to you?

"I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true," Parker once said. But in addition to poems that tell more than she may have intended, "Not Much Fun" includes an introduction, by Stuart Y. Silverstein, that's so amusingly annotated it's almost a biography. Together, they give a rollicking and touching picture of a woman you'd never want to be --- but would surely want to know.

Awesome collection of many of Dorothy Parker's orphan verses as well as her witty remarks throughout the years. The book does not overlap much with other Dorothy Parker collections -- and therefore likely a great addition for some even avid Parker fans. The introduction attempts to present the life story of Dorothy Parker, although I find the comical rendition sometimes a bit too harsh to laugh about. Overall, an easy read that is easy to pick up but hard to put aside!

If you are a Dorothy Parker fan, this is a great book. It has the seiries of "I Hate...." poems, which is not collected anywhere else, as well as other gems Dottie deemed not worthy of being republished elsewhere. Mr Silverstein's excellent use of footnotes helps explain what was going on with Dottie when various poems were written. I have always admired Dorothy Parker but I definitely wouldn't want the pain and anguish of her life.

So if you are a Dorothy Parker fan, get this book for the lost poems so you can have a full collection of this underrated literay star. I recommend it highly.

Dottie is my fave poet and my literary hero. Wouldn't model my life after hers, but I sure wish I could sharpen my tongue to match hers sometimes. Loved reading this.

"A Valediction to my father" is phenomenal. It is a marvelous tribute to a loving father.
Having been here, and I never get to see my own father again, I might as well have written this
tribute.
"Oil On Water" exposes in vivid detail the corruption, ineptitude and incompetence of the
Nigerian governments; the inert desires of those who aspire to lead. The hero worshipers are the
press and the ultimate victims of these double tragedy is the populace.

In "The Biafram war 1967-1970," The dictum -no victor , no vanquished is a force, as long as the
south remains marginalized and second class in the land they thought is theirs; and the North
believes that they should rule the country in perpetuity.
"Salute to Rosa Parks," rather be titled "Salute to Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr.,
Malcom X....Heros that made American Dreams Possible for all races.

When I read the poem "Regrets" I was very happy to reflect upon my life and I did not have any regrets.
"A Valediction For my Father," what a beautiful love poem for a beloved father. I only hope my own children feel the same way about me. For some reason the poem "Hotel Del Coronado SanDiego" reminds me of a wonderful love
Ballet by John Coltrain called "Naima."
"19:41 Four Cups and the Dead African" my heart goes out to Ahmadu Diallo, and all of the other victims of police brutality.

The poems took me on an evocative journey to times and places
past and present.Some of the poems are rather on sad themes like bereavement and regrets.In all the poems are triumphant rather
than cynical,bringing out the splendor in things which at first glance look ordinary.

In the poem "Regrets" the poet uses very powerful and vivid words to exhibit great pain,hurt,anger,remorse and despair through his writings. He relates to us, some on going unresolved issues and something real deep haunting him. I liked most his choice of words use in expressing his regrets.

Remarks made based on the poem "A Salute to Rosa Parks" This poet shows his sense of appreciation for freedom, equality and human right. I liked most, his manifestation through his writings that there are no boundaries and all humans regardless of their race, ethnicity,cultural background are entitled to the basic fundamental right to be free.

If you enjoy a collection of poems featuring Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson and Thomas Moore, then many of these poems may already be very familiar. There is comfort in reading familiar poems and yet I'm always eager to find new poems.

Patterns by Amy Lowell is a completely new poem to me and the descriptions of ribboned shoes, lime trees and daffodils invited me to read this poem more than once. What is truly stunning about this particular poem is the way in which Amy Lowell expresses her grief through the beauty of nature. She becomes the images as if she stepped into the painting and became the soul of nature.

I also enjoyed "Of My First Love" by Hugh MacDiarmid:

Silhouetted against grim black rocks
This foaming mountain torrent
With its source in desolate tarns
Is savage in the extreme
As its waters with one wild leap
Hurl over the dizzy brink
Of the perpendicular cliff-face
In that great den of nature
To be churned into spray
In the steaming depths below

After describing this waterfall, he then describes the water as a lover's waving hair in a tremendous cascade and then turns this into a description of great passion for his lover's golden hair rippling out between his fingers.

William Shakespeare makes his appearance in "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" I finally copied "Meeting at Night" by Robert Browning into my journal because I love the way the words sound like they are rowing through the gray sea to the warm sea-scented beach.

So while every Classic collections seems to present The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and Love's Philosophy, you will also find The River-Merchant's Wife: a Letter by Li T'ai Po and The Mirabeau Bridge by Guillaume Apollinaire.

One Hundred and One Classic Love Poems will comfort you with classics and surprise you with poems you may have yet to discover.

~The Rebecca Review

This is a charming and delightful collection of love poetry. Some of the best known poems you remember from English Class and some others you may never have read. No matter the reason, you will enjoy this book.

Also Recommended: Quotes, Poems, and Words That Flow by Kevin Grommersch (contains some of my favorite love poems).

From sonnets of undescribable beauty to free verse of pure ethereal spirit, 101 Classic Love Poems is a must for each aspiring Romeo. It is essential for those of us who would like to put into words the feelings of our soul.

Highly recommended for any true poet or poetry fan. The collection of poetry in this book is sure to please anyone. Not too feminine or masculine, there is something for everyone. It features well knonw classics, read in your high school English classes, and some lesser known ones. Inspires you, Seduces you and makes you feel all warm and tingly.

This anthology is alluring in every way. Each poem has a distinctive effect, especially when they are read aloud. This book is most enchanting when read from cover to cover. There are nuances in each poem that mingle with the romantic sensibilities. Even though the poems are aged and classic, the collection seems fresh and untouched. It is truly a remarkable anthology, and necessary for anyone with even the smallest amount of tenderness. Passionately reccomended.

Since I returned from my first trip to China, I have become fascinated with Chinese culture and history.

I don't know much about poetry except that I like what I like (what moves and inspires me).

Something tells me that these translations are as much Kenneth Rexroth as they are the Chinese masters, which is fine with me because it is obvious that Rexroth captures a variety of moods and feelings which are quite profound.

I think it does justice to the integrity of this body of literature.

Particularly moving to me are the translations of Mei Yaochen whose poems dealing with his dead wife reveal a passion and respect for wamnhood that bellies our general notion of woman's treatment and subserviant place in China; and the poems of Madame Chu Shu Chen who is also very passionate in her feeling as a woman in China.

Comparisons: translations by Greg Wincup; Xu Yuan Zhong; Tony Barnstone

This highly portable collection demonstrates the posture a translator must take when approaching the rich body of ancient Chinese poetry. Rexroth masterly retains the playfulness and humanity that allow these poems to endure through the centuries and yet he regards these rare artifacts with reverence.

These poems are a great introduction to several key poets, both male and female, from several Chinese dynasties.

ONE HUNDRED POEMS FROM THE CHINESE. By Kenneth Rexroth. 148 pp. New York : New Directions, 1965 and Reissued.

The present book is in two parts. First we are given Rexroth's readings of thirty-five poems by Tu Fu, based on the Chinese text. The second part consists of a selection of Sung Dynasty poetry, most of which had not been Englished prior to Rexroth.

Rexroth makes no great claims for these translations, some of which he admits are rather free. But he does express the hope that "in all cases they are true to the spirit of the originals, and valid English poems" (p.xi).

It has always seemed to me that Rexroth succeeded brilliantly. Here are a few lines chosen at random from Tu Fu's 'Loneliness' (with my obliques added to indicate line breaks) :

".... Where the dew sparkles in the grass, / The spider's web waits for its prey. / The processes of nature resemble the business of men. / I stand alone with ten thousand sorrows" (p.16).

Here are a few from Su Tung P'o :

".... As for literature, it is its own reward. / Fortunately fools pay little attention to it. / A chance for graft / Makes them blush with joy" (p.73).

These readings of Rexroth will delight all open-minded readers. Who cares if he wasn't a union-approved sinologist? Purists may sputter, but since his versions are 'true to the spirit, and valid as English poems,' could any sensible person reasonably ask for more ?

You *NEED* this book. Every library ought to have a heart. And this book is an excellent place to start.

Kenneth Rexroth is a poet first and a translator second; judged on that basis, his One Hundred Poems from the Chinese is a great success. His approach, set out in a brief introduction, is simply to produce the best English poem he can in the spirit of the original. The resulting translations are more or less free as he thought appropriate for each individual work.
The book is in two parts. Part one consists of Rexroth's versions of 35 poems by Du Fu, whom he describes as "the greatest non-epic, non dramatic poet who has survived in any language". He clearly knows these poems well, and his translations are uniformly good.
Part two offers around 70 works by Sung dynasty poets; some are represented by only one piece, some by more extensive selections. These tend to be more free, more personal, and often strikingly modern works. In Rexroth's words again: "The whole spirit of this time in China is very congenial today"- a statement as true today as when it was written in 1971. Many of these poets are still not well translated in English, so Rexroth's translations are invaluable.
At the back of the book is a brief, but adequate, notes section with information on each poet and explanatory material.
Rexroth's concentration on the lesser-known Sung poets is paralleled by his choice of poems in the Du Fu section. He does not confine himself to the best known pieces found in other collections, striking a good balance between the familiar and the new.
An interesting example of Rexroth's approach to translation is:

Another Spring
White birds over the grey river./Scarlet flowers on the green hills./I watch the Spring go by and wonder/If I shall ever return home.

Rexroth has changed the river's colour from blue in the original to grey: a good example of a liberty which would be objectionable from a translator, but which he can get away with. He also clarifies "blazing" in the original to "scarlet", which allows him to preserve the original's strictly parallel parts of speech in the first couplet.
This is a fine book. It was first published more than 30 years ago, but it has lasted because of the consistently high quality of translation and because of the unusual selection of poems offered. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I don't know enough about Whalen to understand the editing of this volume, but do appreciate having so many enjoyable poems in one place. I'm not naturally sympathetic to the poetry-as-activity (as opposed to poetry-as-accomplished-form) approach, to put it very coarsely, but somehow Whalen wins me over. I guess it's because you can feel modern anxieties coming through - the stupidity of politics, the worth of artistic achievement (references to which are everywhere), the possibility of speaking authentically, etc. This redeems for me the broad gestures of acceptance and wisdom. Also, for a self-professed vegetable Whalen is enormously well-read, and there's much pleasure in seeing his easy way with that kind of learning.

If, as Leslie Scalapino suggests in the introduction to this book, Philip Whalen's poetry is about how his consciousness worked and utilized language, so that each poem is a gestalt of his thinking in process, then I think we must add that Big ZEN HA HA is present, ever-present in the articulate artifacts this poet of the hole-in-the-shoe and the shaven head (and I hear sadly mortal heart gunked up and out of incarnation by casual eating habits) left behind. Every turn of a trope ends in an undercutting of intention and meaning in the same way that the polyvalency of BIG ZEN HA HA (think "koans" here), undermines single meaning in every sacral utterance of Zen scripture. Of the See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil, Big Three of Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch, we pretty much understand the hooks on which Snyder and Welch hung their tambourines, but it's Whalen who seems the reticent, self-effacing, hard to clearly define (just as Zen is), guy. He comes across sometimes as a New York School Poet (though lacking the sophistication of an Ashbery or O'Hara but including all their allusions to pop culture), and sometimes as a collagist of texts, in a kind of casual West Coast surrealism, but always as a 5-to-75 cent word nihilist, ready with a stick of BIG ZEN HA HA to shatter the prisms he stacks up so carefully before phenomena to liberate the pure light of the momentary mind. (And sometimes his verbal gestures remind me of the outsider texts, as well as the outsider stance of Harry Partch.) I'm still reading Whalen's Overtime news, hoping to stick around long enough to hear him whine for a toy early in his next incarnation on the streets of Tomorrow.

This isn't some crumbling, dry keeper of the hallowed institution that is sometimes "poetry." It is sad that Whalen's works are so hard to come by these days.

Why aren't you reading this?

Philip Whalen is a national treasure, one of our most important living poets. This collection, masterfully assembled by Michael Rothenberg, is a great place to start if you're not familiar with Whalen's work, and a glorious visiting ground for those of us who have already discovered him. Don't let the word POETRY dissuade you. You will not be bored for a minute.

I didn't know much about Whalen's poetry until he died this year, but the terrific memorial reading for him here in San Francisco drove me to "Overtime" and man, what a find. The Beats were more learned than the 'first thought, best thought' aesthetic suggests, and Whalen's poems balance religion, philosophy and cranky Zen insight with a casual, conversational Americanese in a way few of his more famous contemporaries could touch. His poems draw from a deep past that embraces everything from ancient Chinese verse to classical music, but insist that it walk down the street in T-shirt and jeans. Whalen spent the last three decades of his life at the San Francisco Zen Center--his particular brand of Buddhism, so generous to human failings (starting always, comically, with his own) and never, ever doctrinaire, has to be one of the most attractive spins on Eastern religion I've read. Whalen was in it and of it, never above it. He gives the moment plenty of wiggle room in his writing, so that cats, friends and silly thoughts can all stray into the poems without being shoo'd out for art. Whatever Beat meant, Whalen shows it in about its best light. Poetry's a little thinner and more straight-laced with him gone.

This is an epic poem of some ten thousand lines composed by, arguably, Poland's greatest poet. It is a bucolic tale of country life with the background of the preparations for Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. It's also a love story of sorts, with undertones of "Romeo and Juliet". There are star-crossed lovers, feuding families, comical characters, loyal retainers, and a mysterious begging friar. It's all quite well done, and even though I'm not particularly into sing-songy rhyming verse, the attraction of the story, and it's thinly-veiled air of Polish patriotism, kept me reading on to the end. If you enjoy little-known Polish literature (at least little-known in this country) you will enjoy this book.

In recent years many of the East European authors and artists have been rediscovered by the dominating Western sphere of writers, artist, and the litterature critics. This book is one of the jewels resurfaced in the circles of scholars and historians, but also among the everyday reader. The story is a description of the then social sphere of the society, where people are born within a class and are influenced by it, regardless of they likeing it or not. This is realism and romanticism at best, entangled in a passionate embrace. A delight to read.

This Polish masterpiece reads in English rendition as it was written in English in the first place ! I thoroughly enjoyed over again the story, even more so than in original Polish. Kenneth McKenzie has done a superb job to keep the rhytm, rime and the emotions so close to the original. This timeless piece is a must to everyone who enjoys a great reading adventure, where the highest human values are treasured. Our contemporary writers and poets can only dream to approach the greatness of Adam Mickiewicz. To bad that this book is so little known in the world.

It is a masterpiece , national poem of Poland.It portrays polish society in early XIX century , its turbulant existence and longing for freedom .His other works include " Konrad Wallenrod" and "Oda do mlodosci" but You can also check other polish writers , like Henryk Sienkiewicz , author of the famous "Quo Vadis " , Czeslaw Milosz or Wladyslaw Reymont , all three, Nobel prize laureates .You will never look at Poland the same way .Enjoy reading.............r.c.

Mickiewicz's 'Pan Tadeusz' is a very well written and engaging account of Lithuanian provincial life during the Napoleonic Era. Yet, it does fall short of the level of masterpiece, and 'Pan Tadeusz' doesn't possess quite the same timeless quality as Pushkin's 'Eugene Onegin' or Goethe's and Heine's epic poetry. Yet, I highly recommend it, and it is well worth the read, both for its glimpse into a long-lost time and place and also for Mickiewicz's elegant prosy.

My earlier review for this work somehow vanished...so, again I will say that it is simply one of the best collections I have traveled through. The author summons emotions for the consideration of the reader, beautiful sonnets filled with captivating visions that hold the reader within their grasp.
I can only say that it is a wonderful piece of literature...I lack the vocabulary to do it justice.

Petrified Heart isn't just another book dealing with the war in Vietnam. It's poetry with the gloves off. After reading the first five pages I was back in the jungle, a twenty-year-old corpsman.

Only a very gifted combat veteran could have written this book, but everyone who reads it will come away with a better understanding of what war really is--and what it does to ordinary people caught up in something extraordinary. This book belongs on the shelf of every high school library in this country. It ranks with the works of Catton and Kipling.

Five Stars isn't enough to express the powerful impact of this book. Charles Patterson has performed a tremendous service to all, particularly to all of America; war veterans in general, Vietnam Veterans in particular, the friends we lost, our families, and those who vilified us. In baring his heart and soul as he has, Mr. Patterson has managed to convey the breadth and depth of emotions--and lack thereof--that a warrior faces. I served two tours in Vietnam, during The Gulf War, in Haiti and again during Bosnia. I'm constantly asked why I continued to volunteer to go to war after being wounded in 1968 during my first tour in Vietnam. I could never adequately explain it. In the future, when asked I'll just hand over a copy of "The Petrified Heart: The Vietnam War Poetry of Charles E. Patterson." Someone has FINALLY told the world what Vietnam was really like for those of us who fought it. Thank you Mr. Paterson.

I felt like I had stumbled upon a pirate's chest of fine jewels and priceless treasures when I read THE PETRIFIED HEART. Each word, phrase and passage is delicate, beautiful, powerful and crafted into strings of enchanting art. I was both mystified and in awe of Patterson's command and use of the English language. Mark my word, this work will endure as fine literature, long after we are all gone.

Ernest Spencer author: WELCOME TO VIETNAM MACHO MAN, editor: The Khe Sanh Veterans Magazine, RED CLAY

As an English major who doesn't get along all that well with poetry, I like the poems in "The Petrified Heart." As a Vietnam vet and a retired marine, "The Petrified Heart" speaks directly to me. The poems probe subjects that every vet knows, from the dangerous knowledge that war imparts, to the special nomenclature of our war--words that mark us almost as a diffetent species, to the honor denied returning vets and the dark intensity of the Vietnam War Memorial. I heartily recommend "The Petrified Heart."