Poetry Books

This beautiful scripture is easy to read, and provides incredible insight into the religious views represented. The story is a beautiful dilemma, and while I disagree with the outcome and the Hindu religion, I appreciate the literary contribution.

I have read 3 different interpretations of the Holy Gita. Nothing comes close to this one. Radhakrishnan's commentary is simply phenomenal.

The Bhagavadgita (the Lord's Song) is the heart of the great classical Indian Epic, the Mahabharata. The hero of this epic is given the choice, just before a great war, whether to take the offer of a mighty army- or to choose a single charioteer. Of course, that charioteer is Krishna (the avatar of the god Vishnu on earth.) Krishna will not be able to intervene supernaturally in the conflict, but only offer teaching and advice. The hero, Arjuna, chooses Krishna and his advice over the mighty army, for he knows that to be in accord with God's will is all that truly matters. Besides, he also realises that Vishnu only incarnates on our plane of existence when things have deteriorated far out of control and it is time for Him to once again restore peace, justice, and harmony to the world. In other words, he KNOWS that he will be on the side of God, for God will literally be at his side.

This text represents the teachings that Krishna imparts to the hero, Arjuna. It is a message of how to put one's self and soul into accord, and in doing so, put one's self into mystic union with the divine. It is a message that one should do one's duty in the world without becoming too attached to one's actions or rewards (to be in the world but not of it.) It is also an assurance that the body is merely the body- to lose it is not to cease to exist. It is also a declaration that doing right for the sake of right is far more important that observing rigid rules and rituals of religious conduct.

This text is the excellent verse translation of Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904.) The Sanscrit terminology is all explained either in the forward, in footnotes, or immediately in the poetical, but highly comprehendable, text. I am not sure why this particular volume is listed as "abridged" for it is not. It is only abridged in the sense that the Bhagavadgita is an abridgment of the larger Mahabharata.

This is yet another marvelous selection in the highly affordable and tastefully selected Dover Thrift Editions collection.

The Bhagavadgita is one of the world's true classics of literature. Since it is not part of "western culture" it is often not included in the curriculum of school in the US, much to our loss. This translation is one of the most common, and the Dover edition is incredibly affordale. Being abridged, it is not a text for scholarly studies, but instead provides a great introduction to wisdom from the east... Highly recommended for students and casual readers.

Gandhi found this translation of the Gita to be the best he was able to find. Little more need be said.

I was so anxious to get my copy in mail, and it surely didn't disappoint!I read it right away! I think everyone can relate to at least one (if not more) of these poems. Everything seems to be very well thought out but so effortlessly put to paper! Some of the poems made me laugh and others made me smile on the inside! All of us who have ever experienced relationships can definitely say that it sometimes seems that we are in a Boy vs. Girl battle, this book brings some of those "challenges" to the forefront.

Upon reading this book of poems I was pleasantly surprised by the way I was able to read through the body of poems in one sitting. Even more amazing was the way I was able to relate to each and every poem as if it were about me or someone I would know. The poems highlighted everyday situations that any male or female may go through and I was able to envision their emotions through perfect wording and flow. Whether you're a fan of poetry or not this book is one to definitely read, not only for its content but also for the way the words allow you to visualize the relationship in question without making the pivotal mistake of alienating you in the process.

I can never think of thoughtful inexpensive gifts for my loved ones, but this book is it! Not a cover to cover digestion....more of a sit on the coffee table to entice/entertain guests. This book has caused me to laugh outloud at myself.

Boy Versus Girl is not your average book of poetry. It is the rare piece of literature that everyone young and old can relate to. The author uses real life situations to bring you through his ups and downs in love. Often he will make you feel as if you have experienced these situations through his use of colorful words and wonderful metaphors. It is a great coffee table book because almost any poem in this book is guaranteed to be a conversation starter. Do yourself a favor and dive into this book as soon as possible. You won't regret it.

This book was a joy to read. It is a window into the day-to-day relationships we all experience with our families and friends and co-workers. A wonderful book to read while relaxing at the end of the day.

It is a joy reading Cacophony. I've found Elliott Eli Jackson to know the nature of men, women, fathers, mothers and children. He knows the nature of true friends, lovers and acquaintances. The evidence lies in his work, taken from his life. I can tell this man knew many and gaining his wisdom from his experiences is apparent as his word flows effortlessly throughout this book which he calls Cacophony. Cacophony means jarring and discordant, yet the most jarring force of Mr. Jackson's words are far from discord. They are truly sweet euphony, bouncing me from memory to memory in sheer elegance.

His poems paint vivid scenes such as Avante Garde, a poem about a woman who sees beyond all the games men play and Dad's Chair, where the universal fantasy of pretending to be Dad lifted my imagination by jettisoning the gentle, yet playful minds of his brothers and sisters pretending to be Dad. Something truly universal. Many precious and enduring moments seeming to be suspended in time are brilliantly executed from moment to flickering moment, page after page. Mr Jackson's heart and mind are clearly connected and because of this he executes his work as a true artisan of word.

I must admit, I did not think modern poetry could be so good. This poet and book could reengerize interest in poetry. I would recommend this book to anyone.

When I read this collection of verse about life, love, and spirit; I thought it had been written for me, about me, and concerning me. It is almost as if this Elliott Eli Jackson and I are one. I believe every home in the world would benefit with Cacophony contained in their librate assemblage of polite literature. A must read as well as a must give to every person you know!

Elliott's poems are chocked full of life experiences and depth of feelings. We are very grateful to have been able to share our store with him and are very proud to promote his book of poems.

Elliott Jackson is a breath of fresh poetic air.

This compilation of poems to me, was not only new but old at the same time. One may wonder, what does this mean? New, in the fact that I have never heard such heartfelt realism, passion, and insperation broken down in three catagories LIFE, LOVE, SPIRIT. A Cacophony of words so jumbled, and yet make so much since. Old, in the fact that these are catagories mankind has dealt with since the beginning of time. This book will make one ponder on life and the things gained or lost during the journey. Love, how it is discovered, lost, infatuated, or distroyed and kept in a persons soul like a lockbox with one key. That key, SPIRIT.

I highly recommened this book to all Gods creatures, and eagerly wait for Elliott E. Jackson's next performance. encore!!!

My husband and I have listened to Baxter for years and I resently purchased a book and a CD for his birthday .The order was easy to get thru Amazon , the price was good and the merchandise was delivered on time. Thanks Amazon, Jean

My son in-law LOVES this book. It was a gift to him from myself and my husband. He can't get enough of this author and absolutely LOVES these books.

A few years ago I awoke to National Public Radio's Morning Edition and to the voice of some easy going, homespun cowboy reading a poem that had me in stitches by the third verse. As I read "Cactus Trails..." I could hear Black's easy voice utter each word. While his departure from veterinary medicine is a loss to that community, it is a clear gain for easy going, common sense, sanity seeking people caught in the cross hairs of our cell phone, pager, eEVERYTHING society. Thanks to Baxter Black's commentary and writings we have an excuse to slow down a bit each day and get in touch with the basics. Will Rogers would love this guy!

Back to basics, the way life IS in America, without all of the Political poles, lies, and propiganda as spread by the media. should be classed as "Must Read"

My husband can't put this book down! Baxter Black's clean and side-splitting "talk" is entertaining for all audiences. My mother, my husband, and my best friend have all loved this book.

When John Milton sat down in the 16th century and decided that his life's ambition was to become the greatest English poet who ever lived, he realized that obtaining that title required him to write a great epic poem. That work became "Paradise Lost". However, the epic as a form was ot be greatly endangered by a new literary style that was to emerge just a few decades after Milton's death: the novel. With an exquisite, gradual stroke, Daniel Defoe slew the epic as the great long-form narrative. Within a century, the novel had become the engine of high literature, and the epic, along with poetry in general to a great extent, was relegated to a niche (not only that, but trends in poetic form skewed away from the verse styles normally used). By the time American poet Stephen Vincent Benet wrote "John Brown's Body" in the 1920s, the literary world had long since passed the form by. Benet, chronicling the history of the American Civil War, demonstrates why the epic still deserves our attention.

Benet casts a wide net with his storytelling choices, bringing in a mix of historical figures (Lincoln, Davis, and the various generals, Lee most of all) and fictional characters who embody various viewpoints: while the real men all get moments either of description or internal monologue (Lee is described, for example; indeed, Benet makes a point of how there is much about him that we do not understand, especially the unknown nature of his wants), the character arcs and the main plots revolve around the fictional characters. There is Jack Ellyat, a Union soldier; Clay Wingate, a young Southern aristocrat who similarly goes to war; Melora Villas and Sally Dupre, the women they love (Melora being a frontier woman, Sally a Southern belle); various other soldiers and women; and a few slave characters, such as Wingate's loyal servant Cudjo and the runaway slave Spade. On the subject of the blacks, Benet makes a point that his "heart is too white" to really tell their story, but all the same he does a laudable job of recognizing the complexities of the southern slave system, a barbaric cruelty that all the same produced some enduring emotional ties between people that make little sense to us. He also reminds us that the North, while wanting to free the slaves (though this was ultimately up for grabs; Lincoln is given a revealing dialogue to the Almighty about whether or not he should release the Emancipation Proclamation), was not a bastion of racial equality. There is a final scene between a white Pennsylvania veteran and Spade that suggests a grudging briding of worlds through shared war experience.

Benet employs various different verse styles in the course of the poem, from rhyming couplets to ABAB rhymes to free verse without rhyme and limited metre, to prose on a couple of occasions. These shifts allow for rotations between buoyancy and starkness, as suited to individual scenes. Some characters, such as Clay Wingate, consistently employ one sort of poetic form. My two favourite passages in the poem are done in a rhyming style: the wind's prophecy of the thirteen sisters (an allegory of the breakup of the Union) and 'John Brown's Prayer', a brilliant dissection of Brown's conflicted mind.

This is a lengthy read, but very worthwhile; take a look and see how the Greeks' highest poetic form endures.

The reviews below say it well. I re-read parts of this every few months - not to refresh my knowledge of the civil war, but to re-fresh my awareness of life. This guy helps you SEE the real life going on around you. And his use of words is often just delicious. It is a masterpiece.

I first read John Brown's Body, the book length poem chronicling the Civil War in high school in the forties. It was my first exposure to narrative poetry and it has been my favorite book since then. When I read twenty years later that it was also the favorite book of John F. Kennedy it reassured me that he would avoid war at all costs. It is an anti-war story, and the devastation of war, the profiles of the all too human generals and of Lincoln are an important footnote of history. The poetry is musical and sometimes stark. He is able to impart the real devastation of war on the lives of those affected by it. I would reccommend it to anyone who loves poetry and history. It is a truly American story of a war that should never have been fought.

When Stephen Vincent Benet finished John Brown's Body in 1928 and the critics awaited its issue, the South was most anxious and skeptical that they would be portrayed honestly. They were and Stephen Benet's masterpiece is America's greatest epic poem and a most unappreciated work of literature. But, I love it and always will love it, because it makes those historic figures of so long ago - come alive. Out of the mist, they ride. Come traveler, pick it up, open its pages and from fish hook Gettysburg to the end, watch them ride and try to understand over all the years what was happening and why they were fighting. It was not all about Slavery!

While it is a staggering work of American poetry, John Brown's Body should not - and must not - be considered a factual account of the Civil War period. Like most Civil War works published in the 1920s - the period that saw the rise of Jim Crow and the rebirth of the KKK - Benet's "epic" seeks to distract readers from the role slavery played in sparking the war. If we admit that slavery sparked the war, then we admit that blacks were important enough for whites to fight and die for. And in the 1920s, social pressures in the United States were aimed toward disempowering blacks. Proponents of the "Lost Cause" mentality will argue that the Civil War was fought not over slavery, but rather over states' rights. But states' rights to do what? Keep slaves, of course. Appreciate this book for its contribution to poetry. Do no appreciate it for its views on the Civil War.

Margins are not, in this book, marginal, but have a potent, unsettling agency-"A left margin watches the sea floor approach." The peripheral is central is peripheral, and in some sort of symbiotic séance with geology Hillman slices sentences to reveal their difficult epoxy-"tearing up sentences / to make them clean"..." A merging subverts the categories / Some words shouldn't marry." This book is stretched like a canvas across this difficult (though ultimately liberating) truth-the only terra firma is found at fault lines, where the earth, like our lives/minds/worlds is unresolved, shifting-"experience has been sent up, at an angle." In places, the poems here are literally turned on their sides, creating something like the musical score of topography, the difficult brail of sight ("Sight stops other categories"). Hillman layers the continuous and the intermittent until causality is predominantly a question, complicated, until meaning is not a factory or strategy ("Creation doesn't fail though / the meaning sea dies."), but a generative opening, "a shade not resolved in the mind / because it is the mind."

Here, meaning escapes the cult of the individual-(enter: The "we"-)-the ploy of the cohesive subject / narrative / scene-for "This need to be unique / has mostly made us miserable." Yes, this book will cure you of your craving for control, for anything as dehumanizing as remote controls, pull the freak in you out on the street for a tete a tete talk, a walk through the flickering corridors, the disintegrating corridors, the doors that fall off as you open them. Hillman destabilizes the page by putting words like specimen jars in the corners ("unattached" to the poem), by invoking logograms, by post-performance script dribbling down the page, by the ghost phrases that sit in the bucket seats of the left margin (for ex: hydrangea pre-Naugahyde teabag Four Points Fresno song not anti-song I laughed or Formica kitchenette soap little soap), whisper through the bone china of the poem. "Of course there was no mother / lode; of course it was unlikely." These poems are haunted by evocative figures that you will not soon forget, that flicker like a blip on the screen, like a mistake. These poems recognize how "We wanted / the extraordinary stranger in our veins," a boy with mirrors in his spine (useless in their integration; scaffolding no tool) drifting, "the doomed forms, singing, `Toy sold separately'."

In Cascadia, her sixth volume of poetry, Hillman conflates the individual body with the earth's body, and sets out to explore the overlapping geographies of each. This mission of the artist seeking to gain self-knowledge through observation of her environment is decidedly old-fashioned, and therefore posits a sublime counterpoint to this particular artist's stylistically innovative, experimental approach.

Hillman's concerns are varied and fascinating. She deftly incorporates environmentalist critiques of consumerism (el nino orogon) and colonialism (cascadia) into the text of the poems without once sounding preachy. She accomplishes this by keeping her poetic voice identifiable and down-to-earth, despite the technical acrobatics and her unmistakably unique vision of the world. The metaphor of gold runs throughout the book, both the physical gold that drew the prospectors of the California gold rush and the spiritual gold of alchemy. Through an exploration of the shared properties of earth and human, Hillman individualizes the history of the earth and historicizes the state of the individual, demonstrating how much we are related to our environment.

As early as in the first poem, Hillman compares "an old punk's Mohawk" to "evidence of inner fire," the same fire that she will describe as molten, gushing out of the earth. Later, she compares faultlines to fate lines on the palm of god's hand and, in the masterful Shirley Poem, begins with the statement "Physical earth reveals itself as persons." There is an almost mystical bent to this notion, though Hillman's writing could never be accused of the namby-pambyness, the mush and blandness that comes with most contemporary poetry that takes its ostensible inspiration from the same. She casts a sweeping gaze over geological time, (as in the title of the poem called The Formation of Soils, intentionally constructed to resonate as "souls"), and establishes the world of the book, the terms of it, through equations, like a chemist (the hand-drawn diagram in Birth of Lace) or an alchemist, the medieval mystic, the searcher of spiritual gold. In Fresno Lunette she actually uses an equal sign, writing Dirt = guts of a star. There is something fanciful, almost adolescent in that gesture, a thumbing one's nose quality and it's this flourish coupled with the rigorous scrutiny that Hillman obviously directs to her work that sets Hillman apart from her contemporaries and makes the reader sit up and take notice.

"Cascadia" is as close to a perfect 10 on the poetic Richter scale as words can get. Like California, like the range of subjects, voices, stances, emotions, and thoughts here, her technical blitz sprawls over (falls in, widens, tightens, presses, fractures) multiple fault lines: typographic, lyric, narrative, polysyntactic. "Cascadia" is a choir where Hillman's "personal" voice rarely solos (as she writes in the title poem: "People think poets make poems / Poems make poems lying down"); mostly, it seems like the language, the psychic and material landscape, has upped and seized control in order to abolish it, get beyond to more interesting and urgent spaces. Every next poem has just shifted tonally and formally in radical ways. Reading here is like mountain climbing: it rarely gets easier, and the further you go, the less you can breathe, but the vista grows in blissful proportion. There are some tremendously difficult poems here, but they convey no coyness, posturing, pretension, self-regard, or anything but a metamorphic need to be as they are. At times Hillman has succeeded in reaching an egoless (or less-ego) based writing that doesn't leave the reader groping for purchase.

There are so many gorgeous complexities to this work that only whole volumes of prose could adequately explain. Lest that make it sound utterly impenetrable, be assured that no matter who you are, there is at least one poem here that you will love, and many parts of many others that will shock and salve you. Plurality is a guardian angel here, as is change-merge-flux. Echoes are ingrained everywhere of poetic voices as antipodal as Gary Snyder (in "Sediments of Santa Monica": "After the twentieth century these cliffs / Looked like ribbons on braids or dreads... We're still growing up but the stitches hurt Let us be / True to one another for the world / Easy on the myths now / Make it up Sleep well") and John Ashbery (in "Haste Makes Channing": "His cellphone was ringing into the mocha; / a general brightness-; (of xylocaine, or / in Donne's "The Relic," / the bright hair-) / Several trends inside the main idea."), Gertrude Stein (in "Shared Custody": "When a child is dropped off in front of the other parent's house she creates a / history of space and yellow hurrying in the unopposed direction as we / learn to read by hurrying meaning.... As x falls by prearrangement with the experimenters, yellow is unopposed. The / child, leaving the car, drops an alphabet on the path. y. e. l. Shaving of / yellow, central plaid, black from a fraction if she has been brave about / including the math.") and Wallace Stevens (in "Songless Era": "A fine ash obscured the sun. / Leaves grew large as rooms. / Stamped recreants strolled near the pond of wands.").

Like Cascadia, the prehistoric landmass that once bordered what was the sea of California, this book has slipped under in order to let something new become: under poetic convention, under the guile of the one-I'd lyric speaker that has dominated American verse (in the land of the blind...), under grammatical rigidity, under the gilding of our economy and into the taints and ravages of its origins as well as its ongoing, ever displaced and disappeared violence. "Cascadia" is a challenging, rewarding, vital, and powerful fusion of the ecological, the feminist, the linguistic, the theological, the historical, the personal, the geological, and the self-consciously poetic. It will take a great deal of time (of the most pleasurable kind) to fully explore its rich ranges.

Cascadia is an ancient landform that preceded present-day California. Taken for the title of Brenda Hillman's collection of short lyrics, we are treated to a poetry that is profound, turbulent, and impressive. Glacial Erratics: The last ice age had been caused by a wobble./After it passed they made houses from stars;//Visitors would peer in/And see the tongs not slipping,//Roomsized pebbles having been moved far,//It's like this more/When we speak than when we write;//Loving thus we have been/Loved by ground,//The word being/A box with four of its corners hidden;//Everything else is round.

What a talented poet brenda hillman is; full of brilliant phrases and keen perceptions, she's one of the few american poets who is culturally/politically observant and also authentically spiritual in her orientation. This is a potentially important and powerful combination of virtues, the poet all of us american readers and believers might hope for. Unfortunately, Hillman seems to be(I hope not) permanently infected with the experimentalist west coast poetics of fracture and obscurity; her poetry is increasingly marred by the coy mannerisms, the arid abstract occultations of the american left bank-- the result is that more and more of her poems are unreadable, and seem in fact made for that small audience of other "cool" hyper-intellectual, anti-representational poets; hillman is not the first poet to be misguided by a desperate desire to be thought of as ultra hip, but it's our loss too; the author of the resonant and lovely books bright existence fortress and death tractates has now written two unreadable collections, books which manage to be both over- and under-inflated at the same time. It's very frustrating. A cautionary tale: be careful who you go to cocktail parties with; you might get your head bent.

After checking out Divine Comedies at the library and reading a few chapters of The Book of Ephraim, I knew I was willing to read the entire epic of The Changing Light at Sandover. Nearly six months later, after having read and reread Ephraim, Mirabell, Scripts and the Coda (the four sections of Merrill's magnum opus) I am ready to pass judgement. This epic is great but probably not GREAT. It requires a very heavy investment from the reader, not unlike Dante's Divine Comedy, or Joyce's later work. This investment pays dividends, but not the astronomical sort that one hopes when one is flipping through an opera dictionary, trying to discover Merrill's point.

Sandover is full of allusions, contradictions, and virtoso poetry, the latter being why I highly recommend it. As the other reviews tell you here, Merrill, elitist that he is, has not made the work accessible. Which is fine. So here is my short list of writers to be familiar with before you read it: Dante, Homer, Auden, Pound, Eliot, Proust, Wagner, Merrill's earlier work, Blake and Yeats. I also highly recommend Robert Polito's A Reader's Guide to The Changing Light at Sandover, which is more of a handy index followed by a compilation of reviews (including Bloom's and Vendler's) than say, a line-by-line explication of the sort available for Pound's Cantos. Thankfully, The Changing Light at Sandover does not require that.

The Book of Ephraim stands alone and whether you like it will probably be the best gauge of whether you will like the whole of Sandover. Mirabell I found very difficult going and, in all honesty can probably be skipped, like most people skip Purgatorio. Scripts for the Pageant is much more fun and The Higher Keys is really of a piece with it, tying up the loose threads. For all my pessimism, this really is the best modern epic I've found, a thousand times better than The Waste Land or Blake's prophetic works, or even Milton's Paradise Lost. The poetry and storytelling are so overwhelmingly confident that, once you have assimilated the scattered references, it is easy to get carried away. Large questions of free will, life after death and the nature of love are tackled with wit and sincerity. I'm glad I bought it and have it on my bookshelf. Since I put in the sweat, it is now a treasure-box I can open at any time.

There was a lot of attention given to Merrill when his Collected Poems came out, so I went out and read it. (The fact that I hadn't heard of him before should indicate that I don't read a lot of modern poetry). What was astonishing was how effortlessly the poems read, how thoroughly Merrill had mastered the technical aspects of the craft. The poems read as smoothly as prose, but line after line stayed in the memory - and when you went back you realized what a complex and subtle rhyme scheme many of the poems had.

But for some reason, there was a lot I could admire but very little I could love. They didn't just feel like exercises in style, but there was something too cool and smooth about their surface: there wasn't enough humanity in them.

The same isn't true of The Changing Light at Sandover. Don't be put off by the Ouija stuff: the heart of this poem isn't some sort of half-baked spiritualism, but simply the relationship between two people that love each other - the poet and David Jackson.

Let me quote a line from The Book of Ephraim that I memorized without trying, just from reading it a few times. The same technical mastery is there, but now there's something alive in them. Enough of the other reviews tell you what the poem is about, so here's a sample of how beautiful this strange masterpiece can be in its smallest details:

We take long walks through the turning leaves
And ponder turnings taken by our lives.

Look at each other closely, as friends will
On parting. This is not farewell,

Not now. But something in the sad
End-of-season light remains unsaid.

The Changing Light at Sandover is Merrill's magnum opus. It is also the greatest example of epic poetry in modern literature. Divided into four sections (four being a mystical number [seasons, elements, etc] and possibly alluding also to Eliot's "Four Quartets"), Sandover, is, as far as I am aware, the longest single poem in the modern cannon. Yet length alone is not what qualifies this as an epic poem. Like all true epic poetry, it borrows heavily from its classical predecessors, so Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton and even Tasso are alluded to throughout the poem.

The method behind the poem is fairly well known, and is in fact included in the poem's narrative. Merrill and his life-partner, David Jackson, would ritualistically cleanse themselves for a stipulated period, then consult the spirit-world by means of an Ouija Board. Merrill served as a kind of amanuensis, taking dictation from spirits from another dimension and translating the messages into poetry.

Merrill has been branded as an elitist by some, and there is no getting around the fact that he did consider himself and his partner as members of an order higher than that of most of mankind. He believed in a quasi-Gnostic hierarchy, wherein human beings are ranked according to their spiritual development. Unfortunately, the belief system he invokes leans more closely to Third Reich mysticism than to Buddhism or Hinduism. A great many people, according to Merrill's tenets, don't even have souls. They exist only on an animal level. One can see where this sort of thinking can, and has led.

I don`t want to infer, however, that Merrill, or this work, are in any manner political or polemical. This is a true work of art, full of imagination and of ideas. The sheer scope of creativity on display in "Sandhurst" is unsurpassed in the past 100 years of poetry, with the possible exception of "The Waste Land." It should be read and studied (and hopefully, cherished) by all lovers of literature. Whether or not Merrill existed on a higher plane than most of us is certainly debatable, even questionable. Whether or not his excursions into other spiritual realms were "real" or were delusional is also debatable. What is not debatable, is the fact that he produced a remarkable and very important poem in the process.

First of all I felt somewhat intimidated when it came to starting this epic work. I was afraid that my own background might prove inadequate for a product of such ethereal literary heights. It came as a relief when I found that I was well enough read to appreciate the majority of the literary and cultural references (at least I believe that I did.) Part of this was no doubt due to what I brought to the work, but equally part was due to the poet's uncanny ability to draw you in and connect you with the most intimate and obscure reference. I actually felt like I belonged to the circle- that I might be able to hold my own in such august company. This company included not only the poet, his partner, and their friends, but also the supposed spirits of Plato, Pythagoras, Robert Morse, Wallace Stevens, W.B. Yeats, Maya Deven, W.H. Auden, and even more.

So much for the exquisite and impressive poetic and literary aspect of the epic- the metaphysical basis was a another matter. Here I felt more than adequate. It is reported that Merrill and his partner styled themselves as metaphysical adepts. Indeed they drew the old criticism of being "spiritual elitists." Frankly, I do not sense that they were such. Such individuals exist, but they do not naively and uncritically seek out contact with the lower astral plane via ouija board. They do not take at face value the identities and messages of the beings so contacted. True, this may provide "interesting" material for the poet to run with, but it is of dubious value otherwise. In fact, some of the specific information (such as no souls escaping Hiroshima) just sounds plain wrong. As for three billion dead in the immediate future, or Mohammed being the servant of the Adversary and destined to bring about the last holy war, well, I'll let you judge for yourself. There is also something about treating the subject of spiritual patrons and the pattern of the wallpaper with seemingly equal weight in the poem that is somewhat disconcerting...

Just the fact that multiple "characters" reveal in the course of the poem that they are not who they originally said that they were (sometimes for decades) should tell you how much credence you should place in anything that they have revealed.

What irritates me is that some would equate this work with William Blake's. Yes, it is a remarkable work of art, an exquisite poem, but it is not Revelation. You have about an equal amount of gems and dross in a most impressive setting. However, it is up to you to judge which is which. You see, a true poet-prophet (such as Blake or Dante or Milton) rely on their own direct, intuitive connection with the Divine, and not upon a secondary entity to contact the Essence that will impart true immortality to their work. But then again, as far as I know, the poet himself never claimed that this was anything more than a most skilled riff of poetic art. It is indeed that.

The stage adaptation is included in the back of this volume. It is my humble recommendation that you read it first in order to make the main poem a little more accessible.

One furthur note, the "God B" refered to so often here is obviously the Demiurge- Yaltabaoth.


"Now the archon (ruler) who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas ("fool"), and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, `I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come."
---Apocryphon of John, circa 200AD

How can I start a review of the book that captured me into poetry? that led me to actually read and enjoy Dante and Milton? that even led me to reading odd epic poems and novels in verse that rarely make it into the top million rank here on Amazon?

How about "Great book - a life-changer in wholly unexpected ways."

I got my copy gratis back when I was doing occasional book reviews of the more traditional sort and not the slightest bit interested in the slender wisps of poetry that crossed my desk. There was something different about this one, though. This was five pounds of poetry ! Five-hundred and sixty pages ? One poem? How could that be? WHAT could that be?

But you've got to decide whether to spend a few bucks here, your situation is different. So the real question is what brought YOU to this page in Amazon. Needless to say, my five-star rating means that I will try to convince all comers to read "Sandover", but you must realize that you are a rather lonely explorer to have come this far. Your path reveals the nature of your search.

Maybe you've read some of Merrill's other work from the recent, rather successful "Collected Poems". Wonderful! While the critics can tell you about commonalties in all those poems, you probably noticed more of the vast range in that collection: from the tiny, surgically incisive "Little Fallacy", to the weirdly evocative "Lost in Translation" (bet you read that one more than once), to the extended, languorous narrative of "The Summer People", to the challenging and often enigmatic mythos in "From the Cupola."

This wholly different last pair, my favorites, were unexpectedly conjoined as the only two poems in the UK-published early book entitled "Two Poems." Together, they hint best at what "Sandover" will deliver: carefully crafted narrative and delight in poetic form along with intellectually challenging and sometimes cryptic layering. Expect some strangeness wrapped in a reassuring pale, cream cape, until the cape is tossed back to reveal a startlingly, spookily omni-dimensional vision. Sounds like fun ? Jump in...

I guess it's possible that you came here after reading Alison Lurie's recent lurid little "literary memoir." If so, congratulations for stepping over that indelicate little pile to consider the man's most epic work, instead of a shrewish listing of his peccadilloes. Of course personality and autobiography inevitably fuel poetry, and Merrill's "Sandover" is no exception. You might even, legitimately wonder, as I did, how the poetry of a rich gay man, who sounds suspiciously like an aesthete of the flightiest sort in Lurie (and apparently had a weird, mystic streak) can do anything more than entertain you. And how is that possible for 560 pages ?

You won't find the glib and thoughtless dilettante of Lurie's portrayal lurking beneath "Sandover." Merrill was not an overtly autobiographical poet, but he collected the pieces and wrote the tale of Sandover through 20-odd years of his life, In doing so he revealed the reality of privilege without arrogance, mysticism within a wry skepticism, and appreciation of love and beauty in all their forms. "Sandover" is actually a fine place for one who is neither gay, nor rich, nor mystical and, perhaps, like me, aesthetically-challenged, to get drawn-in to a world that twines these elements together in an endlessly interesting and attractive way. If you've read Lurie, I think you will find "Sandover" an especial pleasure - a much more graciously framed journey toward much more extraordinary horizons.

I suppose you might be here because you have developed a taste for the long poem: the epic or the novel in verse (maybe from my own `listmania' list of such works right here on Amazon). If so, you face a more interesting challenge. "Sandover" will offer many things that are familiar but probably some quite different. If the story in Vikram Seth's "Golden Gate" captivated you, you will find a quite compelling story here - but not one quite so down-to-earth. If the different cultures circumscribed by Walcott's "Omeros" or even Budbill's "Judevine" intrigued you, you will find other worlds here - otherworldly locales, indeed.. If Merwin's "Folding Cliffs" satisfied while it challenged you as a reader, you will find "Sandover" to be a surprising combination of the eminently readable and the multi-layered and re-readable. If Dante's, Milton's or even Frederick Turner's epic reach inspired you, you can count on "Sandover" to take you to the inner and outer reaches of the universe.

Finally, of course, you might be here just because you've heard that James Merrill was one of the finest poets of the 20th century. He was. In "Sandover" he combined many, many talents - as a formalist and as an experimenter in form and as one of the last poets to show a pure delight in words and their infective enlodgement in the human brain. The atomics of the poem satisfy and surprise no matter what magnification your readerly microscope is set on. Over and over you will find yourself startled at a just plain perfect piece of short verse - as tersely powerful as William's "red wheelbarrow." Then you will find yourself so captured by the narrative of the story, that only part-way through will you realize that you are in the midst of two pages of elegant "terza rima." Even the largest structural elements partition, loop-back and break off in ways that build a magnificent whole that is as captivating in its large-scale structure as in its single word choices.

Sandover is an endlessly captivating work - I've read it, all 560 pages, four times in ten years, and still pick it up and read a section or two every few months.

Hi I'm Zoe Whilton, and Childhood Hills is an excellent book. Each poem is a masterpiece of its own. My favorite poems are, "The Lie", "The Elevator", and "Your First Day at Dolly's" (by Annemarie Mullan Whilton, aka my mother, I am the girl at preschool, my sister is the one crying). I hope that Pat Mullan continues to write poetry.

Reviewed by Diane Morgan - Editor, ... .

Pat Mullan takes us on a poetic journey through Ireland, the world and childhood. His evocative poetry creates for us lush landscapes, towering cities and weeping hearts that share the sorrow within all of us.

Relationships are key to his poetry, love, loss and remembering. I truly enjoyed his style of writing; it wasn't at all like the rhyming cliché poetry we are overburdened with as we read aspiring poets; it has a rhythm all its own; one could almost hear an Irish lilt to it.

He adds to the end of his book a section in memory of James Dickey that is poignant and stirring reminding us of the vast heritage we have of poets often forgotten.

Childhood Hills
by Pat Mullan

Reading this collection of poetry and writings was like holding a conversation with a very interesting person who can fascinate with a hypnotic flow of words. His muse is an old country bard who whispered secrets of the ancient days in the poet's ear. Pat Mullan has translated those secrets onto these pages.

You will be moved to joy and sorrow as you traverse the winding path over these Childhood Hills. Within these hills dwells a child who remembers the man he was, not a man dreaming over a lost youth. He still lives in the poetry contained here.

This author is a spirit freed from the fears of childhood that we all have shared, no matter what shape those fears take, what horrid dreams they inspire. If you allow him, this poet will guide you through imagery and images, familiar and strange, to a destination where understanding waits.

A poem is music of the soul that takes its inspiration from ordinary events, places, and people. It is a music you hear with your heart. I recommend you read Childhood Hills slowly and listen carefully. It will quicken the spirit that lives within.

I am the author of "THE FEELINGS AND IMAGINATION OF A BAREFOOT BOY STILL INSIDE MY HEAD!: Poems and Short Stories for Boys and Girls Ages 9 to 12," which will be available online soon! I bought Childhood Hills to read another author's poetry. In Pat's book, here are several of my favorites: THE QUARRY HOLE, WE NEVER TALKED, BICYCLE RIDE, SMALL VICTORY, GRANNY BUNTY'S BUTTON BOX, and MY CAT (this one is by Annemarie Mullan Whilton). As I read, Pat's poetry created a vivid picture in my mind. The poems about Pat's childhood were particularly moving. Great Book Pat!

It's an amazing way of painting a picture from a really interesting life and Childhood of this irish author. For me it was sometimes intellectuall demanding and sometimes easy to follow. My Favourites are: 'The turning point' and 'Granny Bunty's Button Box'

There is so much to praise here, where do I start? How can I possibly communicate what these poems mean to me? "Renascence" alone takes my breath away - "The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through." These words too, allow the divine to shine through. "Interim" is, perhaps, as beutiful a poem as I have ever read. The author brilliantly captures the essence of loss, that grief and confusion, the mind's inability to accept the notion of a life alone: "...part of your heart aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled in the damp earth with you. I have been torn in two, and suffer for the rest of me..." There are still so many other passages that leap off these pages. Her phrases are like literary gem stones: Sonnet XXVII: "I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year" - could it be said any more succinctly? This collection is a must for anyone who cares at all about poetry - American or otherwise.

This book of collected poems is the most treasured book that I own. My copy is absolutely falling apart - I have to keep it in its own special box.

Over the years, I have worn the binding to pieces touching, flipping, - and don't hate me - earmarking the pages of this book when I wanted to remember something and couldn't find a spare scrap of paper for a marker. There is something so exposed and fragile about her work and, at the same time, she is very strong and beautifully resolved to her observations. She doesn't communicate in frilly riddles. She speaks to everyone. "Here in a Rocky Cup" on page 471 is one of her finest. It may break your heart! Enjoy.

how delightful to find a beautiful copy to introduce my granddaughter to Edna St. Vincent Millay.

"Time does not bring relief; you all have lied/ Who told me time would ease me of my pain!"

Old and wise beyond her years, Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote the majority of her most beautiful and famous works at a startlingly young age. One of few moments of comedy in Millay's otherwise (too) serious, brief life, was that as a published and award-winning poet while still in her teens, Millay entered college literature courses, taught by older teachers there to `instruct' her, even though they, themselves, had in most cases never published a line of verse or captured a single award!

"I burn my candle at both ends/ It will not last the night...."

This famous and oft quoted line about living the hectic life was Millay's, but many have forgotten that. A half-century after her passing, she is largely unremembered, lost among a crowd of later, lesser writers, ignored by subsequent ages that placed scant value on poetry. Hers was a life often lived invisibly behind her words. Though the events of her personal life, with her promiscuity and radical ideals, at times gained notoriety beyond even her professional achievements, Millay the poet is the force this book celebrates. Even the biographical section in this anthology is terse and respectful, which I found befitting. Edna St.Vincent Millay's poems, from the startlingly powerful Renascence, to her sonnets (the best composed in the English language in centuries) to her final experimental output at the time of World War Two, everything Millay achieved succeeds in taking the consciousness of an attentive reader into a higher realm, where the mind and soul are meditatively fused as at few other times in the human lifetime, and the voyage is one of utter transcendence.

When I read the selection, "All I have is Rain," it stirred me so that I had to have it open my novel. She agreed without hesitation. It was as if she had read my manuscript. She hadn't. That poem spoke to my protagonist's heart and soul.

Bridgette Alyce has a touch that you cannot forget long after you've read her words. She is a poet extraordinaire. I rate this book 5 stars.

...Poetry does more than stir one's soul. Good poetry provokes multi-level thinking and excellent poetry ties those thoughts in with the spiritual, emotional, sociological, and other aspects of a person's essence. Author Bridgette Alyce Greathouse Wynn has composed a book brimming with excellent poetry. COME, JOY! SONGS FROM THE SOFT OF NIGHT speaks tenderly of love gained, musically of loved ones, joyfully of spiritual journeys, and appreciatively of nature observed. I enjoyed reading almost every poem in this timeless collection.

It is impossible for me to choose a favorite poem from COME, JOY!, but every time I read "Cover Me" on page 53, I thoroughly enjoy it. Musical allusions and a melodic rhythm magnify the already intense diction of the poem. It is deep on many levels, and you can't help but let your mind dance with the poem. All manner of images surface in my mind when I read it, and I love the smoothly abrupt way that it coasts to an end, like a dip at the end of a tango.

Author Wynn shows readers throughout the book that she is a skilled poet, experimenting with various styles and techniques and manipulating the English language for optimality. She begins and ends the composition with very fitting haikus while indulging in vivid descriptions on everything in between. Most all of the poems in the Songs of Love section and the Songs of Nature section impressed me, even though every section in this book is more than worth readers' time and close attention.

I love how Wynn makes me think, stirs the embers of my own poetic fire, and makes me want to dig deeper into her poetry. They're full - of life, sounds, emotions, and journeys. I want to analyze them and extract any and every meaning possible. She inspires me to read more, write more, and study more. Simply put, COME, JOY is poetry at its best.

Reviewed by Natasha T.
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

In "Come, Joy! Songs from the Soft of the Night" Bridgette Alyce bears her soul in poetic serenades of love, loved ones, nature, and spirit.

The rhythm of the prose and the balance of emotion makes Alyce a true psalmist. The poems are honest and meaningful. "Come, Joy!" is book of inspiration worthy to be on the bookshelves of everyone breathing. She shows that dark times don't have to be filled with fear and turmoil. When the world sleeps through the night you can find solace in the softness of the voice that speaks from within.

Makasha Dorsey, Reviewer
Atlanta, GA

This work is definitely a book you must read over and over. I have several favorites, including, "Meditation", "My Love is a Song", and all the ones describing the author's great love for family and special frienships. The title piece in the final chapter on the spiritual relationship with the Creator, is also a favorite, and Ms. Wynn's earnest invocation of the Spirit throughout is evidence of the connection she desires to make and maintain in sharing the gift she's been blessed with. The poems in the collection minister to the soul in different ways, encouraging and instructing, edifying and uplifting and especially in the soft of my own nights, these poem confirm what the heart has always known. There is joy in the morning. A must read for people who enjoy good literature that speaks to the heart.

Poetry is such a deeply personal genre. It very often opens the hearts, minds, and wounds of a poet allowing their heartbeats, thoughts and blood drain on to the pages. Sometimes the poet is effective in touching individuals; giving words to those who had none to express. Bridgette Alyce is one of those in her book of poetry, Come, Joy!

Ms. Alyce is truly gifted with words. Her ability to paint an abstract print in some of her work stands strong beside the simplicity that she captures in others. The foreword of her book, presented in a poem, proved to be one of my favorites with vivid imagery of renewed sense of self. The only bothersome thing I found in the collection of Come, Joy! was the intensely personal poems that were written for specific people. These selections, (mostly found in the section "Songs of Loved Ones") which speak to an individual or particular situation, forced a wall of disconnection for this reader. While again the beauty of words existed I could only empathize when I would have liked to sympathize with the emotions shared. However, pieces like "Anytime", "2 a. m. (muse)", and "Forgiveness"captured true moments for this reader.

While not all the poetry spoke to me on a personal level, I have a great respect for Ms. Alyce's gift with words and gift to the genre. I look forward to reading more.


Kotanya
APOOO BookClub