Poets Books

What would you do if the first letter of your name would disappear? Richard Wilbur gives a comical way to view the disappearance of the alphabet. He makes his readers think about the importance of the alphabet. 'What if there were no letter A? Cows would eat HY instead of HAY' This would be an excellent book to read to elementary students. After reading this book, they could think of what other words would be or sound like with a letter missing. The illustrations by David Diaz are unique to say the least. He uses vibrant colors and illustraions to stress the importance of what Wilbur is trying to convey. This book made me think about the alphabet in a different way. It will do the same for young readers.

Richard Wilbur's The Disappearing Alphabet imagines what the world would be like if the letters of the alphabet vanished, in verses on subjects ranging from the ordinary to silly to sublime and existential. For instance, without "G," there would be no green and oak trees would be blue and pastures pink; without "N," birds would have wigs instead of wings; as for "O":

What if there were no letter O?
You couldn't COME, you couldn't GO,
You couldn't ROVE, you couldn't ROAM,
And yet you couldn't stay at HOME!
Where would you be, had heaven not sent you
The letter O to orient you?

Each letter is portrayed on a single page, with verses ranging from two to twelve lines. Each verse is beautifully illustrated by David Diaz's exquisite and unexpected designs, such as a lovely banana with a disgusting eel instead of a peel (illustrating the importance of the letter "P"). Diaz's illustrations are stylized in intense, gradient, glowing colors. The illustrations each overlay a pale yellow version of the letter found somewhere in the background of the page. The type is treated with the same care as the illustrations, with the letter to which the verse is addressed set off in a bold, colorful, sans serif font. Younger children will enjoy the nonsense-like poetry and the playfulness of the language, while older children will discover new and unusual vocabulary words and find inspiration by the possibilities of language. The introduction exhorts children to protect the alphabet: "Be careful, then, my friends, and do not let / Anything happen to the alphabet." This book will offer children of all ages an appreciation of letters, words, and language.

I highly recommend this book. The lines are easy to remember, and are very quotable. They provide an introduction to poetry and to the play with language. They introduce vocabulary with humor. The illustrations are quite extraordinary, the print of high quality.

I loved this book so much. I bought it in I believe 2001 and if I had known I could have written a review on it, I would have a long time ago. I had this book by my side forever, everywhere I went. The love poems were beutifully written,a s were the erotic ones. It is really difficult to put into words how much this book meant to me. My father sponsers a step-team that puts a black history show together every February. In 2002 he used the poem that I believe has a title that means unity as an open to his show. I just love the book and the fellas held it down and represented big time. Write some more so i can buy another one.

The days of uniformed poetry, restricted by pentameters and accents, are indeed at risk. This trio of southern shakespears embrace the art of poetry, while at the same time tearing down it's walls of "formality". These young men have perfectly braided all the essential elements of, life, love, and lessons of the south in the form of a "written" spoken-word. They paint vivid portraits of the south, from Texas' sweat glossed women, through Louisiana's gumbo steamed kithens, all the way to Georgia's chalk covered sidewalks. The Dirty Collection, includes both stories of the south's deepest and darkest secrets, including a three part tribute to a lost child. on a brighter note, this collection also includes dreams of better days as well as the appreciation of the south's easy-going lifestyle. Their wisdom at such a young age coupled by their courage and sincerity to express it, will leave any reader amazed, anticipating their next release!!! From the backwoods' barefoot "boyz" to the urban streets' hip-hop boot wearing "men", this trio have fautlessly covered all acres of the "DIRTY SOUTH"!!!

Getto Times Tribune

-Junebug Slim Walker

At last someone has written a book for and about the South, so long have I awaited a poetry book that i could relate to and find some sort of substance about my own life and upbringing, and so to these three young poets i say thankyou, thankyou from the children, the women , the men , the south for rufusing to hide the issues that still live here in the south.

Never have I read a collection of more powerfully written and organized words. I first heard Dread Beat and Blood as a high school student fifteen years ago and was struck by the rhythm and the tone of Johnson's voice. The words on the page come alive with the images of racial strife and injustice that LKJ creates with his pen. I am currently using these and other poems by dub poets as a teaching tool in my Clairemont High School language arts classes. Spread the word!

the whole idea of dub poetry, and especially the contents introduced by LKJ are here found in written form, powerful, strong, touching. If you read it, you#ll understand more about the focus of LKJ's works.

I am from Brixton, and have to say LKJ put into lyrics what in the 1970's/1980's what most of us could not (our access to all mediums was cut off). The reality he writes about in say, Sonny's Letter is true - believe! It was ignored by politicians (obviously) etc. It's series and when you read or even better LISTEN to the lyrics (he recorded most of this) you will see why so many of us self destructed so early.

This beautifully produced volume contains five of Blake's early works in relief etching (his illuminated books from 1788 to 1793 save "The Songs of Innocence" from 1789 - published in volume 2 in this series). They are the early tract like "All Religions Are One" and "There Is No Natural Religion", then the fable of "Thel", the magnificent "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (one of Blake's most popular works), and the beautiful "Visions of the Daughters of Albion".

This volume really four books bound in one. The tracts are treated as one book, then each of the others individually. Each sub-volume has its own introduction and commentary and each plate is given its own page and most have the text on the left page with the plate on the right.

There are also alternative plates provided for additional study.

As with all the volumes in this series, the production values are high, as is the scholarship. A volume you can be proud to have on your shelf.

I recommend that any fan of William Blake buy this volume and the other 5 in the series. The books are beautiful, large, and handsomely bound. Each book is reproduced in full color, using a six-color printing process rather than the standard four. The pages are heavy, opaque and have a gorgous lustre indicating very high quality paper. The text of each book accompanies the color reproductions in standard typeface with very competent commentary to boot.

I recommend that any fan of William Blake buy this volume and the other 5 in the series. The books are beautiful, large, and handsomely bound. Each book is reproduced in full color, using a six-color printing process rather than the standard four. The pages are heavy, opaque and have a gorgous lustre indicating very high quality paper. The text of each book accompanies the color reproductions in standard typeface with very competent commentary to boot.

Published poet Ken Belford presents Ecologue, a collection of free-verse poems that deal with the struggle to reconcile land, language, earth's geological history, and the role humans play. Different poems bring forth different rhythm patterns, underscoring the changeable elements in both nature and human interactions. A thought-provoking, resonant anthology. "Lingua": Trading tongues / by any means, // a rough and ready war / of word of mouth. // There's nothing to write home about. // Memory edit: / language is a dump. / I'm not at home in it. // Nothing's transparent / and resistance is referential.

Published poet Ken Belford presents Ecologue, a collection of free-verse poems that deal with the struggle to reconcile land, language, earth's geological history, and the role humans play. Different poems bring forth different rhythm patterns, underscoring the changeable elements in both nature and human interactions. A thought-provoking, resonant anthology. "Lingua": Trading tongues / by any means, // a rough and ready war / of word of mouth. // There's nothing to write home about. // Memory edit: / language is a dump. / I'm not at home in it. // Nothing's transparent / and resistance is referential.

Published poet Ken Belford presents Ecologue, a collection of free-verse poems that deal with the struggle to reconcile land, language, earth's geological history, and the role humans play. Different poems bring forth different rhythm patterns, underscoring the changeable elements in both nature and human interactions. A thought-provoking, resonant anthology. "Lingua": Trading tongues / by any means, // a rough and ready war / of word of mouth. // There's nothing to write home about. // Memory edit: / language is a dump. / I'm not at home in it. // Nothing's transparent / and resistance is referential.

Like _Eros the Bittersweet_, this is a fine example of Carson's scrupulous and beautifully- written scholarship. And like all of her work, the strangeness of her intensity and consideration is charming and virtuosic. The juxtaposition of Simonides and Celan *works* in spite of the centuries separating their oeuvres; even as she's making connections within the text, one wonders how she's going to pull it off--and then she does. Carson's discussion of poetic economy (both monetary and linguistic)--a topic not often discussed in criticism--illuminates the coinages and clipped syntax of Celan, providing leverage on reading a difficult poet, and will most likely prove to be a useful critical tool for reading other modern poets. Carson couples intellectual density with warm, lyrical prose, yielding a text of intricate research and rewarding insight--a rare and real pleasure for readers of poetry and/or criticism.

This book is unusual in many ways. Firstly, it dares to compare Simonides of Keos, a Greek poet of the 5th century BC, and Paul Celan, a 20th century poet who wrote in German. Secondly, it dares to apply economic ideas, in particular those of Karl Marx, to explain poetry.

What connects Simonides and Celan? They share a sense of alienation and an acute awareness of the limits of what "is;" and they are both masters of composition and language. Anne Carson points out that she chose to look at two men at the same time because the attention devoted to one enhances the attention devoted to the other: "Sometimes you can see a celestial object better by looking at something else, with it, in the sky." (viii)

A particularly fascinating aspect of both poets' work is their preoccupation with nothingness and negation. "Negation links the mentalities of Simonides and Celan. Words for 'no,' 'not,' 'never,' 'nowhere,' 'nobody,' 'nothing,' dominate their poems and create bottomless places for reading." (9) It is exactly these bottomless places in their poems, invisible to the cursory reader, that Anne Carson knows to locate.

Anne Carson divides the book into four chapters. In the first chapter, "Alienation," Carson uses analogies from the sphere of economics most extensively. She explains how the changing economic situation of poets in the fifth century BC accounts for the fact that Simonides was considered the stingiest person of his time (in addition to being one of the smartest). The "economy" in the title of the book refers to the actual life of the poet as a recipient of gifts and money, and to the act of composing poetry. The "unlost" in the title is a more complex idea and hints at the themes of negation and nothingness explored in the other three chapters.

In chapter two, "Visibles Invisibles," Carson discusses Simonides' philosophy of art ("the word is a picture of things") and how painting a picture relates to "painting" a poem. "Simonides is Western culture's original literary critic, for he is the first person in our extant tradition to theorize about the nature and function of poetry." (46) Carson goes on to show how Simonides and Celan use grammar to "render a relationship that is ... deeper than the visible surface of the language," (52) and how both poets' "language has the capacity to uncover a world of metaphor that lies inside all our ordinary speech like a mind asleep." (58) She points to the exact locations in the poems where poetic language indicates an invisible "reality" beyond the reality of ordinary speech, where poetry arises from words and the (visible) surface of language reflects a deeper (invisible) truth.

Chapter three studies Simonides' epitaphs. "No genre of verse is more profoundly concerned with seeing what is not there, and not seeing what is, than that of the epitaph." (73) Epitaphs are inscriptions on graves. Simonides was the most prolific composer of epitaphs in the ancient world, Carson tells us, and set the conventions of the genre. "Tears of Simonides" were the byword for poetry of lament used by Catullus. Epitaphs have two economic aspects: the economics of remuneration and the economics of composition, as the poet has to use his words economically to fit them on the grave-stone. Epitaphs are also related to the visible and the invisible because they connect the living with the dead: "The responsibility of the living to the dead is not simple. It is we who let them go, for we do not accompany them. It is we who hold them here - deny them their nothingness - by naming their names. Out of these two wrongs comes the writing of epitaphs." (85)

Chapter four, "Negation," focuses our attention on the fact that "nothing" needs close thought. "The word lends itself to scary word play, to unanswerable puns, to the sort of reasoning that turns inside out when you stare at it. Simonides and Celan are both poets who enjoy this sort of reasoning and who orient themselves toward reality, more often than not, negatively." (100) Negation is a very powerful tool, and Carson wants our attention for the difference in implied meaning between, say, "Life is suffering" and "Nothing is not painful among men," as Simonides phrased it. Negation is also something uniquely human because a negative is a verbal event, "a peculiarly linguistic resource whose power resides with the user of words."(102) When you say "this is not that" you need to put something present ("this") and something absent ("that") on the screen of your imagination. "The interesting thing about a negative, then, is that it posits a fuller picture of reality than does a positive statement." (102) Carson then shows with examples from Simonides' and Celan's poetry how much beyond the factual these poets can express by not saying "something" but "not nothing."

"Economy of the Unlost" is truly brilliant whenever Anne Carson dissects a poem because she brings to the task both her qualities as scholar of classical Greece and modern poet. I do not always agree with the way she employs metaphors from economics, but I take it that she uses the terms introduced by Karl Marx to point my attention to noteworthy aspects of the poetry even if by today's standards these terms have turned out to be incorrect. When Carson claims, "what is striking in Marx's analysis of the issue is this insight: that to value a piece of work is to price the mortal span," (107) then she and Karl are obviously mistaken. A doodle produced by Bill Gates during a meeting would definitely fetch a higher price than a doodle by yours truly done in the same mortal span of time. But these are quibbles of an economist; they should not detract from my praise of Carson's work.

The bottom line is: this is an outstanding work that brings the best of academic scholarship to the interpretation of poetry. It deserves every of its five stars.

I can't say enough good things about these lectures, which mesh Celan, Simonides and Karl Marx with a grace that makes their union seem inevitable. The way Carson folds together money, language and memory reminds me of Ezra Pound without the shouting. Her insights have a math-like clarity ("Eureka! I've got it!") that brings two extreme ends of our history under the same light. You'll never mistake negation and loss for modern inventions after reading this book. The coins have changed since Simonides's time but the economy's remarkably the same. The funny thing is, after Carson's dazzling treatment, lament never looked so good.

I feel as if I have known Dave Parsons for most of my life. His poignant and moving revelations of his life stories paint an intimate and revealing portrait of a poet who is grounded in the real world. Parsons creates an ambience that invites the reader into the poets living room to share the triumphs and tragedies of lifes moments that most of us neglect. Parsons has defined poetry for us through his revelations. The world awaits the next installment of wonderment.

I found many of Mr. Parson's poems very moving. "They" is one of my favorites.

Editing Sky is a poignant collection of intimate poems that also seem universal in their appeal. They describe powerful experiences of an Austin childhood, handball, conoeing, marriage, alzheimers, the marines, historic houses, and much more. The poems draw you in and move you with their straightforward, vivid style. When you combine the intimate images, the direct style, and the pleasing eloquence and ease of the words and their arrangement, it makes for a truly satisfying poetry reading experience! I enjoy reading the book over and over and I would highly recommend it.

Herbert's spare poems have the elemental force of haiku. Those written in the context of Soviet Poland are also encoded--the multivalent language gives one the same thrill of Emily Dickinson-type riddles, with the additional excitement of secret messages passed to your hand through the Iron Curtain. Makes for marvellous reading.

While I havent read this book, I have read much of his earlier work, and certainly his poems are the genuine article. The Rain, Apollo and Mauryas are two quite wonderful pieces that combine emotion and intellect in a seldom-encountered way. Read him.

Had Herbert hewed to the leftwing/socialist line, he would have won the Nobel Prize years ago. He didn't, however, and, like Borges, he was denied the prize in favor of much lesser writers. Thankfully he was honored by the Ingersoll Foundation a few years before his death with The T.S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing, an award conferred for merit, not idealogy. Herbert's poems have an elegant austerity born out of his own privations and the loss he experienced and witnessed for most of his life, first at the hands of the Nazis, then the Communists. But he is not without hope and humor. The book is divided into three sections: the first comprised of early poems, the second by a sequence of wry, lovely, surprising prose poems, the last of latterday work. Among the outstanding pieces here are "A Small Bird" and the title poem, a magnificent farewell to art and to life that could well serve as Herbert's epitaph. Here's hoping his name and work win the widespread attention they deserve.

CE Chaffin changes forever stereotypes surrounding typical nature poetry. Dr. Chaffin is able to make us feel deeply the soul of living things from lowly fish as they bite into "the shock of hooks" to something as ordinary as a batch of carrots from the garden..."dumb sacrifices on the kitchen cutting board." Dr. Chaffin records what he sees with skill and an abiding love. ELEMENTARY is a collection which will enrich -unalterably- those who read it.

_Elementary_ By C.E. Chaffin, Mellen Press -- 1997

In poetry, language as art is the defined space of emotive energies used to produce a sensation or intuitive stance in the reader. In defining good poetry, one should expect the standard fare of imagery and thematic value. But in defining great poetry, one need only read CE Chaffin's first collection, _Elementary_.

What poetry does is to mix emotion and object through the dialectic of imagery, a suggested pattern of awareness of personal knowledge. Technically, Chaffin organizes his poetic impulses into a pattern along the twin lines of denotation and connotation. We find a poet re-defining perception and emotion to the highest rung when we read:

"Down, down, down, we all go down / into the deep, deep black trenches / where fish manufacture light, / where inhuman pressure / requires inhuman pressure to survive, / where colors have no meaning, sounds are louder / for stillness and the current torpid, / where water is always four degrees centigrade / and cold, cold, cold, but never frozen."

("Near the Bottom")

As seen above, in addition to utilizing devices to strengthen the images, Chaffin takes the reader further by introducing opposites in contrast to the emotion. This provides the reader with an intuitive glimpse into the poet's sometimes divided mind and heart and broadens the relationship of the work to its theme. Again, witness this dichotomy of emotion:

"No air conditioner can slice this pasta, / this thick lasagna of atmosphere; / the moon cannot cool, the sun cannot dry / this humid revolution of stars, / for night is worse for no relief-- / warm as a wet pillow / when fever strikes."

("An End to Summer")

In addition to the contrasts, "the moon cannot cool, the sun cannot dry," we see the progressive organization of thought forming a link between disparate images. Rather than compare Chaffin's voice to that of a Cummings or Stevens, one could say he approaches his work in a Dali-esque or Magritte manner-- that of the painter drawing abstract references into unity and completion.

At his best, Chaffin moves his work in time to that of the visionary, seeing connections when none before existed. He has the strength to bring uniformity to modern obscurity through the guiding principles of cognition, awareness and revelation. In the following stanza we get a glimpse of this:

"My plumage in hue resembles / the yellowed ivory of old men's teeth. / My eyes, once keen, now barely locate / what the seagulls disdain. / Wisdom is what remains, but at this age / it lacks the power of will. / It means, I think, to suffer / one's own nature to its end."

("Phoenix")

Overall Chaffin's _Elementary_ is a brilliant collection of striking poems written with imagination at full stretch. In this slim volume we see a man re-defining language in emotional and conceptual brackets beyond the plain implication of words, avoiding obscurity for the most part, in his search for universal symbols of human feeling.

David Hunter Sutherland Managing Editor Recursive Angel New York, 1999

CE Chaffin divides this book into the four elementals: earth, air, fire, water. The title alludes to the simplicity of the language and of the content but this book is rich in lush images and metaphor. Chaffin's poems read like an onion-- every read reveals another fine layer, intricate and layered.

I loved this book. Kay Ryan's poems are very short, but they pack so much ambiguous meaning in a few lines. They're quite unusual among contemporary poetry: epigrammatic, terse, very accessible, almost light verse, but with shadows flickering all around. I give this book to friends who say they "don't get modern poetry" and that modern poetry makes them feel stupid. If you like Stevie Smith or the short verses of Robert Frost, you'll love Elephant Rocks. Here's a short one, called "Silence":

Silence is not snow./ It cannot grow/ deeper. A thousand years/ of it are thinner/ than paper. so/ we must have it/ all wrong/ when we feel trapped/ like mastodons.

Once every couple of generations, an original thinker manages to refresh an art form that had seemed exhausted. Kay Ryan has done this with poetry. Her poems rhyme--but not in the ways and places you expect. They're metrical--but only according to the author's own quirky standard. They're short, tight, and disciplined--and yet they allow language to sprawl and luxuriate. Best of all, they're musical. Not a single one of them bounces along in a stanzaic quatrain the way a traditional lyric would; instead, these poems are densely packed, with beautiful interior rhymes and echoes chiming away in a miniature space.

One final paradox: Although these poems are not confessional (they do not contain personal remembrances, hurts, or hopes), they gradually reveal an intensely individual mind--a lucid, generous, and humorous one.

In my opinion Kay is the best, most beautiful poet working in the English language today. She has quietly reinvented rhyming poetry according to her own peculiar--but very logical--rules. I consider her best poems to be miraculous.

In admiration,

Henry Rathvon

I had to stop reading this book on the bus because it caused me to blubber like a baby! Ms. Ryan's words pour into your soul like water, filling you up and spilling over your face. Seldom does a writer have such a command over both sound and sense--that's what makes her a true poet. And, like the best poetrty, this book should be enjoyed in a quiet, intimate environment, read aloud to the one you love best. An absolutely wonderful book.