The first 17 or so sonnets in the series left me taken aback. It's right there in the first line of Sonnet #1:
1. FrSHAKESPEARE WANTS YOU TO BREED!!!!
The first 17 or so sonnets in the series left me taken aback. It's right there in the first line of Sonnet #1:
1. From fairest creatures we desire increase That thereby beauty's Rose might never die But as the riper should be time decease His tender heir might bear his memory
There's this obsession with propagating the species. This concern about breeding dominates the first 17 sonnets in the series, something I had not been aware of before.
2. ... How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use If thou couldst answer, 'This fair child of mine Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'
3. Look in the glass, and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time this face should form another
4. .... Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
6. .... That's for thyself to breed another thee
7. ..... So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon, Unlooked on diest, unless thou get a son.
8. ... mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, ... Sings this to thee, "Thou single will prove none".
9. ... Ah if thou issueless shalt hap to die, the world will wail thee, like a makeless wife .. No love towards others in that bosom sits That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
10. ... Make thee another self, for love of me, that beauty still may live in thine or thee.
11. ... Let those whom nature hath not made for store, Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish. ... She carv'd thee for her seal, and mean thereby Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
Actually, as a gay man, I find that "harsh, featureless, and rude" pretty offensive. It continues:
12. ... And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
13. ... Against this coming end you should prepare, And your sweet semblance to some other give.
14. ... If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert; Or else of thee this I prognosticate: Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
17. ... But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice, in it and in my rime.
Fortunately, #18 is the glorious "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", and from here on out it appears to be smooth sailing.
But that battery of breeder-boosting that opens this collection was a little off-putting, to say the least. It seems so dismissive of those of us who were put on earth to carry out some other purpose, somehow.
But this is neither here nor there. This book contains some of the most awesome language in the entire body of English literature. To assign it a rating seems entirely presumptuous; nothing but 5 stars seems even conceivable.
My favorite, if forced to choose, is a conventional one:
#29. When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, ... Haply I think on thee --- and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
Quite apart from the theme of the poem, how he changes mood with just that single line "like to the lark at break of day arising" astonishes me every time I read it.
This is just one of the joys to be found in this book, which also contains neruda's odes: al ancla (to the anchor), al caballo (to the horse), a la cama (to the bed), a las cosas (to things), a las cosas rotas (to broken things), al elefante, al gato, a la gran muralla en la niebla (to the great wall in the fog), a la guitarra, a Lenin, a una manana del Brasil, a una manana en Stokholmo, al perro, a la mesa, al piano, a la sandia (to the watermelon), a los trenes del Sur, a un tren en china, al violin de California, a los nombres de Venezuela.
I LOVE these poems, for their concreteness, their specificity. Though I also have been enjoying Neruda's "20 love poems and a song of despair" since arriving here in Chile, their abstraction pales in comparison to the wonderfully concrete images evoked in the poems of this collection. Last Sunday I had the privilege of visiting Neruda's home in Valparaiso, (known as "La Sebastiana", see my current avatar), which is now preserved by the Neruda foundation as a museum. it's this indescribably wonderful four-story house overlooking the Pacific. The best part is that it's stuffed to the rafters with stuff - Neruda was obviously a complete pack-rat - the house is just filled with all manner of THINGS that he accumulated throughout his life. It provides a fascinating glimpse into his personality, and gives the "Oda a las cosas" a particular resonance.
Before this trip, I had always mentally classified Neruda's work in a kind of "future homework" category. That is to say, I had always felt guilty about not having read it, but wasn't particularly looking forward to doing so. Nothing had prepared me for the joyful immediacy of these poems.
I ADORE this book! Almost singlehandedly it has saved a trip whose other aspects have not always been pleasant. And I don't know whether it's the stage of life that I find myself at, or what the explanation for it is, but I find myself responding far more to Neruda's celebration of the small, concrete, pleasures of life (things! goddamit) than to the more abstract musings on love and loss in the collection from his youth (Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada). Though that, too, is well worth reading.
I don't know if the poems in this volume are available in translation, but I hope that they are. Because they really will bring a smile to your face, if you can track them down.
Who knew? Nobel Laureates can be fun to read as well!
Los Angeles has always disturbed me. All that sunshine. Those über-toned bodies. Packs of werewolves roaming the canyons and arroyos. It's enough to mLos Angeles has always disturbed me. All that sunshine. Those über-toned bodies. Packs of werewolves roaming the canyons and arroyos. It's enough to make any catlover nervous.
In this awesome, exuberant, first book Toby Barlow strips away the city's thin veneer of civilization and lays bare its raw, violent, lycanthropic underbelly. It's the cross-species love story between dogcatcher Anthony and his damaged werewolf lover, which unfolds against a backdrop of drugs, murder, revenge, and the battle for pack dominance. It's noir, funny, riveting, tender, completely over the top, and by rights it shouldn't work at all. But it does - it's completely addictive and unexpectedly moving.
Part of its power is a consequence of Barlow's choice to write it in free verse. The resulting rhythm give the whole story a driving momentum that keeps the reader riveted -- I read the whole book in two sittings. The plot, which seemed inextricably complicated at the halfway mark, is resolved neatly by the end, though I do feel that I need to give the book a second reading to figure out the various strands.
Another reviewer made the perceptive comment that the sheer momentum built up by Barlow's writing works against a careful reading, so I anticipate that a second reading will bring further rewards.
Depending on how my second reading goes, I may yet have to give this most excellent book a fifth star.
If you have time for only one lycanthropic love story this summer, then look no farther than "Sharp Teeth". Toby Barlow can be proud of this totally impressive debut. ...more
There's some pretty funny stuff in here. First published in 1930, it takes aim at poets of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The editors (D.B. WyndhThere's some pretty funny stuff in here. First published in 1930, it takes aim at poets of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The editors (D.B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee) restricted their selection to dead poets, understandably enough. This edition, reissued as part of the terrific New York Review Books Classics series, has an introduction by Billy Collins.
Apart from some of the most hilariously dreadful verse you're ever likely to encounter, the book has the following attractive features:
1. Seven satirical drawings (Mr Tennyson reading "in Memoriam" to his sovereign, Wordsworth at Cross Purposes in the Lake District, and so on)
2. Tongue-in-cheek, pull-no-punches, biographical sketches of the poets. (e.g., in the entry for Adam Lindsay Gordon, this sentence: "In 1870 he published Bush Ballads, and later in the year committed suicide").
3. Best subject index evah. Sample entries: lamprey, osculatory feats of, 108; Woman, useful protection against lions, 118; Beethoven, shaky octave playing, 6.
Then there is the poetry. Though I haven't had a chance to take it all in, I am happy to report that the book meets the obvious minimum requirement for a collection like this - that old fraud Wordsworth is generously represented. He contributes not just the title poem, but other gems like these:
"That is a work of waste and ruin; Consider, Charles, what you are doing"
"Spade! With which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands,"
"I had a son, who many a day Sailed on the sea; but he is dead; In Denmark he was cast away; And I have travelled far as Hull to see what clothes he might have left, or other property."
(The Sailor's Mother).
Plenty of stuff from the usual suspects - Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle; Julia Moore (the sweet singer of Michigan), Burns, Byron, Poe, Tennyson, .....
I think it can actually be said of this book - It's a laff riot!
May 4th 2008: I've been reproached for being overly reluctant to award five stars. So I reviewed my ratings so far in 2008, and have to admit there's May 4th 2008: I've been reproached for being overly reluctant to award five stars. So I reviewed my ratings so far in 2008, and have to admit there's some justice to the rebuke. Accordingly, I'm upgrading the best of my former 4-star ratings to 5 stars.
Mary Jo Salter writes poems that stop me dead in my tracks, in the best possible way. Furthermore, she keeps on doing it. Don't look for any fancy analysis from me - I can't break it down; nor do I want to.
I LOVE this woman's work!! Her husband, Brad Leithauser, is no slouch in the poetry department either, and I also try to keep up with his stuff. But - sorry Brad - it's not even a close call, it's Mary Jo who knocks my socks off every time.
A fine antidote to the byzantine complexities of the tax code. It's like Christmas in April (pace TSE).
The first of Salter's poems that I came across, over 20 years ago now, in The New Republic. It was the year after my own mother's death from cancer, and it still moves me to tears:
I actually enjoy Brad Leithauser's writing a lot, both his fiction and his poetry. But it's his wife's - Mary Jo Salter's - poetry that really gets unI actually enjoy Brad Leithauser's writing a lot, both his fiction and his poetry. But it's his wife's - Mary Jo Salter's - poetry that really gets under my skin.
(Then there's the time I waste speculating on what it must be like to grow up in a household where both your parents are poets. One imagines their daughter waiting until she's twelve before finally uttering her first sentence, a fully polished gem...)
Gerard Manley Hopkins was a lugubrious Victorian Jesuit who wrote some of the most amazing poetry you will ever read in your life. And the only conceiGerard Manley Hopkins was a lugubrious Victorian Jesuit who wrote some of the most amazing poetry you will ever read in your life. And the only conceivable way I can persuade you that statement is true is to include some of that poetry here: That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection
Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs they throng; they glitter in marches. Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, wherever an elm arches, Shivelights and shadowtackle in long lashes lace, lance, and pair. Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut peel parches Squandering ooze to squeezed dough, crust, dust; stanches, starches Squadroned masks and manmarks treadmire toil there Footfretted in it. Million-fuelèd, nature's bonfire burns on. But quench her bonniest, dearest to her, her clearest-selvèd spark Man, how fast his firedint, his mark on mind, is gone! Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark Drowned. O pity and indignation! Manshape, that shone Sheer off, disseveral, a star, death blots black out; nor mark Is any of him at all so stark But vastness blurs and time beats level. Enough! the Resurrection, A heart's-clarion! Away grief's gasping, joyless days, dejection. Across my foundering deck shone A beacon, an eternal beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash Fall to the residuary worm; world's wildfire, leave but ash: In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, Is immortal diamond.
So, here's the thing. As a distinctly lapsed Catholic, I can't say that I share Father Hopkins's faith in the comfort of the resurrection. Not on doctrinal grounds anyway. But that poem is so insanely beautiful that I start to think that anyone who can write like that might be on to something ...
And he keeps doing it: "Inversnaid", "Pied Beauty", "God's Grandeur", and - probably his most well-known poem - "The Windhover". Extraordinary poems - about half a century ahead of their time.
Poetry so beautiful it will send chills up your spine. If it doesn't, maybe you're dead inside....more
Loading...
