Valerie Loveland

I still liked some of the poems in this, but the book as a whole is not as good as her other two.

I thought the best ones were about her daughter. Some of the poems in this book were very focused and strong, but most of the poems were not as intense as her poetry usually is.

A lot of the poems would start somewhere and end somewhere else. Great poems take the reader on a trip, but a lot of these poems brought me somewhere and I didn't know how I got there, or how it was related to the beginning. I felt like they should be two poems.

The poems are all the usual type Howe writes, prose poems or poems with very long lines that run over into the next line. The titles are all pretty boring.

My favorite poems in the book:

Hurry

Non-Violence (Sorry about the low contrast text/background, but I really wanted to include this great poem!)

What Would We Give Up

I moved this book up on my to read list because I wanted to try and read some Canadian literature this year. Bök is the only Canadian poet that I know, right now, and I am going to do research to remedy this.

I was very impressed by Bök's poems. The book is split up into chapters, each chapter has poems where the only vowels are a certain letter. Each chapter was dedicated to a person with a name that has only one vowel, like Hans Arp, Yoko Ono. I kept thinking I caught him making a mistake, but they were all perfect. The poems made sense too, I thought the poems were going to be nonsense, or repetitive. Some of the chapters are longer than others, which is understandable. The poems all seemed to have the same format and were about 11-13 lines long.

The first part of the book was called Eunoia, and the second part is called Oiseau. Eunoia was the part with the vowel poems, Oiseau still has some letter exercise poems, but I like the format of Eunoia better. Oiseau isn't unified. I liked it, but it seems tacked on.

At the end of the book, Bök wrote what all the rules were for the poems. Here is an exerpt of some of the rules” “All chapters must allude to the art of writing. All chapters must describe a culinary banquet, a prurient debauch, a pastoral tableau and a nautical voyage. All sentences must accent internal rhyme through the use of syntactical parallelism.” Those are only some of the rules. This book must have taken forever to write. I feel like I am breaking my brain when I think about all the work that went into these poems.

Besides the fact that the poems were technically very good, they were also fun to read. Some of the chapters featured a main character that the poems revolved around (Hassad, Helen, I, Ubu).

Kris picked up this book when we went to the poetry festival last year, but didn't read it. I think it is good for people who aren't “into” poetry because it is so fun and light-hearted. It reminded me a little of Popa's poem series about the little box, which is one of my favorites of Popa.

Every poem in the book was about a geometrical shape and had a picture of the shape accompanying it. All of the shapes had personalities. It was cute.

The poems are all pretty simple, but still satisfying. Only a few are longer than a half page. All their titles are just the shape, although there are a few shapes that have more than one poem about them.

This was a very quick read.

There aren't any of the poems online, so I will include my favorite here, about two parallel lines:

Parallels II

You're not happy
With the space
That keeps you apart.

You're not happy
With the space
You cut in half.

As if you were
The only ones
Who had never
Been allowed
To meet.

This book is hilarious. I was telling someone how much I liked it and he asked me what it was about. I said it was a fake memoir about the writer being a celebrity. It also has a funny, very creative style. It is nice to read something that is different. I would love to read more by the author.

I've been meaning to read this book for awhile, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. Simond's poetry has fun images and phrasing. The poems have a sense of humor. I was surprised in a good way. The language was always very attractive and musical.

The poems have really fun, complex titles, although sometimes I am not sure how they fit with the poems. The line and stanza breaks are all different: she has some that are orderly, some that look like two poems next to each other, some lines that are scattered to fill the whole page.

My favorites in the book:

Tomorrow's Bright Bracelets

Once I Worked With a Man

Ponce de León as Floridaphile

I Don't Deserve your Riesling

Writing my Bike in Circles around this Poem to Prove that I Persist

This was the first Sherlock Holmes book I read, and it was great to finally read it. I read this one first so I could see everything from the beginning. I loved reading Watson and Holmes meet each other. The book was fun. It was a bit frustrating for the story to switch to Utah suddenly, I wanted to keep Watson as the narrator.

Overall I liked it. It was entertaining and well-written. I would like to read more of the stories.

I really liked Christle's first book, and I also liked this one.

I thought the line breaks were unique and I thought they suited the poems. The poems looked like prose poems, a big block of text, and the line breaks were spaces put into the sentences. There is no punctuation or capital letters, but the poem's flow is completely clear because of these spaces between phrases or sentences.

I wish I read this when Christle was reading her poems over the phone for people who called her. What a fun idea! I know which one I would pick for her to read.

My only issue with the book is the titles don't connect very well with the poems. When I was trying to look up poems I wanted to read again, I couldn't remember the titles of any of them and had to flip through the whole book each time.

My favorites in the book:

Soup is One Form of Salt Water

Half-Hedgehog Half-Man

Kinds of Weather

The Plan

I first heard poems from this book before I read any of them. I listen to a lot of audio poetry and Conrad has readings recorded at PennSound, and Bomb Magazine's audio show Phoned In. His reading style compliments his poems.

The poems in the book are some of the most creative, fun, crazy, perverted I've read. They are delightful, hilarious and creepy. I love when poetry really goes over the top, and this has.

All the poems are about Frank, who some people have said is Conrad's alter ego. The poems start with his birth, both of his parents dying his relationship with his wife, and by the end there are a few poems about his death.

None of the poems have titles. I wish they did because there were times that I read a two page poem and wasn't sure at first that the two pages were supposed to be together.

The line breaks are not orderly, and I think that compliments the tone of the poems. A lot of the poems are very short.

My favorites from the book:

Frank grew crows for hands (second poem down)

Will you sign my book, Mr. Poe? (third one down)

From the menu of dead authors

Frank hated the 9 miscarriages (last indented section)

I had so much fun reading this! Berg's poetry is so delightfully strange. I kept laughing and reading out lines of her poems to my husband.

Transfer Fat was written about pregnancy, and just about everyone poem has something about fat, or whales, milk or hares. I read some of this book in Remainland: Selected Poems, and I didn't realize that it was about pregnancy at first. I thought it was just about being fat. There is a lot about milk in the book, so I think it is more obvious that it is about pregnancy.

The book is translated by Johannes Göransson, who translated Berg's books that are available in English. It has been chosen for the Rumpus's Poetry Book Club this month. (I was a member of this great book club, but I couldn't afford it when my cat got sick. I plan on resubscribing after I get the debt from her treatment paid off.) I am excited to hear the discussion.

It is refreshing for once to read poems about fat that don't talk about being fat as a bad thing.

Right now I am recovering from ovary removal surgery and my stomach is extra large, so I am enjoying all the whale and fat references more than usual. “Whale” in Swedish is “val.”

My favorites from the book:
The Hare Infects Dad With Rabies

Whole Whale (This is in my review of Remainland, in the middle of the page)

Blubber Biter

Birth Rubber (At the end of the page).

I am always hearing that this book is good, and I agree. I read this in one day. I didn't intend to, but I just kept reading and reading. I really liked the way the story was told, and look forward to reading more of Winterson's work.

Before reading this book, the only exposure to Ai was 15 years ago she was on The United States of Poetry. Her poem was stunning, and I loved the way she read it. I was obsessed with those VHS tapes I recorded off PBS and then bought the tapes. I played them over and over. Ai's was one of my favorites. For years after, I would look for books by her and could never find any. I bought Vice when it came out, but I didn't get around to reading it. I prefer poetry books that aren't selected poems, so I usually put off reading them. I found [b:Cruelty 1525980 Cruelty Ai http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1302032674s/1525980.jpg 1522766] and [b:KILLING FLOOR 508667 KILLING FLOOR Ai http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg 496689] last week, so I put them on the top of my reading list (I am probably reading Killing Floor next, or one after the next book I read).Her poetry was even better than I remember it. All of her poems are persona poems. I don't like that type of poem, usually because I don't think anyone does it well enough. She certainly does. Every poem is so believable, I was moved over and over. Many of the poems are disturbing (which is why even though she is wonderful, I might need a break from Ai before reading her next book). My heart kept racing.Almost all her titles are telling the reader the persona that she is going to take in the poem. Her lines are not orderly.I can't figure out how she makes the poems, which are almost always short, so full.My favorites in the book:Woman to ManCuba, 1962Starvation (middle poem)Corpse Hauler's Elegy (last poem)

I agree with the other reviewers that the audience that would enjoy this book the most is runners, and preferably, runners who are also writers.

Murakami does a good job showing how writing and running are linked. I don't know if everyone is like this but I feel like if I am not running the way I should or not writing the way I should, the other one suffers. They propel each other. It's great when they're both working.

I wanted to get this book for awhile, but it was so expensive when it was hard bound. I was so glad when I finally could pick up a paperback copy. The book was always on hold or being read by someone else.

A lot of the reviews were critical of Duhamel, and I feel like it would be really easy to pick apart what I don't like about these poems. However, I really liked this book. I am having trouble pinning down what exactly made me want to keep reading but I did. I see along with a lot of people giving low scores and complaining about the poems, a lot of people also seemed to like the book.

Her poems are very prose-y, ramble-y and just about every poem goes off on tangents. To me, reading Duhamel feels like a friend telling me a really interesting or funny story. Yes, she can't stick to the point, goes off in a million directions, and is sometimes silly, but she is my friend and she makes me laugh. There is always something happening in these poems. I can't think of another poet that writes like she does, which I always appreciate.

My favorite poems in the book: (this felt simultaneously hard and easy to pick the poems I liked best)

Grace

Happy Ending

Yes

Nick at Nite I don't have a link to the text of the poem, but this site has a link to her reading the poem.

I really liked this book! Every time I read a book like this, there are lots of flash/micro fiction stories that I saw in prose poems anthologies, which is fine by me. Prose poems/micro fiction, call it whatever you want, I really like the form, either way.

I have read a bunch of these before, but it was still nice reading them again.

I am going to have to track down another biography about Alberto Santos-Dumont. I feel like this book was too short. It was full of photos, which was great but I think there were as many pages with photos as with words.

Santos-Dumont was a scientist who worked on various types of balloons, planes, “heavier than air flying machines.” At the same time, Santos-Dumont went to fancy parties and was extremely well-dressed. He did everything with style. People loved him. The book portrayed Paris in the early 1900s as a magical time, especially if you were into aeronautics.

I want to read more about the controversy as to whether the Wright Brothers or Santos-Dumont was the first flight. I had no idea that there were differing opinions about this.

I think this book was a good starting point to learn about Santos-Dumont. It definitely got me interested in a person I never heard about.

Boy did I pick the wrong day to read this: the coldest day, and while I was feeling kind of down.

The writing is wonderful. It is the first book I've read by Wharton, and I am impressed. She really knows how to make me care about her characters and wreck everything for them.

I enjoyed reading each of these poems over and over. There were lots of gorgeous lines.All of the poems had stanzas all the same line length and the titles were okay, but not great. I'm not sure why Howe titled the collection The Good Thief. I've been thinking about the collection a lot (always a good sign) and can't figure it out. I am going to do some research online, I'm sure the answer is available somewhereMost of the poems were quiet and slow, along with the tone. There were great images. I know this is a collection that I will keep going back to. I liked this even more than the other book I read of Howe's: [b:What the Living Do: Poems 206472 What the Living Do Poems Marie Howe http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172680061s/206472.jpg 199830].My favorites in the book:What the Angels Left (first poem on the page)What Belongs to UsThe SplitLullaby

I've always liked Alda's attitude, and his views on feminism. I loved him as the host for Scientific American Frontiers. I wasn't a huge fan of MASH, but I didn't dislike it either.

I don't usually read this kind of book, but I bought it at a library book sale, and thought it would be a fun read. I feel like it had just the right amount of MASH, and stayed away from gossip. I zipped right through the book in two reading sessions. It was a fun read, but I feel like Alda's writing, although good, doesn't quite live up to his personality. I really want to DVR some episodes of Scientific American Frontiers.

This is the first book I read of Stein's and I really enjoyed it. Stein's writing style is lively, and I loved hearing all the anecdotes. It was so cute how Stein would talk about herself in the book, and I felt like I could feel the warmth of Stein and Toklas's relationship.

Stein made me feel like I was right in the middle of an important time in literary history. I'm looking forward to reading more Gertrude Stein.

This book of prose poems is published by one of my favorite presses, Black Ocean. The poems were different than other poems in the way that I liked them at the same time they made me uncomfortable. They were very well written. The poems take unpleasant images and appealing images and puts them together. As a reader, I don't like how the poet effectively combines the two things together, but as a poet, I really appreciate the pairings. It seems like an accomplishment.

Surrealism is one of my favorites so I was glad to see it in the poems.

There are only prose poems in the book, and none of them have titles. I feel like it would have been better if they had titles.

After writing this, I checked out the other reviews and some of them said that this book made them uncomfortable, others said that you can love and hate this book at the same time.

My favorite poems in the book:

His voice a tiny flash of light. (last poem listed on the page)

The day he was hanged (middle poem on the page)

Drifting in the pool with the light shimmering dark (first poem listed)

As she stripped down, I counted the stars in her still-wet widening eye

Anne Sexton was one of the first poets I really got attached to in college. I had my first access to the internet and there weren't very many websites about poets, but there was one about Anne Sexton. It included some of her poems.

I never read through a whole book of Sexton, I only read specific poems. It was great to read through a whole book.

I read about half of the poems before and loved reading them again. I liked the poems best when they weren't in form.

The poems were so full of life and feeling, I felt like I was doing something extravagant by reading this book.

The titles were kind of simple, like “The Kiss” or “The Touch.” The line and stanza breaks were mostly orderly.


My favorite poems in the book: (I had no trouble at all finding these poem online. Sexton's poems are everywhere)

To My Lover, Returning to His Wife
The Touch (Middle of the page)
You All Know the Story of the Other Woman
Us

I didn't like this book as much as [b:Speak to Me: Swedish Language Women Poets / Tala Till Mig: Svensksprakiga Kvinnliga Poeter (Bilingual Edition in Swedish and English, facing pages) 5750748 Speak to Me Swedish Language Women Poets / Tala Till Mig Svensksprakiga Kvinnliga Poeter (Bilingual Edition in Swedish and English, facing pages) (Contemporary Anthology Series, No. 7) Among the 11 poets are Elsa Grave http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267821742s/5750748.jpg 5922469]. I thought it was pretty good, but felt like the translation might not have been as good? The poems, overall seemed a little skeletal. It wasn't terrible, but I just didn't feel like they were as good as the poems in the other anthology.Tomas Transtromer was in the book (only one poem) but he didn't seem as great as everyone has been telling me. I wish there was some crossover between the two books so I could judge the anthology a little better.My favorite poets in the anthology:As usual, I couldn't find these poems in English online, but found a link to poems in English by Jacques Werup, which I included.Jacques WerupGosta FribergMajken JohanssonIngemar Leckius

I had a lot of trouble getting through certain sections of this book. I admit, I am sensitive. In this book, there were a lot of animals getting killed, getting poisoned, tortured, and eaten alive.

It is what you would expect about a book about endangered and extinct animals, but it was still hard to read at times. I was thinking about not finishing the book when a friend of mine suggested that I shouldn't read the book if I wasn't getting anything out of it. I concluded that I should finish the book because I was getting a lot out of it. The book had a lot of information I didn't know about, and ideas that I hadn't thought about.

I didn't know that it was possible to get rid of all the rats, goats, cats, etc. on an island, let alone that there were certain situations that this was being done to save endangered species (usually birds). It is a complicated subject, and I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I am really glad I finished reading this.

My favorite parts of the book were about specific conservationists trying to save certain birds. I especially liked the parts about Richard Henry, a conservationist in the late 1800s early 1900s in New Zeland, who tried saving the kakapo, a type of parrot. Later, another conservationist who was trying to save the kakapo named one of the birds Richard Henry. I loved all the information about that specific bird. I raced to Wikipedia after I was done the book to see if Richard Henry the kakapo was still alive, but he had actually died in 2010.

Another part of the book that I really enjoyed was a short section about rats. There is some scientific research done on rats that concluded that they are capable of empathy and laughter/joy. I loved that the author included this information that made the rats more sympathetic. I didn't expect to find this chapter in a book about killing rats. The author was very fair to include this. I am going to try to find a general book on rats to find out more about this.

I was at the gigantic Boston Public Library wandering around the poetry section, and I saw a bunch of Swedish Poetry Anthologies. The only Swedish poet that I've read is Aase Berg (who I really like), so I thought it would be fun to pick up a couple of the anthologies.I got [b:Speak to Me: Swedish Language Women Poets / Tala Till Mig: Svensksprakiga Kvinnliga Poeter (Bilingual Edition in Swedish and English, facing pages) 5750748 Speak to Me Swedish Language Women Poets / Tala Till Mig Svensksprakiga Kvinnliga Poeter (Bilingual Edition in Swedish and English, facing pages) (Contemporary Anthology Series, No. 7) Among the 11 poets are Elsa Grave http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267821742s/5750748.jpg 5922469] and one other book that I will be reading and reviewing next.As with all anthologies, I liked some of the poets, I didn't like some of them. I didn't know if anyone important was missing from the book because I know almost nothing about Swedish poetry. I hope to find some of these poets in with the general anthology.The book was published in 1989, and I wonder how Swedish poetry has changed in the meantime. At the time of publication, the editors said that none of these poets had books in English. I am definitely going to track some of them down so I can read more of their work. I think I am going to try to pick up more foreign anthologies and find poets who don't write in English. I don't read enough of them.My favorite poets in the book: I couldn't find any of it online.Agneta Pleijel (Looks like she has some books translated into English, yay!)Heidi Von Born (She wrote a lot of books and seems very popular but couldn't find anything in English)Agneta Arna (couldn't find much on her)

John Berryman is one of my favorite poets. The Dream Songs is one of my favorite books. I didn't like his early work very much, although I think it is technically good, I think it is way too dry.The Dream Songs, Berryman opens up and the poems are unique, gorgeous, emotional, and very funny.I was worried about [b:Delusions, Etc. 1402046 Delusions, Etc. John Berryman http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg 1392249] because I wasn't sure if it was going to be like the Dream Songs or the older style. Luckily, the poems were like the Dream Songs (mostly). The poems were in 5 sections. I didn't like the first section that much. There was a section of poems to famous people, like Emily Dickinson and George Washington that section was great.There were even a couple Henry (the main character in the Dream Songs)poems in the book, which I was happy to see, just a few, just enough for a nice visit with Henry.Berryman, as usual was very structured and I had to read each poem many times before it became clear, but he is worth the time. I wish there were more poems. I think I've read all of his books.My favorite poems in the book:Your Birthday in Wisconsin You Are 140 (at the bottom of the page)Henry by Night Washington in LoveNo