Valerie Loveland
I loved Tao Lin's previous book of poetry [b:Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy 2193367 Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Tao Lin http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11FbrZjKgaL.SL75.jpg 2199104], and I lost [b:you are a little bit happier than i am 276692 you are a little bit happier than i am Tao Lin http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173349273s/276692.jpg 268329] and was really disappointed because I was very eager to read it. Lin is still witty but some the poems in the collection are negative and/or mean-spirited, so this book wasn't as fun for me. I was hoping to see recurring characters but there weren't any, really. His mom was in maybe a few poems and there was one about a hamster (which was everywhere in the first book) near the end. Lorrie Moore was mentioned in some of the poems. The only recurring themes in the book are about killing people, dying or wanting to die, and being bored. I am a little worried about the poet and hope he is doing okay.The titles were very interesting and complex. One title is multiple pages long, so that was hilarious. The line and stanza breaks were not orderly.There were still a lot of poems I liked in the book, and I can't deny that his poems are really creative and different than everyone else's. If I read this book first, I would have liked it a lot more because I wouldn't be comparing it to those positive poems in Cognitive-Behavior Therapy. I hope his next book is more funny and positive like the first one.My favorites in the book:That Night With the Green SkyThings I Wanted to do TodayI Want to Start a Band (This one is pretty mean, but it is so funny and creative, I have to grudgingly give it credit)My Dreams Are Almost Always Nightmares in Retrospect
Kris got me this book for Christmas. I saw an article about this book online and it included some excerpts from the book and some photos of the writers' libraries. I didn't realize the article was about a book, so I was thrilled to get this as a present. I get to see even more libraries and even more writers talking about books.
I wish the book was longer. I really think they could have found plenty of writers to show off and talk about their libraries.
The poems in this book are so elegant and gorgeous. The poems seem light and delicate like they are floating. This is the first book by Cathy Song that I've read, so I don't know if she writes like this all the time, but
The book is broken into sections and I like section III Orchids the best. That section is about women as subjects for art.
There are also some great poems in the book about Georgia O'Keefe, who I didn't know a lot about. Song gave me enough information to enjoy those poems without over explaining.
Line breaks are a mystery to me, but I felt like Song's lines and stanzas made a lot of sense. The titles overall were fine, but nothing special.
My favorites in the book:
Ikebana
A Pale Arrangement of Hands
Seamstress
From the White Place
Catherine Wagner's poems are not the most understandable, but I liked them a lot. Her phrases are funny. She mixes types of speech and tones in a pleasing way. I want to find more of her books, and also get my own copy of this one because I borrowed this copy from the library. I also feel like I need to spend more time with these poems to understand them.
The line and stanza breaks were not orderly, which suited the tone and construction of the poems. The titles were often poems in a series (magazine titles, or a title with a number after it).
My favorites in the book (I couldn't find any of these online! I found a lot of her poems, which are worth checking out.):
White Man Poems
A Poem for Sears Roebuck
This Land is Your Land
A Poem for Poets & Writers
This is a good introduction to extinct animals. I wish there was more information on each animal, but this book is more about the photographs.
Rosamond Purcell photographed stuffed animals, some times in groups or in their storage/specimen boxes. The photos are so sad and beautiful, they are the perfect tone for the subject.
I want to pick up a copy–it is almost a reference book.
I read this around the same time I read [b:Swift as a Shadow 1316899 Swift as a Shadow Rosamond Wolff Purcell http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182709138s/1316899.jpg 1306208]. Both books are about extinct animals including photos or drawings of the animals and short descriptions of the animals and why they went extinct.The descriptions of the animals were a little more extensive, but I still wanted more information on each animal. I think I am going to have to find an individual book on each animal to be satisfied with the amount of information I want. I liked the paintings in this book, but I preferred the photographs in Swift as a Shadow because it gave me a better idea of what the animals looked like.I think both books go together very well.
I've read complaints about how Meghan O'Rourke doesn't deserve all the success she has had in the poetry world, and I don't understand it. After reading [b:Halflife 3419397 Halflife Meghan O'Rourke http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267993689s/3419397.jpg 95993], I am a fan of her poetry. I think it's great! The book was an enjoyable read.Her poems are polished and tight, the images were surprising. I love the tone of the book, it feels menacing and uneasy like a dream before it turns into a nightmare. As I read the poems, I kept thinking that they were all true, even when it would be pretty unlikely. She is a credible narrator and I love when a writer can make me believe something that is not real.I think her titles could be better. They are all either one word titles (“Spectacular,” “Halflife”), or simple phrases (“Lost Sister,” “Peep Show”). The line and stanza breaks are mostly not orderly, but some have regular line and stanza breaks.When it came time to find O'Rourke's poems online, I had no trouble at all, her poems are reposted by fans on their blogs and on tumblr. I feel like her poems are some of the most “available” when I had to search for specific poems online.My favorites in the book:Inventing a Horse (Sorry about the ridiculous background on the website)Sandy HookChecklistDescent
I was excited when I picked up this book a couple years ago, so I posted my purchase to my blog. My friend Rebecca said that she liked the book, but thought it was cheating to take something very poetic (like Van Gogh's letters) and make them into poetry. I didn't really think about that at the time, but after reading this book, I can understand exactly what she is talking about.
I really like the idea of found poetry. I also like when a found poem is an unaltered piece of writing that a poet took from another person and recognized the poetry in it that the original author didn't see.
I have a personal issue with a poet removing certain words from the original author's work because it is very distracting to me while I am reading it. I can't see the poet's hand in this type of poetry, and I spend the entire time I am reading wondering what the poet did and what the original author did. Did the original author write something completely un-poetic and the poet had to do a lot of word-removing, or did they break into lines something that was poetic to begin with? The ones I liked the best were from medical reports or manuals, because I knew those weren't very poetic, and Dillard made them that way. I guess it is just a hang up I have, which is too bad, because these poems were beautiful and I bet a lot of work was put into them. Maybe if I read the poems more times, I can see them as their own poetry.
This type of found poetry is such a vibrant form, I am going to try and train myself to just enjoy it and stop trying to analyze the whole thing.
My favorites in the book:
A Visit to the Mayo Clinic<>
The Graduate Student: Apects of the Tongue (I could only find the original source which is a medical book from 1828)
Building a Treehouse
Signals at Sea
My favorites in the book
A friend of mine lent me this book. He thought I would enjoy it because the poet and I have common interests: trivia, weird history, presidential history, weird presidential history. I did enjoy the book. She is a slam poet, and is known for her dramatic performances. I do think I am missing something by just reading some of the poems, but overall, the poems stand on their own.
I keep a mental list of poetry books to give a person who is interested in poetry but isn't sure where to start. This is on my list because Aptowicz is not hard to understand, isn't stuffy (don't get me wrong, I also like stuffy poetry), and isn't prose broken into stanzas.
I don't have the book in front of me because I had to return it, so I can't talk about the line and stanza breaks. I do remember her titles were usually very long. Probably too long (something I am guilty of myself).
My favorites in the book:
Every Winter, Everyone Thinks My Boyfriend is Elvis Costello (second to last one on the page)
Insults That Only Work if You Are a Presidential History Buff (Last one on the page)
Choke
I enjoyed this book, but I feel like the poems didn't resonate. They were clever and elegant, there was a musicality to the work, but after I read them, I felt like I couldn't remember what the poem was trying to tell me, even after re-reads. It is hard to tell sometimes if this is me or the poet, but I just didn't connect with them, although I did appreciate the crafting. I felt like they were well written, but a bit cold.
About half the poems have one word titles, and the other half have great, complex titles (like “Semiconductors in the Breadbasket”). The poet uses a variety of line and stanza breaks.
This book took way longer than it should have to read because I wasn't that into it.
My favorites in the book:
Ovation
More Splendid
Liquification
Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91
I'm so glad I finally read this. I noticed it was on a lot of lists of “best books” or “books everyone should read.” I've been meaning to read it but my copy had a ripped cover, so I'd been putting it off. I didn't have to put up with the ripped cover for long, because the book was a very quick read.
The only good thing about my cat being sick, and me having to give her hour-long tube feedings is I have a lot of time every day where I am just sitting around and can't do much but read. I am trying to take advantage of this and read as much as I can.
The book is great, just like everyone says. I thought the main characters were complete in a way that makes me understand why people say the characters had to be based on people that Lee actually knew. I want to read more about Lee's life, and I was delighted to find out that the character Dill is supposed to be based on Truman Capote. Lee's writing style is friendly and engaging.
I do think this is still an important book to read, and when it came out in 1960 it must have been revolutionary.
The sad part is that Lee only wrote one book. I would love to see how her writing evolved over the years.
I am looking forward to seeing the movie now, which I have heard was really good.
Before reading this book, I knew almost nothing about Abigail Adams. I bought this at a library book sale because I wanted to learn more about the First Ladies. I was a little worried about my First Ladies project because I didn't know what to expect. I know a lot of first ladies accomplished a lot, but I wasn't sure how many sacrificed too much for their husband's careers, or just served only as support for the president.
I am so glad I started with Adams's biography. She and John Adams were equals in their marriage, and she argued how important it was for girls to be educated. She had her own opinions and was her husband's most important sounding board. I was surprised how much the couple was physically separated during their marriage, but it seemed like they were very happy together, overall. She was an avid reader and letter writer. The book included a lot of quotes from letters by Adams.
I saw one or two episodes of the series John Adams before reading this. I am looking forward to seeing the rest of it. I would also like to find a more extensive biography of Adams, because I feel like there is probably a lot missing from this book.
I loved Flynn's poetry book about bees: Blind Huber. It was gorgeous, and didn't exhaust the subject, which often happens with poetry books that have just one topic.
Some Ether is also fantastic. I read some of the poems from this book when it first came out because some of them were on Poetry Daily. I don't think they featured the best poems. I think the best poems in this book are the darker ones.
Most of the poems in this book are about life with his mother, who committed suicide when he was young, and there are also some about his father, who was homeless. None of the poems were about who took care of Flynn and his brother after the suicide, which gives this book even more anxiety. I feel like Flynn brings me, easily, so deep into his feelings. So many people write about losing someone, but he wrote something new–I haven't heard these poems before. I feel so emotionally invested in these poems, I want to do research to make sure the poet is doing okay.
The titles are mostly one word or a short phrase. There are a lot of poems with “fragments” in the title throughout all the sections and subjects. The stanza and line breaks are not regular, which contributes to feeling off balance. There are gorgeous images, and good endings in the poems.
My favorites from the book:
You moved me through each room
Fragment (found inside my mother)
Visible Woman
Twenty-Pound Stone (This poem was posted as the answer when someone asked “What are some good contemporary poets or poems”)
I am very interested in memory. My memory is better than average, and it used to be a lot better than it is now. Ever since I learned there are memory championships, I thought it might be fun to do some memory training, but didn't really know where to start.
This was a great book to read because it gives just enough practical information so I could understand the processes of memorization, but most of the book looked at memory in scientific, historic, and social points of view.
I like hearing about the ins and outs of a group of people who all are interested (or obsessed!) with a certain subject, and this book brought me inside the group.
I also enjoyed Foer's writing style, it was fun and easy to read. He is good at explaining things, and making potentially boring subject matter seem lively.
Because the author did a lot of research on memory to write the book, he mentioned pretty much every book on the subject. Now I have list of more books I can read.
I didn't want this book to end! The poems were about some of my favorite subjects: extinct animals, history, explorers the North and South Poles, science. What I liked even more is the whimsy the poet uses to write about the subjects.
Almost all her titles were words or places I didn't know or understand but I could either look in her notes in the back of the book, or the poem taught me what the title means. I feel like the writer is good at explaining new things to the reader without a lot of explanation.
The poems are dense, and I had to read them a few times to fully understand them. They didn't feel hard to read–it was enjoyable to read each one a few times. The poems are full of surprises: striking images, unusual links and conclusions.
Most of the poems have long lines and stanzas. There are many styles of stanza breaks: some even, some not. Most of the lines broke on the half or the end of the sentence.
I like the first two part of the book more than the third, although they were all great. The first part has a historic feel to it, the second involves islands that the poet made up, called the Bufo Islands, and the third seemed like the poems were less linked to each other. I think of the last section as miscellaneous.
My favorite poems in the book:
Hasselblad Meteorite
Mount Clutter
Escape by Garbage, 1903
Mawson's Pie
The only poem of Aram Saroyan I read before this book is his famous poem, eyeye. I think concrete poems are fun, so I was happy to pick up this book at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival this year. Saroyan is kind of the representative for concrete poetry, or at least the most famous. I would like to look into the genre more and see if I can find modern poets doing this.
I zipped through the book quickly since there were just one or two words on most of the pages. I don't think all the poems were even in quality or creativity. The most charming poems really stick with me more than I thought such short poetry would.
My favorite poems in the book: (I am just writing the poems since they are only one or a few words; each poem is on its own line)
Typewriter Kittens
Shakespeare!
eyeye
nnausea
I finally finished this book! I read a lot of it right before Poetry Month, and then I was so busy I didn't get to read anything in April. I finished reading it right away after I was done writing my last poem of the month.
Everyone from bloggers, to the person who works at the bookstore seems to love Vasko Popa. I can understand why–now I love him too! At first, when I started reading Homage to the Lame Wolf, I thought everyone was wrong, and Popa was getting too much credit. The first few poems weren't that great, but the weird thing about Popa is the poems seem to be great as a whole, the more poems you read, the more they build on each other. Popa writes all his poems in a series. There are usually around 7 poems in each series, and they are all very closely linked. Sometimes they are parts to a poem, sometimes they are individual poems.
Some of the series I like better than others, but I thought the book was very enjoyable, and even though this book was twice as long as an average poetry book, I wished there was more to read at the end.
I can't think of anyone who writes like Popa. Between the strange subjects, his style of writing, and his habit of writing in a series, Popa is unique.
The titles aren't great, but I overlook that because I like it so much.
My favorites in the book: (I am thrilled that when the poems are published online, the whole series is included. I think that is the only way these poems should be read.)
The Little Box series
Give Me Back My Rags
St. Sava's Spring
Raw Flesh
I really liked how overdramatic everyone acted in this book. I enjoy an ending where everything is not spelled out for you, and you can think about things. A lot of people were reviewing that they didn't like Henry James's use (or overuse) of commas, but I thought it really added to the drama and tone of the book. I like how he makes you wait for scary things to happen.
I don't know what it is that I don't like about Vowell's writing. I like the subjects that she writes about–we have a lot of similar interests. I didn't really enjoy her book as much as I thought I should.
I listened to her on the radio a lot, and always have the same feeling.
The worst realization I had while reading this book is that I will probably read her other books too, and I will think they are all “just okay.”
I picked this book up because someone read a poem from it (The poem is “The Quiet World,” and I included a link to it at the end of my review), and I liked it so much, I checked the book out from the library. The person who read the poem said that McDaniel got his start in the slam poetry world and then implied that he sold out by publishing books in the literary poetry world.
I think McDaniel's poetry has the best of both worlds, his poems are vibrant and entertaining, they would be great at poetry readings, but they are also rich and still have weight behind them. His comparisons and descriptions are great. Some poems are lighter than others, but I think the poems deserve the respect they are getting.
Last year I read another book of his, The Endarkenment, and also enjoyed that quite a bit as well, although I liked Forgiveness Parade better.
His titles were complex overall, and a lot of his lines were broken into regular stanzas.
My favorite poems in the book:
The Quiet World
Tour Guide to the Nation's Capital
Mannequin Complex
The Jerk
I got this book from the library because I wanted to read something different. I read mostly poetry and lately the only other books I'd been reading were literary biographies. I knew almost nothing about eels, so I thought this would be a good read.
I liked the author's style. This book was mostly about the eel's cultural roles in certain societies (the longest chapters were about New Zealand and Micronesia).
I liked hearing the stories about how the eels relate to the cultures, and also the circumstances of the author talking to the locals about eels. It was very often hard for him to get people to tell their stories.
There were a lot of stories that really bothered me in the book, about eels crying like babies, and a shark fisherman who said that dolphins cry tears when they are accidentally caught and brought on the boat. I looked it up and dolphins don't even have tear ducts, but I can't get this out of my head. It is disturbing.
Before reading this book, I had only read Matthew Dickman's poetry (I like it!). I didn't like Michael's poetry as much as his twin brother's, but I still liked his poetry.
The subject matter was kind of hard to handle. If his work is autobiographical, it sounds like he had a really rough life. He talks a lot about his friends doing heroin when they were pre-teens. There were poems about a lot of his friends dying, and various family members having different types of cancer. Rough.
Dickman's poetry has short lines, and most poems have various parts. Sometimes this type of poem seems like each part after the first part is something added that the poet forgot to put in the first. “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this other thing about the subject matter.” I kept thinking the poem ended and then turned the page and saw the poem continued.
The poems' short lines made everything seem a bit spindly.
My favorites from the book: (I couldn't find any of these poems in their entirety online because they are all pretty long. I found excerpts only.)
Dead Friends Come Back
Into the Earth
Scary Parents
Returning to Church
My review is not going to be as in-depth as usual because I had to return the book to the library before I wrote this review. I can't remember the names of the titles of the poems, so I can't write which are my favorite at the end of the review. Overall, I guess this isn't a very useful review.
I liked this book, but not as much as Matadora. I thought these two books had the same sense of humor. They combined casual slang with formal words and images, which I really liked. It was fun.
The book felt shorter to me, and the poems more sparse. I missed Paloma, who was a character in Matadora.