Poetry Break

Jonathan Carroll shares poems that he has enjoyed on his blog.  Visit his blog to read more wonderful poems, snippets from books he is writing or has written, intriguing observations and much more - www.jonathancarroll.com/blog1/archiveMain.html.

He recently shared part of ”Foreword to New Numbers” by Christopher Logue.  Here’s a taste:

     If this book doesn’t change you 
     give it no house space;
     if having read it you
     are the same person you
     were before picking it up,
     then throw it away.

I love the way Logue breaks up his lines, cutting them off at you, you, you…

To find out more about Christopher Logue, I visited Poets.org to see a profile of him  (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/24).  I discovered that he has also written screenplays and acted in films, so I noodled on over to IMDB.  His IMDB profile reveals that he was awarded the CBE in 2007 for his services to literature.  I can see why. 

Poetry Break - sort of …

Last Friday I came down with Labyrinthitis (http://www.american-hearing.org/disorders/unilat/vestibular_neuritis.html) and didn’t post a Poetry Break.   And, I’ll be on vacation this coming Friday.  So I declare today Poetry Break day!

I love poets.org (from the Academy of American Poets).  Today, I noticed a little link on the bottom to “Poems about Aliens”.  Check out http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19698 and discover some new poems.

They provide a link to “The Abduction” by Stanley Kunitz.  Here’s the first lines of the poem: 

     Some things I do not profess
     to understand, perhaps
     not wanting to, including
     whatever it was they did
     with you or you with them
     that timeless summer day
     when you stumbled out of the wood,
     distracted, with your white blouse torn
     and a bloodstain on your skirt.
     “Do you believe?” you asked.

It’s a wonderful poem and it’s wonderful to be able to read such great poetry online.

Poetry Break

Charles Simic has been named the 15th Poet Laureate of the United States.  The Library of Congress offers a short biography here   http://www.loc.gov/poetry/laureate_current.html.  

Here’s a fragment of his poetry to enjoy: 

     Once in Chicago, for instance,

     I caught sight of a man in a shaving mirror

     Who had my naked shoulders and face,

     But whose eyes terrified me!

     Two hard staring, all-knowing eyes!

                                             — from The Initiate

QuillQuest 2007!

On my quest to read all the books in at least ONE of the 2007 Quill Book Awards, I read Natrural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, from the Romance category. 

 Football star Dean Robillard takes to the highway to re-evaluate his empty life.  Passing through a little town, he spies a woman walking along the shoulder dressed in a  beaver costume (without the beaver head).  Naturally, he must offer her a ride….    

One down, and 4 to go!

The Water’s Lovely by Ruth Rendell

A darkly intertwined mystery where everyone is on the edge ready to fall. As usual, the characters are intertwined and quite fragile. Heather and Ismay are sisters who live together and share a secret… the drowning of their stepfather. There are twists and turns and everyone ends up in everyone elses life, yet Rendell keeps you off-balance with a big secret that may just explode.

Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee

I like books that are character studies and this fits the bill. Casey is a Korean-American trying to fit into the Princeton crowd of entitled students and dealing with her pride. This is a hefty tome and is told from many different narratives. Ted, an aggressive invesment banker who always wins, Ella, an obedient ‘good girl,’ Leah, Casey’s devout Korean mother, etc. I would compare this to “The Three Junes”  and “The Whole World Over” by Julia Glass.

The Blood of Flowers: A Novel by Anita Amirrezvani

A friend told me about this book and I was ready not to like it. Frankly I was feeling the dread of yet another Middle Eastern book. However, I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. A young girl is about to begin the process of finding a husband when her father dies. Mother and daughter must begin anew with nothing. They go live with relatives who treat them as family servants. Both the girl and mother must do what they can to free themselves from this life, yet they are limited by society. There are parts of this book that may be considered predictable, i.e the fortitude of mother and daughter striving to survive in the male dominated land of Iran, yet the author is able to draw the reader in with amazing imagery. I now have a new appreciation for rug making and understand the detail of color, pattern and knotting that is put into each rug. This is the debut novel for Amirrezvani and it is well done.