BOOKS AND MOVIES » poetry

Book Review: Collected Poems: 1957-1982 by Wendell Berry

CarrieK — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:01:00 +0000

Title: Collected Poems: 1957-1982
Author: Wendell Berry
Genre: Poetry
Publisher: North Point Press
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: Print copy from my personal library

This review was previously posted on my personal blog on April 12, 2007.

I chose Wendell Berry’s Collected Poems: 1957-1982 as my next poetry choice after finishing The Collected Works of Emily Dickinson. I was not crazy about the Dickinson. There were a few poems that really jumped out at me, but overall I found her poems morbid, depressing, and – sometimes – undecipherable. I know that’s heresy to Dickinson-lovers, but that’s my opinion.

Berry’s collection renewed my love of poetry. I enjoyed each and every page. Because the book includes poems in chronological order, you feel like you experience his life in order: his disillusionment with the Vietnam War and city life, his retreat to the country, his love-affair with his land, his marriage, his faith. I am very much looking forward to reading the two Berry books I checked out from the library yesterday: Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays and That Distant Land: Collected Stories.

To Go By Singing

He comes along the street, singing,
a rag of a man, with his game foot and bum’s clothes.
He’s asking for nothing – his hands
aren’t even held out. His song
is the gift of singing, to him
and to all who will listen.

To hear him, you’d think the engines
would all stop, and the flower vendor would stand
with her hands full of flowers and not move.
You’d think somebody would have hired him
and provided him a clean quiet stage to sing on.

But there’s no special occasion or place
for his singing – that’s why it needs
to be strong. His song doesn’t impede the morning
or change it, except by freely adding itself.

~Wendell Berry

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In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

CarrieK — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:07:36 +0000

This poem by Robert Hayden was written about Frederick Douglass, but could equally apply to Dr. King and the other men and women who worked for equality and freedom for all.

Frederick Douglass
~ by Robert Hayden ~

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

~ by Robert Hayden, from the book Poems to Read: A New Favorite Poem Anthology

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December Moon by May Sarton

CarrieK — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:41:40 +0000

Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.

Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we’ll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.

~ May Sarton, from the book Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life, Selected and Introduced by Robert Hass

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Okay, let’s try this one more time: Some bookish links I forgot to share. Twice.

CarrieK — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:07:25 +0000

So, I fully intended to share these links in my Sunday Salon post. I even mention it in the title. But I guess I was too sleepy last night when writing my post and completely left them out. Since I did post my own book-related links from the past week, the post looks like one big self-centered me-love-fest. Anyway – these are the links I meant to share.

Author news:

~ Poet Billy Collins reads his 9/11 poem “The Names” on PBS. Very moving.

Discussion starters:

~ Ticket to Anywhere: Author Cindy Tefft talks about faith in YA fiction. She makes some excellent points.

Reviews and blog posts that have me adding to my to-read pile:

~ The Twisted Thread by Charlotte Bacon, reviewed by Wendy at Caribousmom

~ Forgotten by Cat Patrick, reviewed by Fleur Fisher

Book to movie news:

~ Keira Knightley to take on the title role in a film adaptation of Anna Karenina.

~ Hugh Grant joins Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, and Susan Sarandon in the film adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.

Other bookish links:

~ Stylist: 50 Beautiful Book Covers

~ Jennifer at Literate Housewife introduces NORC: No Old Reviews Club

~ Beautiful paper sculptures are appearing mysteriously at libraries and other bookish locations around Edinburgh. These are gorgeous!

~ The Guardian: Fool for proofs – the advance reading copy trade

~ Flavorwire: 20 Amazing Reimagined Book Covers

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: billy collins, book covers, book to film, faith, poetry, reviewing, TBR list, YA fiction

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To Autumn by John Keats

CarrieK — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:15:20 +0000

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

~ by John Keats, found in Poems to Read: A New Favorite Poem Anthology

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Gold by Billy Collins

CarrieK — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 07:18:50 +0000

I don’t want to make too much of this,
but because the bedroom faces east
across a lake here in Florida,

when the sun begins to rise
and reflects off the water,
the whole room is suffused with the kind

of golden light that might travel
at dawn on the summer solstice
the length of a passageway in a megalithic tomb.

Again, I don’t want to exaggerate,
but it reminds me of a brand of light
that could illuminate the walls
of a hidden chamber full of treasure,
pearls and gold coins overflowing the silver platters.

I feel like comparing it to the fire
that Aphrodite lit in the human eye
so as to make it possible for us to perceive
the other three elements,

but the last thing I want to do
is risk losing your confidence
by appearing to lay it on too thick.

Let’s just say that the morning light here
would bring to any person’s mind
the rings of light that Dante

deploys in the final cantos of the Paradiso
to convey the presence of God,
while bringing the Divine Comedy
to a stunning climax and leave it at that.

~ by Billy Collins, from the book Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems

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What She Said by Billy Collins

CarrieK — Thu, 26 May 2011 08:30:00 +0000

When he told me he expected me to pay for dinner,
I was like give me a break.

I was not the exact equivalent of give me a break.
I was just similar to give me a break.

As I said, I was like give me a break.

I would love to tell you
how I was able to resemble give me a break
without actually being identical to give me a break,

but all I can say is that I sensed
a similarity between me and give me a break.

And that was close enough
at that point in the evening
even if it meant I would fall short
of standing up from the table and screaming
give me a break,

for God’s sake will you please give me a break?!

No, for that moment
with the rain streaking the restaurant windows
and the waiter approaching,

I felt the most I could be was like

to a certain degree

give me a break.

~ by Billy Collins, from the book Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems

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A Bouquet by Bei Dao

CarrieK — Thu, 19 May 2011 07:01:37 +0000

Between me and the world
You are a bay, a sail
The faithful ends of a rope
You are a fountain, a wind
A shrill childhood cry

Between me and the world
You are a picture frame, a window
A field covered with wild flowers
You are a breath, a bed
A night that keeps the stars company

Between me and the world
You are a calendar, a compass
A ray of light that slips through the gloom
You are a biographical sketch, a bookmark
A preface that comes at the end

Between me and the world
You are a gauze curtain, a mist
A lamp shining into my dreams
You are a bamboo flute, a song without words
A closed eyelid carved in stone

Between me and the world
You are a chasm, a pool
An abyss plunging down
You are a balustrade, a wall
A shield’s eternal pattern

(translated from the Chinese by Bonnie S. McDougall)

~ by Bei Dao, from the book Poems to Read: A New Favorite Poem Anthology

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To John Keats, Poet, at Spring Time by Countee Cullen

CarrieK — Thu, 12 May 2011 07:01:19 +0000

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
There never was a spring like this;
It is an echo, that repeats
My last year’s song and next year’s bliss.
I know, in spite of all men say
Of Beauty, you have felt her most.
Yea, even in your grave her way
Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,
Spring never was so fair and dear
As Beauty makes her seem this year.

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,
I am as helpless in the toil
Of Spring as any lamb that bleats
To feel the solid earth recoil
Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats
Her tocsin call to those who love her,
And lo! the dogwood petals cover
Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek
White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover
About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,
While white and purple lilacs muster
A strength that bears them to a cluster
Of color and odor; for her sake
All things that slept are now awake.

And you and I, shall we lie still,
John Keats, while Beauty summons us?
Somehow I feel your sensitive will
Is pulsing up some tremulous
Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves
Grow music as they grow, since your
Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves
For life that opens death’s dark door.
Though dust, your fingers still can push
The Vision Splendid to a birth,
Though now they work as grass in the hush
Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

“John Keats is dead,” they say, but I
Who hear your full insistent cry
In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,
Know John Keats still writes poetry.
And while my head is earthward bowed
To read new life sprung from your shroud,
Folks seeing me must think it strange
That merely spring should so derange
My mind. They do not know that you,
John Keats, keep revel with me, too.

~ by Countee Cullen, from the book Poems to Read: A New Favorite Poem Anthology

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The English Novel by Linda Pastan

CarrieK — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 07:46:25 +0000

In the English Novel, where I spent my girlhood,
I used to think chilblains were a kind of biscuit,
and everything was always pearled with fog -
the moors with their purpling heather
and the beveled windows where the heroines,
my sisters, waited for heroes
who would find them eventually, after one or both
threaded their way through some kind of moral
labyrinth, shadowed and thorny. He was worth waiting for,
and anyway the slowness of the clocks was deliberate
as if minutes, like pence, had different meanings then.
There was no polyester. Everything was brocade and velvet,
even the landscapes, those hills embroidered
with flowers, though sex was hardly mentioned
it was clearly a scent in the air like the sachets
in cupboards, subtle but pervasive as the smell
of lavender or viburnum or tallow from all the smoky,
snuffed-out candles. Furniture and forests, marriages
were eternal then, and though there was always a plot
it hardly mattered. As for too much coincidence,
doesn’t the moon always wander through the sky at the exact
moment the lovers are wandering through the park, even today,
even in this city with its fake Victorian facades?
And all the familiar faces we notice at the movies
Or across a restaurant, couldn’t they be our half-brothers
or cousins, lost once in the deep and mysterious gene pool –
descendants, some of them, of Emma and Ms. Knightley,
or the ones with Russian faces descended from Ladislaw maybe,
who could have come from a place just a few hours by carriage
from the shtetl where my great-great-grandmother
somehow acquired her blond hair and blue eyes?

~ Linda Pastan, from the book Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life, Selected and Introduced by Robert Hass

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