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bookish_ann's review
2.0
Full disclosure - I prefer Romantic / Transcendentalist / etc. It might be pedestrian of me, but I like my poerty to be beautiful. This collection embodies a lot of what I dislike about modern poetry. Many of the pieces focus on the deliberately ugly. They are not bad per se, but I am not moved by blunt explorations of pain.
That said, there were a few very notable poems. I adored [i]Apollo Takes Charge of His Muses[/i] as well as [i]The Snake in the Garden Considers Daphne[/i]. Those are absolute gems. Perhaps I like them because they both make use of Greek myths, which are favorites of mine. I also love the economy and precision of the language. They were stunning and seemingly effortless.
As far as the longer poems go, I was suprised at how much I liked [i]The Cardinal Detoxes[/i]. It's quite lengthy, it takes on very unpleasant subjecter matter, but it was excellent. Perhaps it's the dark humor that runs throughout it that I responded to.
I also appreciated [i]Sestina[/i]. In a collection of mostly free / blank verse, it was delightful to have a piece that used such a difficult form.
Overall I give the collection only 2 stars, but the individual poems I noted are 4 to 5 stars.
That said, there were a few very notable poems. I adored [i]Apollo Takes Charge of His Muses[/i] as well as [i]The Snake in the Garden Considers Daphne[/i]. Those are absolute gems. Perhaps I like them because they both make use of Greek myths, which are favorites of mine. I also love the economy and precision of the language. They were stunning and seemingly effortless.
As far as the longer poems go, I was suprised at how much I liked [i]The Cardinal Detoxes[/i]. It's quite lengthy, it takes on very unpleasant subjecter matter, but it was excellent. Perhaps it's the dark humor that runs throughout it that I responded to.
I also appreciated [i]Sestina[/i]. In a collection of mostly free / blank verse, it was delightful to have a piece that used such a difficult form.
Overall I give the collection only 2 stars, but the individual poems I noted are 4 to 5 stars.
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