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casparb's review against another edition
whitmanian piece, lucking into the vermont-y amber as the cover suggests. Bears an small children and foxes and the like run through the bushes. Actually some of the best work in here is about Galway's youngins. BUt mostly I'm captivated by his LINE, how committed to ending each of them he is & how unlike our pretence to being forward thinking. the poem 'Everyone Was In Love' is really unbelievable & gets you to hold yr breath three lines in. a 9/11 elegy-poem, 'When the Towers Fell' is fragmentary (as is his way, one of those fellas that works in wonky stanzas, no regular lines) & drops into polish, french , german. I like that I didn't know the german was Celan , and got to just assume it was a heavy drinking person , an enthusiast. Was I supposed to have recognised the quotation? I like it better this way
seapeanut's review against another edition
Strong Is Your Hold by Galway Kinnell (2006)
eely225's review
5.0
While not every selection was worth five stars, there were several that I'd give six if I could. At times it feels more clear-eyed than reality. There is a lot here that I hope to revisit regularly.
lichenbitten's review
5.0
"If I die before you
which is all but certain
then in the moment
before you will see me
become someone dead
in a transformation
as quick as a shooting star’s
I will cross over into you
and ask you to carry
not only your own memories
but mine too until you
too lie down and erase us
both together into oblivion."
-- "Promissory Note"
which is all but certain
then in the moment
before you will see me
become someone dead
in a transformation
as quick as a shooting star’s
I will cross over into you
and ask you to carry
not only your own memories
but mine too until you
too lie down and erase us
both together into oblivion."
-- "Promissory Note"
xterminal's review
4.0
Galway Kinnell, Strong Is Your Hold (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
I have to admit that up until now I've never run across a Galway Kinnell poem I've liked. I rather expected to pick this up, skim through it, write a generic bad review, and move on. But it seems Kinnell has (with the exception of one more-of-the-same poem) mellowed out a great deal as he's gotten older and turned his thoughts to interpersonal, rather than global, politics:
“Now beings what could be called
carpenters' arm wrestling, and also,
in this case, transrealmic combat
between father and son.
We clasp right hands (the flared
part of the hammer handle,
his hand) and press right elbows
tot he hemlock (the curved
hammer head, his steel elbow) and pull.
Or rather, I pull, he holds fast, lacking
the writ to drag me down where he lies.
(“Pulling a Nail”)
Not the kind of thing that seems tailor-made for plastering on a placard and taking down to Washington when marching in a demonstration. And thank heaven for that. When Kinnell focuses his attention on the little things, globally, that mean so much to us on a personal level, he shines. A very pleasant surprise. *** ½
I have to admit that up until now I've never run across a Galway Kinnell poem I've liked. I rather expected to pick this up, skim through it, write a generic bad review, and move on. But it seems Kinnell has (with the exception of one more-of-the-same poem) mellowed out a great deal as he's gotten older and turned his thoughts to interpersonal, rather than global, politics:
“Now beings what could be called
carpenters' arm wrestling, and also,
in this case, transrealmic combat
between father and son.
We clasp right hands (the flared
part of the hammer handle,
his hand) and press right elbows
tot he hemlock (the curved
hammer head, his steel elbow) and pull.
Or rather, I pull, he holds fast, lacking
the writ to drag me down where he lies.
(“Pulling a Nail”)
Not the kind of thing that seems tailor-made for plastering on a placard and taking down to Washington when marching in a demonstration. And thank heaven for that. When Kinnell focuses his attention on the little things, globally, that mean so much to us on a personal level, he shines. A very pleasant surprise. *** ½
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