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pattydsf's review against another edition
3.0
It is hard to say that I have finished a book of poetry. Let's just say I have returned the book to the library. The poems that I read were wonderful. I will check the book out again sometime - maybe even soon.
delapatent's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
1.5
His poetry is deep, somewhat dark, and contemplates some of the mysteries of the universe. A bit too heavy fo me at this point in my life. Maybe when I am older this will all make sense?
juliechristinejohnson's review
4.0
I hack
a ravine in his thigh, and eat and drink,
and tear him down his whole length
and open him and climb in
and close him up after me, against the wind,
and sleep
from 'The Bear' (Body Rags 1968)
A New Selected Poems is a retrospective collection that encompasses Kinnell's work from 1960-1994. It is rich with moments huge and surreal, such as The Bear, as well as those tender and small, (Oatmeal) and all are connected to a deep sense of place and of mortality.
He used to tell me,
"What good is the day?
On some hill of despair
the bonfire
you kindle can light the great sky—
though it's true, of curse, to make it burn
you have to throw yourself in . . . "
from 'Another Night in the Ruins" (Body Rags 1968)
There is tremendous melancholy in his work, a sense of impending loss
If one day it happens
you find yourself with someone you love
in a café at one end
of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar
here wine finds its shapes in upward opening glasses,
and if you commit then, as we did, the error
of thinking
one day this will only be memory
from 'Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight' (The Book of Nightmares 1971)
and so often, nature, the natural world, becomes his entry point to themes of birth and death:
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
from 'Saint Francis and the Sow' (Mortal Acts, Mortal Words 1980)
I adore his playfulness with language, discovering in his work the delights of words like skirled, whucking, broughamed. His cadence is solid, his stanzas assured, even forceful.
Looking at your face
now that you have become ready to die
us like kneeling at an old gravestone
on an afternoon without sun, trying to read
the white chiselings of the poem
in the white stone.
from 'Looking at Your Face (Mortal Acts, Mortal Words 1980)
And, as my mother-in-law lay dying, right this very moment, in a hospice bed, I read The Last Hiding Places of Snow and I weep for her, weep in relief and terror, knowing that Death comes for us all.
I gasped with recognition and deep soul-pleasure at The Oregon Coast, a poem written in memoriam for one of my favorite poets, Richard Hugo. It tells of a time they spent together, the last time they spent together before Hugo's death
The last time I was on the coast Richard Hugo and I had dinner together
north of here, in a restaurant over the sea.
(The Past 1985)
Galway Kinnell died in 2014 at the age of 87. What he gave to the causes of social justice, civil rights, literature and humanity continues to reverberate in his compassionate, vital poems.
a ravine in his thigh, and eat and drink,
and tear him down his whole length
and open him and climb in
and close him up after me, against the wind,
and sleep
from 'The Bear' (Body Rags 1968)
A New Selected Poems is a retrospective collection that encompasses Kinnell's work from 1960-1994. It is rich with moments huge and surreal, such as The Bear, as well as those tender and small, (Oatmeal) and all are connected to a deep sense of place and of mortality.
He used to tell me,
"What good is the day?
On some hill of despair
the bonfire
you kindle can light the great sky—
though it's true, of curse, to make it burn
you have to throw yourself in . . . "
from 'Another Night in the Ruins" (Body Rags 1968)
There is tremendous melancholy in his work, a sense of impending loss
If one day it happens
you find yourself with someone you love
in a café at one end
of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar
here wine finds its shapes in upward opening glasses,
and if you commit then, as we did, the error
of thinking
one day this will only be memory
from 'Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight' (The Book of Nightmares 1971)
and so often, nature, the natural world, becomes his entry point to themes of birth and death:
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
from 'Saint Francis and the Sow' (Mortal Acts, Mortal Words 1980)
I adore his playfulness with language, discovering in his work the delights of words like skirled, whucking, broughamed. His cadence is solid, his stanzas assured, even forceful.
Looking at your face
now that you have become ready to die
us like kneeling at an old gravestone
on an afternoon without sun, trying to read
the white chiselings of the poem
in the white stone.
from 'Looking at Your Face (Mortal Acts, Mortal Words 1980)
And, as my mother-in-law lay dying, right this very moment, in a hospice bed, I read The Last Hiding Places of Snow and I weep for her, weep in relief and terror, knowing that Death comes for us all.
I gasped with recognition and deep soul-pleasure at The Oregon Coast, a poem written in memoriam for one of my favorite poets, Richard Hugo. It tells of a time they spent together, the last time they spent together before Hugo's death
The last time I was on the coast Richard Hugo and I had dinner together
north of here, in a restaurant over the sea.
(The Past 1985)
Galway Kinnell died in 2014 at the age of 87. What he gave to the causes of social justice, civil rights, literature and humanity continues to reverberate in his compassionate, vital poems.
pattydsf's review
3.0
It is hard to say that I have finished a book of poetry. Let's just say I have returned the book to the library. The poems that I read were wonderful. I will check the book out again sometime - maybe even soon.
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