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A review by david_reads_books
Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them by Anthony Holden
4.0
"I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call."
from "Long Distance II" by Tony Harrison (1937-)
chosen by Daniel Radcliffe
100 men chose the poem that makes them cry. They submitted about a page of explanation for their choice. The poem then follows. And the accolades of the men who submitted their entry are quickly detailed. The list of men includes writers, film, theater, and opera directors, artists, actors, publishers, professors, playwrights, and others of highest caliber. It is really an incredible list of people that Anthony and Ben Holden got to make submissions.
Many of the chosen poems speak of death or dying. Reading just one of these can make you feel like shedding a tear. Reading multiple of these made me feel quite melancholy, to say the least. I appreciated that many of the men that chose these poems admitted that you really had to read the poem out loud for the full impact. I found myself trying to read most of these poems out loud to amplify the effect - which it did.
I liked the poems that were more about inspiration or the life of a child. I wish more of the poems had been on these topics. It would have helped my reading, and my rating.
The book is arranged by date of poem/poet. The oldest ones had some interest to me, but I found most of my post-it notes going to the middle and later part of the book.
My Favorites:
"Hokku" by Fukuda Chiyo-Ni (1703-1775)
chosen by Boris Akunin
this poem written when her little son died.
Dragonfly catcher,
Where today
have you gone?
"Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances" by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
chosen by Stephen Fry
...May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men,
hills, shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms,
Maybe these are (as doubtless they are) only
apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known;
...
When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long
while holding me by the hand,
...
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom
...
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
"Ithaka" by Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933)
chosen by Walter Salles
the whole poem leads you to the conclusion that Walter stated in his short preface before the poem begins:
"Don't ask the way of those who know it, you might not get lost."
(My favorite line in the book just spoken by Walter :)
"My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke (1908-63)
chosen by Stanley Tucci
as father comes home late, and child follows his hero off to bedtime
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small by dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
...
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt."
"The Book Burnings" by Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
chosen by Jack Mapanje
...when harmful knowledgeable books were ordered to be burned and a certain poet's were not chosen...'
Don't do this to me! Don't pass me over! Have I not always told
The truth in my books? And now
I am treated by you a a liar!
I order you:
Burn me!
"Liberte" by Paul Eluard (1895-1952)
chosen by Joe Wright
this poem was written on leaflets during WWII and the RAF dropped them over occupied France
On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name
...
By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you
LIBERTY
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell (1914-65)
chosen by Paul Muldoon
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
"The Meaning of Africa" by Abioseh Nicol (1924-94)
chosen by James Earl Jones
...
I am content and happy.
I am fulfilled, within,
Without and roundabout
I have gained the little longings
Of my hands, my loins, my heart
And the soul that follows in my shadow."
I know now that is what your are, Africa:
Happiness, contentment, and fulfilment,
And a small bird singing on a mango tree.
"Bedecked" by Victoria Redel (1959-)
chosen by Billy Collins
Tell me it’s wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy store rings
he clusters four jewels to each finger.
He’s bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star choker,
the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.
Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says sticker earrings
look too fake.
Tell me I should teach him it’s wrong to love the glitter that a boy’s only
a boy who’d love a truck with a remote that revs,
battery slamming into corners or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping off tracks
into the tub.
Then tell me it’s fine—really—maybe even a good thing—a boy who’s
got some girl to him,
and I’m right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in the park.
Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son who
still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means—
this way or that—but for the way facets set off prisms and prisms spin up
everywhere
and from his own jeweled body he’s cast rainbows—made every shining
true color.
Now try to tell me—man or woman—your heart was ever once that brave.
"The Lanyard" by Billy Collins (1941-)
Chosen by J.J. Abrams
all the child has to give his Mom is the lanyard he made, to repay for all she has given
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard..
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
...
"Keys to the Doors" by Robin Robertson (1955-)
chosen by Mohsin Hamid
I loved your age of wonder: your third and fourth
and fifth years spent astonished, widening your eyes
at each new trick of the world - and me standing there,
solemnly explaining how it was done. The moon and stars,
rainbows, photographs, gravity, the birds in the air,
the difference between blood and water.
In true life? you would say, looking up...
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call."
from "Long Distance II" by Tony Harrison (1937-)
chosen by Daniel Radcliffe
100 men chose the poem that makes them cry. They submitted about a page of explanation for their choice. The poem then follows. And the accolades of the men who submitted their entry are quickly detailed. The list of men includes writers, film, theater, and opera directors, artists, actors, publishers, professors, playwrights, and others of highest caliber. It is really an incredible list of people that Anthony and Ben Holden got to make submissions.
Many of the chosen poems speak of death or dying. Reading just one of these can make you feel like shedding a tear. Reading multiple of these made me feel quite melancholy, to say the least. I appreciated that many of the men that chose these poems admitted that you really had to read the poem out loud for the full impact. I found myself trying to read most of these poems out loud to amplify the effect - which it did.
I liked the poems that were more about inspiration or the life of a child. I wish more of the poems had been on these topics. It would have helped my reading, and my rating.
The book is arranged by date of poem/poet. The oldest ones had some interest to me, but I found most of my post-it notes going to the middle and later part of the book.
My Favorites:
"Hokku" by Fukuda Chiyo-Ni (1703-1775)
chosen by Boris Akunin
this poem written when her little son died.
Dragonfly catcher,
Where today
have you gone?
"Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances" by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
chosen by Stephen Fry
...May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men,
hills, shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms,
Maybe these are (as doubtless they are) only
apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known;
...
When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long
while holding me by the hand,
...
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom
...
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
"Ithaka" by Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933)
chosen by Walter Salles
the whole poem leads you to the conclusion that Walter stated in his short preface before the poem begins:
"Don't ask the way of those who know it, you might not get lost."
(My favorite line in the book just spoken by Walter :)
"My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke (1908-63)
chosen by Stanley Tucci
as father comes home late, and child follows his hero off to bedtime
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small by dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
...
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt."
"The Book Burnings" by Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
chosen by Jack Mapanje
...when harmful knowledgeable books were ordered to be burned and a certain poet's were not chosen...'
Don't do this to me! Don't pass me over! Have I not always told
The truth in my books? And now
I am treated by you a a liar!
I order you:
Burn me!
"Liberte" by Paul Eluard (1895-1952)
chosen by Joe Wright
this poem was written on leaflets during WWII and the RAF dropped them over occupied France
On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name
...
By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you
LIBERTY
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell (1914-65)
chosen by Paul Muldoon
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
"The Meaning of Africa" by Abioseh Nicol (1924-94)
chosen by James Earl Jones
...
I am content and happy.
I am fulfilled, within,
Without and roundabout
I have gained the little longings
Of my hands, my loins, my heart
And the soul that follows in my shadow."
I know now that is what your are, Africa:
Happiness, contentment, and fulfilment,
And a small bird singing on a mango tree.
"Bedecked" by Victoria Redel (1959-)
chosen by Billy Collins
Tell me it’s wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy store rings
he clusters four jewels to each finger.
He’s bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star choker,
the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.
Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says sticker earrings
look too fake.
Tell me I should teach him it’s wrong to love the glitter that a boy’s only
a boy who’d love a truck with a remote that revs,
battery slamming into corners or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping off tracks
into the tub.
Then tell me it’s fine—really—maybe even a good thing—a boy who’s
got some girl to him,
and I’m right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in the park.
Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son who
still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means—
this way or that—but for the way facets set off prisms and prisms spin up
everywhere
and from his own jeweled body he’s cast rainbows—made every shining
true color.
Now try to tell me—man or woman—your heart was ever once that brave.
"The Lanyard" by Billy Collins (1941-)
Chosen by J.J. Abrams
all the child has to give his Mom is the lanyard he made, to repay for all she has given
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard..
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
...
"Keys to the Doors" by Robin Robertson (1955-)
chosen by Mohsin Hamid
I loved your age of wonder: your third and fourth
and fifth years spent astonished, widening your eyes
at each new trick of the world - and me standing there,
solemnly explaining how it was done. The moon and stars,
rainbows, photographs, gravity, the birds in the air,
the difference between blood and water.
In true life? you would say, looking up...