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Listening to Africa
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Listening to Africa
Poet Diana M. Raab travels to the heart of Africa with her family to experience the beauty and fascination of another world. During her safari, she observes the distress, the delight, and the dignity of the humans and animals who live there and parallels them with her own quest for health.
Paperback, 80 pages
Published
March 18th 2012
by Antrim House
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Poetry is something that has been a part of since I was in elementary school, and I always appreciate well-written poetry that takes simple (and even complex) experiences and ideas and puts it into memorable stanzas and poetry lines. And I think you will see this detailed in this particular book of poetry about Africa.
I have never visited Africa, but after reading this poetry, I feel that I have a better understanding of the world that is Africa. I believe Raab's poetry is as dynamic as an artis...more
I have never visited Africa, but after reading this poetry, I feel that I have a better understanding of the world that is Africa. I believe Raab's poetry is as dynamic as an artis...more
I don't think I have ever read a book that packed so much emotion into so few pages. This poetry collection, written by Diana M. Raab isn't just about her trip to Africa with her family. The poems are about her healing and what her life and family means to her.
Raab writes about love, family, and healing. The core of her poetry is about her children and her father, but Listening to Africa is about so much more as well.
Seeing the struggles that many people in the world suffer with, she writes how...more
Raab writes about love, family, and healing. The core of her poetry is about her children and her father, but Listening to Africa is about so much more as well.
Seeing the struggles that many people in the world suffer with, she writes how...more
In this quietly fierce collection of poetry, Diana M. Raab shares memories of her trip to Africa.
"Visiting This New Continent
If I squeeze my eyes closed
and blink them open again,
would it feel like
a moon landing
by a battered spaceship?"
Diana writes about the sights and sounds of Africa, the beauty and the sadness of it. I enjoyed all the poems, especially The Gentlest Animal, a giraffe.
"the giraffe is much more creative
it seems because of where he reaches for his sustenance."
Love of family is at...more
"Visiting This New Continent
If I squeeze my eyes closed
and blink them open again,
would it feel like
a moon landing
by a battered spaceship?"
Diana writes about the sights and sounds of Africa, the beauty and the sadness of it. I enjoyed all the poems, especially The Gentlest Animal, a giraffe.
"the giraffe is much more creative
it seems because of where he reaches for his sustenance."
Love of family is at...more
Now I love poetry and hearing her words in my head was great. But I felt it needed to be out loud. So soon I was reading Diana Raab's poems to the birds around me. It was an amazing feeling to imagine what it would be like in the African plains seeing the amazing anamils all around. Nothing so plain as it is here in Texas. But maganified to a scope one would never forget.
Diana Raab shared her experience with her family as they did a tour of Africa. The result was Listening to Africa. She penn...more
Diana Raab shared her experience with her family as they did a tour of Africa. The result was Listening to Africa. She penn...more
Listening to Africa is a book of poems which comes from the heart and opens your eyes to the ferocity and gentleness of life. It’s a gift to be able to express such complex emotions in such an elegant, yet straightforward manner. It’s eye-opening to read about people who are so happy even though, by American standards, they have nothing. Listening to Africa includes some photos from Ms. Raab’s journey through Africa, which are a beautiful addition to the lush words. While life, love, loss, and f...more
Listening to Africa by Diana M. Raab are the poet’s thoughts on her trip to Africa in 2008. The poems are not about Africa and the events that happen there, so much as the effect the trip had on Raab and her family. A trip motivated by death and malignancy, Raab is seeking a spiritual renewal, a way to rejuvenate her flagging will to fight. She finds what she needs as she watches the village people struggle to clothe and feed themselves by actively pushing their crafts onto tourists and selling...more
I loved this collection of poetry.
Diana has such a gift with her words and imagery. You feel as if you are with her in every rememberance of Africa. Her prose is beautiful and flows as smoothly as the Rio Grande. The pictures in the book accompanying the text, equally beautiful.
If you want a great recollection of life in Africa and imaginative poetry, this volume is for you.
Diana has such a gift with her words and imagery. You feel as if you are with her in every rememberance of Africa. Her prose is beautiful and flows as smoothly as the Rio Grande. The pictures in the book accompanying the text, equally beautiful.
If you want a great recollection of life in Africa and imaginative poetry, this volume is for you.
I liked those poems best in which she loses herself in her environment and into the other world of Africa. I did appreciate her viewpoints and astute observations of the difference between life in the West and places she visited.
I am not sure how to review a poem book, but I will do my best. I did enjoy reading these - they are very quick - about a page each. She has the book divided according to where she traveled in Africa as I am guessing she wrote as she traveled. She has a way of taking what is everyday for the people in Africa and making it a one-of-a-kind event for the reader. She weaves into these poems thoughts on her own health, her family, memories of her father and in this way connects her experiences with h...more
Jul 07, 2012
Jamie White
added it
Jun 19, 2012
Julie
marked it as to-read
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Diana M. Raab, M.F.A., essayist, memoirist and poet who teaches at UCLA Writers' Program and frequently lectures on journaling and memoir around the country.
More about Diana M. Raab...
Her memoir, REGINA'S CLOSET: FINDING MY GRANDMOTHER'S SECRET JOURNAL won the 2008 National Indie Excellence Award for Memoir and the 2009 Mom's Choice Award for Adult Nonfiction, as well as other high honors.
She has two poetry collections, MY
...more
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