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Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons
This critically acclaimed sonnet sequence is the passionately intense story of a love affair between two women, from the electricity of their first acquaintance to the experience of their parting.
Paperback, 212 pages
Published
March 17th 1995
by W. W. Norton & Company
(first published 1986)
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Anyone who has ever been in love ought to read this book. Any woman who has ever been in love with another woman absolutely must read this book. Anyone who believes form in poetry trite will be changed by this book (and by Hacker's poetry in general).
I have heard Hacker read her work; each word is not merely tasted, but savored in her mouth. This book will reveal layers of flavor to you if you give it the same attentiveness.
Plus, it's real hott sometimes, too...my favorite combination of smart...more
I have heard Hacker read her work; each word is not merely tasted, but savored in her mouth. This book will reveal layers of flavor to you if you give it the same attentiveness.
Plus, it's real hott sometimes, too...my favorite combination of smart...more
I read this when it came out in the 80s, and just read it again the last day or so, I find it tremendously uneven. As a narrative, reading about Hacker's affair with a younger woman (her poetry student) gets tiring, like having coffee too many days in a row with a drama-loving friend. The poems read like letters, and Hacker drops in the names of family and friends without introduction, which feels like having coffee too many days in a row with a friend who is so self-centered that it never occur...more
A poetic masterpiece, simply a tour de force by a fiercely intelligent, sensitive poet who set out to write a novel in poetry. Then she decided to make things a little harder. How about doing it in sonnets? Shakespeare never tried that!
And guess what? These sonnets are perfect. All of them. And they flow like a river. And like the river flowing to the sea, the narrative deepens. The voices of the characters emerge. Almost begin to read the poems aloud. The story that results will break your hea...more
And guess what? These sonnets are perfect. All of them. And they flow like a river. And like the river flowing to the sea, the narrative deepens. The voices of the characters emerge. Almost begin to read the poems aloud. The story that results will break your hea...more
I was having a late-night conversation with my pal Ryan Kalas about the solstice, and somehow he said something about how he enjoyed talking to me about life and death. And then I remembered this book! I'd read it in college when Marilyn Hacker came to visit our intro to feminist studies class, but it resonated more now. I love the sonnets and other forms she uses here. I love how this is a novel, a story, in which every word counts (and can be counted, syllabically). I also like how the rhythm...more
Read this as I was coming out, writing poetry myself and formulating how I wanted to live as a feminist. Some stanzas still echo in my head today.
The rise and fall of a love affair, one poem at a time. This is simply a beautiful work of art.
I need to reread this when I've a)become smarter and b)become a polyglot and also c)developed an attention span. I came into this with high expectations because the handful of ratings on GR are high, the reviews are favourable. I was bored. This is more likely to be a fault of mine than the author and a matter of me reading the right book at the wrong time but I couldn't get into it. I was reading it after climbing into bed at night and falling straight asleep. I didn't have any interest in devo...more
Apr 28, 2008
Stephy
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
People Who Love Words and Women
Recommended to Stephy by:
It was a gift
This is a book of Love Poetry, written by Marilyn Hacker, an already famous poet. I more than like her. I admire her gifts of words to the world. I respect her a great deal. This should be recognized as word portraits of moments between lovers, magnificently touched to include feelings we mere mortals cannot put into words. The Poets with their word nets, chase them down and pin them to paper, and if we are lucky, we see them.
As a woman, she writes about love, death and as the title says, the c...more
As a woman, she writes about love, death and as the title says, the c...more
I had known about this since reading Pages for You, and always wondered a little about it and looked for it in used bookstores; it wasn't until I needed it, until I found myself crying at three a.m. and racking up huge charges on Alibris in the wake of my divorce, that I decided that I shouldn't leave it up to chance to own a copy.
So so amazing! Probably the best collection/sequence of poems I've read in a long time (ever?). The narrative really resonated with me - it was honest and poignant and emotionally powerful. Hacker's language is nuanced, erotic, and just beautiful. I dog-eared over half of the poems in order to return to and savor them again.
This was the first "lesbian" book I read when I finally got free and moved to LA in the late 1980's. This poetry about Hacker's relationship with a younger woman who finally leaves her is sexy, troubling...changed my life.
You can read it either as poetry, one at a time, slowly, working out the meaning of every line and getting a sense of each poem. Or you can read it as narrative, more quickly, reading a bunch of poems in a row, not worrying about the meaning of every line but getting the story. Either way it works.
My God, this book is absolutely stunning. Hacker's poetry is truly inspirational, beautiful and poignant. Her sonnets about this past love affair, in particular are composed so articulately with great honesty. I was captivated from the very first page and left completely speechless when I turned the last. Her ability to capture the intensity of longing, lust and love in such sensuality is amazing. Also, her masterful artistic abilities as a poet further deepens my admiration for her as one of my...more
Overall, a good primer on how to reinvent form, feminism, writing about eros. She will definitely make you blush!
Gorgeous words that remain with you long after the reading.
Hacker cuts to the quick of it here, capturing love (and loss) as it occurs in the heat of the moment. One gets the sense that each poem was written breathlessly, in the wake of some intense emotion or another. In a way, the cycle is a long string of "morning-afters" (a year of them, in fact) - in which the entirety of a beautiful (and flawed) relationship is captured and distilled. There's an immediacy here that's lacking in most poetry I've read (and just for the record, the final poem in this...more
Destroyed me.
read
Book length sonnet sequence about the love affair between two women, from the moment they meet to their eventual parting. Marilyn Hacker's sonnets are technically flawless...and often very charming. They are, unfortunately, also a little boring from time to time, or the book would have received higher marks overall.
I loved these at first; sonnets make by brain feel good, and marrying the formal structure with contemporary language made for some really evocative poems - but by the end I started to feel a little worn down by the neverending romantic struggles and started yearning for something a bit.. less... hormonal
Some pieces take you out of your comfort zone. However, I feel that outside of one's comfort zone is the perfect place to be at times.
i would have liked it more if it hadn't been so self-absorbed and insistently exhibitionist.
Great, surprising poetry that when read in one fell swoop reads like a sexy novel.
changed forever how i feel about the sonnet.
amazing sonnets, esp. crown sonnets
favorite book of poetry. ever.
My favorite poetry book of all time.
Oct 04, 2008
Lishesque
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who's been in a long distance relationship
Amazing, amazing book.
Jun 17, 2013
John
added it
Jun 17, 2013
Lora
marked it as to-read
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“i'm alternatingly brilliant and witless-and sleepless: bed is just a swamp to roll in.”
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Nov 15, 2012 04:54am