book data
34 ratings,
3.94
average rating, 7 reviews
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published
May 10th 2005
by HarperCollins
binding
Hardcover, 112 pages
isbn
0060757183
(isbn13: 9780060757182)
description
A fresh, new volume by one of the premier living American poets
Readers have found Robert Bly's ghazals startling and new; they merge wildness with a
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 47)
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avg 3.94
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in May, 2008
This is a book of poems all written in a modified version of the Middle Eastern form ghazal, in which each stanza has to address a different subject, and the final stanza must somehow evoke the author's identity. The modifications Bly made were in the line and meter counts, which he posits had to be shifted to fit English. It's an intriguing form, which stays fresh because it doesn't get formulaic with its shifts in subject. Fittingly, Bly uses a lot of Biblical references in these poems...more
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Read in January, 2007
Growing Wings
It's all right if Cezanne goes on painting the same picture.
It's all right if juice tastes bitter in our mouths.
It's all right if the old man drags one useless foot.
The apple on the Tree of Paradise hangs there for months.
We wait for years and years on the lip of the falls;
The blue-gray mountain keeps rising behind the black trees.
It's all right if I feel this same pain until I die.
A pain that we have earned gives mor...more
It's all right if Cezanne goes on painting the same picture.
It's all right if juice tastes bitter in our mouths.
It's all right if the old man drags one useless foot.
The apple on the Tree of Paradise hangs there for months.
We wait for years and years on the lip of the falls;
The blue-gray mountain keeps rising behind the black trees.
It's all right if I feel this same pain until I die.
A pain that we have earned gives mor...more
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I have a signed copy and met the man, so how could I not give it a good review?
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Read in October, 2006
This is Robert Bly's second book of ghazals, a complex eastern form of poetry which he modifies for English, which I picked up at one of his readings. The poems in the book are incredible - romantic and nostalgic - but hearing Robert Bly read them made them magic for me. The man is a rock star of the poetry world, and simply a pleasure to be in the presence of. My favorite poems are "Blackberry Jam" and the title poem, "My Sentence was a Thousand Years of Joy".
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Read in January, 2007
Call and Answer is a great poem! Try these lines ,
"Robert, those high spirits don't prove you are
A close friend of truth: but you have learned to drive
Your buggy over the prairies of human sorrow."
I won't tell where they are - find them yourself - we all have our own journey.
"Robert, those high spirits don't prove you are
A close friend of truth: but you have learned to drive
Your buggy over the prairies of human sorrow."
I won't tell where they are - find them yourself - we all have our own journey.
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Even better than his previous book. On each reading I gain new insights. Poems bring in threads that, at first, seem unrelated. Then by the end, and after a few rereads, there is that AHA! moment.
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Read in October, 2008
Read this a couple years ago, thought: meh.
Now it's picked up again and I think I'll be currently reading it for a long time--one of those books you reread as you go. Bad. Ass.
Now it's picked up again and I think I'll be currently reading it for a long time--one of those books you reread as you go. Bad. Ass.
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