Elegy: Poems
by Mary Jo Bang
|
|
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of Elegy: Poems.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
This book is not in any lists. Go add it to a list.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 111)
Some poetry collections, when read, defy the written word; instead they paint a world of their own, using images as a paintbrush on the canvas, the reader’s mind. Elegy: Poems by Mary Jo Bang did just that for this reader. Bang chronicles the year following her son’s death in this new collection of poems. Though Bang’s poetry is new for me, she has published four poetry collections and is a Professor of English and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Washington University.
T...more
T...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in March, 2008
Well deserving of the award nominations it's received--and the win in the National Book Critics Circle.
Bang chronicles movement through grief--nothing so neat as Kubler-Ross's stages, though there's definitely anger and denial and bargaining in some poems. Instead, the focus is on particular images that can represent the loss or distract from the loss. The poems move associatively from image to image, and the play with language at times connotes ee cummings. While there isn't a strict pro...more
Bang chronicles movement through grief--nothing so neat as Kubler-Ross's stages, though there's definitely anger and denial and bargaining in some poems. Instead, the focus is on particular images that can represent the loss or distract from the loss. The poems move associatively from image to image, and the play with language at times connotes ee cummings. While there isn't a strict pro...more
Like this review?
yes
3 comments
Stunning. The poems are not only powerful and beautifully written but necessary, and not just because of their circumstances. Although this may lend itself more than most poetry volumes to reading straight through like a novel, I've been savoring the poems a few at a time, over weeks. So far, the one I keep going back to is "Ode to History."
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in May, 2008
I knew when I picked up this book that I wouldn't be able to finish it. The poems were all written the year following the death of Mary Jo Bang's son. The pain and anguish that comes through these words will take your breath away while at the same time offering the smallest of hopes that life can continue for the person left behind.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in November, 2007
still mulling over this intensity. my favorite lines (this time around):
...How does one live
With sorrow? His hand on her shoulder
Saying, your love
Of precision will only get you in trouble.
-from "Curtains of Emptiness"
...How does one live
With sorrow? His hand on her shoulder
Saying, your love
Of precision will only get you in trouble.
-from "Curtains of Emptiness"
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2008
A collection of poems written by a grief stricken mother/poet. It is full of anguish and the giant void that you feel when you lose a loved one. I am giving a copy to my Mil to read. I think she will appreciate the others share her horrible, neverending pain.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2008
The signature poem in this collection, I feel, is "You Were You Are Elegy." The language, images and movement are superb. I find there are a handful of poems I feel strongly about here, and the others don't stand out well enough as separate units.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2008
What a gorgeous, terrifying book. Not since Ariel have I read so many poems in one collection that attempt to record the living abyss with such eerie and startling precision.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2008
a must read. a good cry ... but also, oddly, a smart cry. makes me want to understand the mind (my mind) before I get Thwacked by Grief.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This is a great book, wondering about the punctuation but I think that is because of the class I was just in.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2007
poems about the unexpected death of her son that work together to form a tangible image of a mother's grief.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2008
I found one poem I loved but kept reading because I wanted to find another.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This is a really emotional ride. Well written and well thought out.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
I didn't fall for it like some, but it's damn good.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
