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February 15
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Scott
read and liked
Ben's
review of Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems (Penguin Poets):
"I don't know if I'm poetry-deaf or what, but this just seems like a bunch of words strung together for no reason other than to befuddle.
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May 16
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Scott
gave
 
to:
What the Twilight Says: Essays (Paperback)
by Derek Walcott
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in May, 2008
Scott said:
"I'm only a little way into this book so far and I love it. The first three essays are worth the price. This book really informs my reading of Walcott's other work, his life's project. I have yet to read the essays on individual poets, but so far so...more
I'm only a little way into this book so far and I love it. The first three essays are worth the price. This book really informs my reading of Walcott's other work, his life's project. I have yet to read the essays on individual poets, but so far so good.
The essay style reminds me a bit of WCW's, asking much of the reader to make connection and create a linear thread although Walcott seems more effective in getting a full, round, lush point across. This book has a subtle discursion of thought, very nuanced, and worth multiple readings. I love essays written by poets, but especially when the paragraphs are made almost entirely of topic sentences. This book is just what I need right now, a set of essays that believes totally in the task of carrying a complicated and potentially dangerous idea over the gulf between individuals, going carefully along the miraculous rope bridge that is language....less
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February 06
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New comment on Scott's review of
Selected Poems (Penguin Poets)
(see all 3 comments)
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February 05
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Scott
gave
to:
Selected Poems (Penguin Poets)
by John Ashbery (Goodreads author!)
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Scott
gave
to:
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems (Penguin Poets)
by John Ashbery (Goodreads author!)
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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February 01
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Scott
gave
to:
Ordinary Wolves: A Novel (Paperback)
by Seth Kantner
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in January, 2006
Scott said:
"The first book I've ever read that captures and honestly explores the central, hopeless ironies of growing up, and struggling to live, in Alaska, both the bush and the city. If you believe the image of Alaska that the chambers of commerce push, or if...more
The first book I've ever read that captures and honestly explores the central, hopeless ironies of growing up, and struggling to live, in Alaska, both the bush and the city. If you believe the image of Alaska that the chambers of commerce push, or if you've ever asked the question, 'why shouldn't I kill myself this morning?', read it. This is the most honest literary fiction I've ever read to come from my home, and it doesn't even try to sell you a cruise package. Read it. The Arctic is dying even as I write this....less
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Scott
gave
to:
Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems (Poets, Penguin)
by Robert Wrigley
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended for: People who don't know Wrigley
read in January, 2008
Scott said:
"Good representation of Wrigley's body of work, plus some good new poems. It seems a sin to abridge his book, Reign of Snakes, though. That one should just be owned by itself. If one doesn't know much Wrigley, this one would be a good introduction, bu...more
Good representation of Wrigley's body of work, plus some good new poems. It seems a sin to abridge his book, Reign of Snakes, though. That one should just be owned by itself. If one doesn't know much Wrigley, this one would be a good introduction, but a bunch of the poems I found more memorable aren't included. I don't own Animal Dreams, so I was glad to find some of them here....less
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January 30
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New comment on Robert Beveridge's review of
The Shape of the Journey: New & Collected Poems
reply to this comment
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Scott
read and liked
Robert Beveridge's
review of The Shape of the Journey: New & Collected Poems:
"Jim Harrison, The Shape of the Journey: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon, 1998)
Jim Harrison is a good poet. He's been below the radar for many, many years, writing poems about nature and drinking and general irascibility that few people have ...more
Jim Harrison, The Shape of the Journey: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon, 1998)
Jim Harrison is a good poet. He's been below the radar for many, many years, writing poems about nature and drinking and general irascibility that few people have actually read. Which is a shame, because when he's really on his game, his work is comparable to that of the best nature poets working today (Hayden Carruth being the obvious parallel here). And more often than not, he is on his game in this book.
Its major flaw is not the quality of the work therein, but the quantity. Even Bukowski, the most readable poet on the planet in the twentieth century, knew that stopping at about three hundred fifty pages of work was a good idea. Harrison's doughty tome weighs in at over four hundred fifty, and his stuff is not nearly as readable as Bukowski's. Nor is it as short. Even Carruth, whose Collected Shorter Poems 1946-1991 (also released by Copper Canyon) is one of the few books that is the exception to this rule (over seven hundred pages, and every one a gem), took all the long poems and placed them in a separate, smaller volume. Harrison, on the other hand, mixes with glee. You get a ten-line ghazal on one page, then a thirty-page longpoem following. The effect is somewhat jarring at times.
It's worth reading, but be prepared to linger over it for months, perhaps years. There's too much going on here to just take it out of the library. *** ...less
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