What do you think?
Rate this book
Ballads of a Bogman
These verses recall the comings and goings of a people whose limewhitened houses nestle in the hills between the bog and the lighthouse. Clifford has a special affection for tinkers, and many of the poems in this collection focus on their lifestyle.
90 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 1, 2018
It is most unfortunate that so many of these coincidentally have a rhythmic and metrical structure similar to the American minstrel song 'Oh! Susanna.' Just try to get that out of your head after you notice it while reading these. What otherwise might have been emotionally powerful poems got reduced in my head to sounding like that song. Consider the last stanza to 'The Ballad of the Tinker's Son' as an example:
The tinker's son should be back again
with the roads and life he knew.
But I put a bullet though his brain
in nineteen twenty-two
Even if it weren't for that rhythmic idiosyncrasy, I still wouldn't consider this collection to be very good. There isn't much keeping it afloat. He has good ideas and attempts to deal with meaningful themes, but they just aren't executed well.
The tinker's son should be back again
with the roads and life he knew.
But I put a bullet though his brain
in nineteen twenty-two
Even if it weren't for that rhythmic idiosyncrasy, I still wouldn't consider this collection to be very good. There isn't much keeping it afloat. He has good ideas and attempts to deal with meaningful themes, but they just aren't executed well.
Displaying 1 of 1 review