Sher’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Sher’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Larry wrote: "John, on Scribd find the newest AMERICAN SCHOLAR issue (under magazines and periodicals). A.EA. Stallings has an excellent essay comparing the influence of Byron and Shelley on Greek literature. Th..."

I subscribe to the print form of the American Scholar, so I can't wait for this issue!

John:
this book is a collection of poems--right? It's not a book about craft?

I could not tell for Sure based on the description

John,
Do you have crows there in your NC neighborhood?

I realized Mandel's book will be like Hass's book and probably take me three months! I have it order, so once I get my used copy I will be able to say more.

By the way just started Garrion Keillor's Good Poems, and it is terrific so far about 6 poems in-- listening on Audible... I am filling my ears with poetry these days -- just finished an audible collection of John Keats that I very much enjoyed.

Larry:
Have you seen this one
Poetry as Survival looks excellent

and I also ordered a copy of Fundamentals of the Art of Poetry. This one looks fantastic - the approach seems so interdisciplinary and different from other craft- history-- books I have recently read. I don't know if you are up for discussing either of these books, but if you want to October-is- we could do it as a mod choice... we might hear from John and Carol -- maybe more---

Thanks Larry I guess posting from Poesie won’t work dang! I had hopes…

I wonder was it really a "Woman?" considering when this was written...?

A Little Book on Form: An Exploration Into the Formal Imagination of Poetry
I seldom give a book a 5 star plus rating, but if you are interested in poetic forms (sonnets, elegy, meditative, ode, free verse, cultural epic, lyric, contemporary, haiku...) this book deserves a super plus rating. Many poetic examples are provided and all the major and the less known quirky forms are covered. Terrific bibliography for further study in forms that interest you. The comprehensive nature of this book and the clarity of the writing is well received. I think this book is valuable for a poet to better understand style, rhythm, meter, lines... and also a serious reader of poetry. I read it cover to cover, and I expect I'll return to this book over the years.

5 Star plus

I tried to share a poem from Poesie app written by D.H. Lawrence… did this come through

Sent from Poesie: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id133284....

John wrote: "No, but I've had folks "like" any book I post as Currently Reading in order to drive traffic to their linked adult websites."

Wow, I had no idea that is happening John . Sigh. What a pain.

That's almost funny what you wrote Larry, because I read some of his poems while I was sitting in my car today, and I thought god I should give up ever trying to write anything, because I will never be able to write like this! Astonishing... but, I'm glad we have him. I really benefit from reading his work.

I have taken the plunge into William Blake's life and ideas! Finally ....

Divine Images: The Life and Work of William Blake

Curious-- if everyone getting thrice weekly bogus friend requests like I am? It's nuts I haven't had a real person request friendship in 4 months -- all fake messages giving me a phone number to call for a good time... is it just me getting these bogus friend requests???

Today I got a real person, and I was so happy - a real person with similar reading interests - geez a miracle.

This is the course I am taking now---

https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern...?

John:
Here is an example of a Shakespeare course that begins today- I can't do it on such short notice, but you can look around and get an idea.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/shakes...?

Great - if you choose that course... I am on module 4-- and I will finish up with you... I know that system really well... There also might be another Coursera course actually starting in the fall -- like a Shakespeare or Whit man course....

John:
I think the Coursera course on Modern Poetry through U of IL Urbana may be much more in-depth than the Harvard course, I see this from looking at the Harvard Course. I have satellite internet so can't always load the many many short films, but you might have no problems. Many professors some excellent ...

But yes, if we started together and decided on our own schedule we could pots on the internal messaging, if they have one, or use your John thread in the private group or I could just create a thread for us at the old group. I wouldn't want to take over this thread--plus this is a public group. Just PM me when you are ready to start...

The Dream by Wendell Berry

I dream an inescapable dream
in which i take away from the country
the bridges and roads, the fences, the strung wires,
ourselves, all we have built and dug and hollowed out,
our flocks and herds, our droves of machines.

I restore then the wide-branching trees.
I see growing over the land and shading it
the great trunks and crowns of the first forest.
I am aware of the rattling of their branches,
the lichened channels of their bark, the saps
of the ground flowing upward to their darkness.
Like the afterimage of a light that only by not
looking can be seen, I glimpse the country as it was.
All its beings belong wholly to it. They flourish
in dying as in being born. It is the life of its deaths.

I must end, always, by replacing
our beginning there, ourselves and our blades,
the flowing in of history, putting back what I took away,
trying always with the same pain of foreknowledge
to build all that we have built, but destroy nothing.

My hands weakening, I feel on all sides blindness
growing in the land on its peering bulbous stalks.
I see that my mind is not good enough.
I see that I am eager to own the earth and to own men.
I find in my mouth a bitter taste of money,
a gaping syllable I can neither swallow nor spit out.
I see all that we have ruined in order to have, all
that was owned for a lifetime to be destroyed forever.

Where are the sleeps that escape such dreams?

Larry-- it sounds almost like this Perlego is a reference library... interesting ....

I still struggle with wanting to read online. I doubt I'll ever make that leap. I carry my books everywhere with me, and interact with them with pen in the margins. All my reads end up having notes- sometimes a lot of notes.