Reviews for The contraceptive of reasonable thought

The average rating for The contraceptive of reasonable thought based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-06-19 00:00:00 Nirvana Cd 1915 to 1955 provides quite a range of poetry! From Hardy, Housman, Kipling, Yeats, through two world wars, to Dylan Thomas and twenty poets younger than him. Editors C. Day-Lewis and John Lehmann confined themselves to (loosely defined) British poets, and to those aged at least 30 by their final selection. Among the 260 poems are many standards--Hardy's 'Afterwards', Yeats' 'Sailing to Byzantium', Eliot's 'East Coker', Auden's 'Lay Your Sleeping Head', Dylan Thomas' 'Fern Hill'--but the real joy is in discovering good work by less well known poets. I give a few excerpts as examples: pastoral, autobiographical, of mortality, a war poem, wistfulness: Andrew Young, 'Wiltshire Downs' The cuckoo's double note Loosened like bubbles from a drowning throat Floats through the air In mockery of pipit, land and stare. And one tree-crowned long barrow Stretched like a sow that has brought forth her farrow Hides a king's bones Lying like broken sticks among the stones. Laurie Lee, 'First Love' Then it was she put up her hair, inscribed her eyes with a look of grief, while her limbs grew as curious as coral branches, her breast full of secrets. But the boy, confused in his day's desire, was searching for herons, his fingers bathed in the green of walnuts, or watching at night the Great Bear spin from the maypole star. Alun Lewis, 'Water Music' Cold is the lake water And dark as history. Hurry not and fear not This oldest mystery. This strange voice singing, This slow deep drag of the lake, The yearning, yearning, this ending Of the heart and its ache. Keith Douglas, 'How to Kill' Now in my dial of glass appears the soldier who is going to die. He smiles, and moves about in ways his mother knows, habits of his. The wires touch his face: I cry NOW. Death, like a familiar, hears and look, has made a man of dust of a man of flesh. This sorcery I do. Being damned, I am amused to see the centre of love diffused and the waves of love travel into vacancy. How easy it is to make a ghost. Sidney Keyes, 'The Gardener' Do you resemble the silent pale-eyed angels That follow children? Is your face a flower? The lovers and the beggars leave the park-- And still you will not come. The gates are closing. O it is terrible to dream of angels. As a collection the poetry is overwhelmingly formal, rural and male. It is titled 'The Chatto Book of Modern Poetry', but it predates the formless chaos of what we now call "modern poetry", the unstructured confessional outpourings of the past half century. The anthology isn't perfect, but very rewarding for lovers of traditional poetry.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-11-04 00:00:00 Song Yu He was known as the "Canadian Kipling". His work has been denigrated by the critics and called mere doggerel, but people still read him aloud and love his work. Although known for his Yukon poems, his range is astonishing. His style is as old as Beowulf and just as dramatic. His poetry is meant to be heard and not read. I loved the book.