Reviews for Great poems of the English language

The average rating for Great poems of the English language based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-03 00:00:00 Stacy LaFara This slim volume I had picked up fairly recently but it connects very strongly to two other books I have owned for a long while and only skimmed. In fact one of the poems was taken from a story related in one of those books 'Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey" of a woman called Olive Oatman. She had been captured by Apaches, who sold her to Mojaves and wed to one and bore him children, then recaptured by Anglos. She was never fully accepted back in 'polite' company due to tatoos on her face and because she repeatedly tried to return to her Mojave family. But I had several other favorite poems, one called 'Married Now' of a wedding done on the trail westward and a honeymoon night in the back of a covered wagon. One called 'Amanda Hayes' of a spirited gal who carried a copy of 'The Odyssey' on her journey and who liked to dance naked under the stars dreaming of a passionate god like lover who would touch her as her husband never had. And although they aren't among my favorites, two tinged with sadness made a deep mark in my mind: 'Let There Be' starts "I'd give my soul for a pot of tea" and laments on and on of all the things missed at home. And the other, 'No Time Enough' was of a young woman giving birth to her first child in the back of a wagon as it rolled on. The men of the expedition refusing to stop to allow her time to give birth in peace and how she and the babe die. To read these poems on such a historic day seemed particularly apt.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-02-26 00:00:00 Hugh Hall These poems tell the brutality, heartache, violence, and thrill of the 19th-Century western migration from the very particular voices of number of white women - some of whom could have been my ancestors. Based on true stories and illustrated by the incomparable Barry Moser, this was one of the luckiest second-hand bookstore finds in a long time.