Reviews for The World's Best Poetry

The average rating for The World's Best Poetry based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-05-17 00:00:00 Jerry McClellan It is often unfair to judge a poet by his first book, and this is certainly true of Robert Frost's A Boy's Will (1913). The title, taken from a once-familiar refrain of Longfellow's ("A boy's will is the wind's will/ And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts"), suggests that Frost was conscious of the fact that this little collection'although first published in England when he was thirty-nine'contained more than a few works of a youthful, inexperienced writer. Indeed, two of the more overtly philosophical pieces'"The Trial by Existence" and "In Equal Sacrifice," which Frost buries near the middle of the book'are poor imitations of Victorian verse and sound as if Frost may have written them in his teens. Most of the rest of the poems are good, but not better than a typical Edward Arlington Robinson poem. In fact, there is only one Frost "classic" in the book: "A Tuft of Flowers," in which the poet reflects upon a bunch of blooms beside a stream that has been spared in a recent mowing. (The well-known works start with his next book, North of Boston (1914), published two years later: "Mending Wall," "The Death of a Hired Man," "Home Burial," "After Apple Picking.") Nevertheless, in many of these early poems, you can discern the characteristic Frost ambiguity and the distinctive Frost voice. What I mean by the characteristic Frost ambiguity: even the most common observation is often qualified by a clause, undermined by an image, or modified by a dramatic situation so that the result is something much more complex than it may first appear. Take the first poem in this book, for example, the sonnet "Into My Own": One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom. I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding open land, Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew- Only more sure of all I thought was true. Each piece in the book is introduced by an explanatory phrase, and "Into My Own" is described as a poem in which "the youth is persuaded that he will be rather more than less himself for having forsworn the world." Notice that "the youth" is not confident but "is persuaded" and notice the smallness of the claim to become "rather more than less himself." Such qualifications appear throughout the poem. The youth tells us that this is not only just a "wish," but merely "one of" his wishes, and admits that the trees themselves are "the merest mask of gloom," "as t'were," for, although dark and old, they presumably don't stretch far enough to make a real honest-to-goodness wood. But if this were a real wood'which it is not--the poet asserts that "I should not be witheld but that some day...I should steal away." Again, a series of interesting qualifications. He seems to imply that he might be held back from going, and that, although at first he may very well give in to this restraint, he will nevertheless manage to "someday" sneak away. But do we really believe he will go, and--if he does--what assurance do we have that he won't eventually come back? He only claims that he does "not see why" he should, and also does not see why other people who may miss him and wish to know if he still loves him, should not follow his path and track him down instead. He says if they did, they would not find him changed'finally an assertion (almost) without qualification!'but only find that he was by this time more sure of everything he believed and thought (and loved?) than he was before. But how sure is he now? Our poem is filled with a crowd of small doubts, and this final assurance is not really much of an assurance. He is not, after all, foreswearing the world, but merely using a small break of trees to help him imagine what it would be like if he had a big wild dark dramatic wood to hide in, and he remains uncertain of almost everything'except for the fact that on his imaginary journey, he will not change one a bit. Yes, the characteristic Frost ambiguity'that will soon make superficially simple works such as "Mending Wall" an inexhaustible font of rich interpretations'is here, in the first poem of Frost's first book. I will conclude with a couple of fine lyrics, one about the dead of winter, and one about the thaw that heralds the spring. Storm Fear When the wind works against us in the dark, And pelts with snow The lowest chamber window on the east, And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, The beast, 'Come out! Come out!'- It costs no inward struggle not to go, Ah, no! I count our strength, Two and a child, Those of us not asleep subdued to mark How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,- How drifts are piled, Dooryard and road ungraded, Till even the comforting barn grows far away And my heart owns a doubt Whether 'tis in us to arise with day And save ourselves unaided. To the Thawing Wind Come with rain, O loud Southwester! Bring the singer, bring the nester; Give the buried flower a dream; Make the settled snowbank steam; Find the brown beneath the white; But whate'er you do tonight, Bathe my window, make it flow, Melt it as the ice will go; Melt the glass and leave the sticks Like a hermit's crucifix; Burst into my narrow stall; Swing the picture on the wall; Run the rattling pages o'er; Scatter poems on the floor; Turn the poet out of door.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-01-05 00:00:00 Luis Mora Tan My Sorrow, when she's here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. first lines of My November Guest Frost, ca. 1910 This was Robert Frost's first published collection. In 1913 he and his family were living in the U.K., where the slim volume was first published. Frost was almost forty years old in 1913. I found it curious that a middle-aged man would give this title to his first collection of poetry. And it really is "about" a young man, or a "youth" in this gloss that Frost wrote for the first poem, "Into My Own": The youth is persuaded that he will be rather more than less himself for having forsworn the world. One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom. I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding open land. Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew - Only more sure of all I thought was true.Presumably many of these poems went back several years, to a time when the poet really was a younger man. my discovery I was somewhat hesitant to embark on this long, complete collection of the eleven volumes that Frost published in his long life - from this one, to In the Clearing, published almost fifty years later. After reading the poetry of Anna Akhmatova, Wallace Stevens, and Arthur Rimbaud I was prepared for something completely different, something much tamer, something perhaps even boring by comparison. But I found the resolve for at least the attempt, recalling a recent review of Frost by my GR friend Dolors. Tame? Well perhaps tamer, yes. But boring? My god, no. As I read through these poems, I was frankly shocked by what I (ignorantly, perhaps) viewed as their "modernist" style and voice. The thought occurred that they could have been styled after Virginia Woolf - except Woolf was not known for poetry, and Frost's writing would likely have come first anyway. Here's a poem that reminded me, a bit, of the modernist Wallace Stevens. (But Stevens seldom, if ever, intrudes into his poems with an "I".)MOWING There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound - And that was why it whispered and did not speak. It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, Or easy gold at the hand of fey or elf: Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows, Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers (Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake. The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows - My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make. But aside from the voice, and the style, there is… … the lilt In several of the poems, there is what seemed to me an Irish, or Scottish, lilt to the rhythm of the lines. The rest of the review will be poetic. Thankfully not by me, but by Frost, and a couple others. I. My Heart's in the Highlands * Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth; Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow; Farewell to the straths and green valleys below; Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods; Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. II. Love and a Question ** A Stranger came to the door at eve, And he spoke the bridegroom fair. He bore a green-white stick in his hand, And, for all burden, care. He asked with the eyes more than the lips For a shelter for the night, And he turned and looked at the road afar Without a window light. The bridegroom came forth into the porch With, "Let us look at the sky, And question what of the night to be, Stranger, you and I." The woodbine leaves littered the yard, The woodbine berries were blue, Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind; "Stranger, I wish I knew." Within, the bride in the dusk alone Bent over the open fire, Her face rose-red with the glowing coal And the thought of the heart's desire. The bridegroom looked at the weary road, Yet saw but her within, And wished her heart in a case of gold And pinned with a silver pin. The bridegroom thought it little to give A dole of bread, a purse, A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God, Or for the rich a curse; But whether or not a man was asked To mar the love of two By harboring woe in the bridal house, The bridegroom wished he knew. III. The Border Loving *** The wan water runs fast between us, It runs between my love and me, Since the fairy woman has made him a fairy And sat her down upon his knee. Eden Water flows cold between us And west of Eden the Solway tide, But the fairy woman she came from Ireland And my love stayed on the further side; My love lies snug in Carlisle Castle With the changeling woman for year-long bride. Waters of Tweed are deep between us, Fierce and steep the unridden fells; But the fairy woman watches the swallows And tastes the clover and hears the bells, And my love watches and hears and follows. IV. A Line-Storm Song ** The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift. The road is forlorn all day, Where a myriad snowy quartz-stones lift, And the hoofprints vanish away. The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee, Expend their bloom in vain. Come over the hills and far with me, And be my love in the rain. The birds have less to say for themselves In the wood-world's torn despair Than now these numberless years the elves, Although they are no less there: All song of the woods is crushed like some Wild, easily shattered rose. Come, be my love in the wet woods, come, Where the boughs rain when it blows. There is the gale to urge behind And bruit our singing down, And the shallow waters aflutter with wind From which to gather your gown. What matter if we go clear to the west, And come not through dry-shod? For wilding brooch, shall wet your breast The rain-fresh goldenrod. Oh, never this whelming east wind swells But it seems like the sea's return To the ancient lands where it left the shells Before the age of the fern; And it seems like the time when, after doubt, Our love came back amain. Oh, come forth into the storm and rout And be my love in the rain. V. Mairi Maclean and the Fairy Man (last part) *** Oh maybe 'tis my rock And maybe 'tis my reel, And whiles it is the cradle And whiles it is the creel. Oh maybe 'tis the meal ark That stands beside the wall, And maybe 'tis the weaving, And I'll being seeing to all. And maybe 'tis the pot, And maybe 'tis the pan. But I can write songs as good As the songs of the fairy man! VI. Reluctance ** Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow, When others are sleeping. And the dead leaves lie huddled and still. No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch hazel whither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question "Whither"? Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season? * Robert Burns ** Robert Frost *** Naomi Mitchison (contained in The Fourth Pig) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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