Reviews for Selected Essays

The average rating for Selected Essays based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-19 00:00:00 Steven Levin The title is a bit deceptive as this is primarily an anthology, but from an anthology you really couldn't ask for more. It covers the evolution of the sonnet century by century, beginning with the 16th. It of course includes all the biggies (Shakespeare, Hopkins, Millay, etc.), but the 20th century especially is riddled with poets unknown or only barely known to me. Here's one: from Mystery Train David Wojhan 1. Homage: Light From the Hall It is Soul Brother Number One, James Brown, Chanting, "It wouldn't be nothing, Noth-iiiinnnnnggg...." Dismembering the notes until everything hangs On his mystical half-screech, notes skidding 'round Your brain as you listen, rapt, thirteen, Transistor and its single earphone tucked With you beneath the midnight covers, station WKED, Big Daddy Armand, The Ragin' Cajun, "Spinning the bossest platters for you all," Golden age trance, when New Orleans stations Traveling two thousand miles shaped distance Into alchemy. Beneath the door, a light from the hall Bathing the bedroom in its stammering glow: Cooke and Redding risen, James Brown quaking the Apollo. And another (and older) just because... Sonnet 30 Edmund Spenser My love is lyke to yse, and I to fyre; How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desyre. But harder growes the more I her intreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not delayd by her hart frosen cold: But that I burne much more in boyling sweat, And feele my flames augmented manifold? What more miraculous thing may be told, That fire which all things melts, should harden yse: And yse which is congeald with sencelesse cold, Should kindle fyre by wonderful devyse? Such is the powre of love in gentle mind, That it can alter all the course of kynd.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-12-06 00:00:00 Brian Myers An excellent collection, organized by century. Extraordinary to see the ways in which the form developed over time, and also the unique approach of each poet within the same strict form. Lovely. Here's a sample: The Illiterate - by George Meredith Touching your goodness, I am like a man Who turns a letter over in his hand And you might think this was because the hand Was unfamiliar, but, truth is, the man Has never had a letter from anyone; And now he is both afraid of what it means And ashamed because he has no other means To find out what it says than to ask someone. His Uncle could have left the farm to him, Or his parents died before he sent them word, Or the dark girl changed and want him for beloved. Afraid and letter-proud, he keeps it with him. What would you call his feeling for the words That keep him rich and orphaned and beloved? 106) Death Be Not Proud - John Donne 106) Batter My Heart - " " 143) Grasshopper and the Cricket - Leigh Hunt 155) Half My Life is Gone - Longfellow 155) The Sheaves - " " 189) The Silken Tent - Frost 190) Never Again - " " 213) View - Phyllis McGinley 232) The Illiterate - William Meredith 237) The Snow Weed - Howard Moss 238) Jacob's Ladder - Donald Davie 239) Death By Drowning - Elizabeth Brewster 242) Mrs. Snow - Donald Justice 251) Llanto - Philip Levine 258) Conversation Among the Ruins - Sylvia Plath 264) Poetic - K. Fields 267) Sonnet - Robert Pinsky 300) Sonnet - Michelangelo 305) Wreath - George Herbert 332) American Sonnet - Billy Collins 344) I Find No Peace - Petrarch 344) My Lady - Michelangelo 351) Night Scene - Paul Verlaine 360) Sonnet - Phillippe Jaccottet