Ramayana

Ramayana by Maharishi Valmiki, adapted by Roger James Elsgood

This retelling of the classic Indian story was hard to follow. The version in the movie A Little Princess is much better.

Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems

Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems by Rita Dove

I had my firephone read this book to me. It may have been better to read the poems in print. There were some that dealt with watergate and slave politics. Also other bits of random poems. They went in one ear and out the other.

Inhabit the Poem: Last Essays

Inhabit the Poem: Last Essays by Helen Vendler

Poetry has a much greater "density" and requires more time and focus to read. The author of this book has taken it to an even greater extreme.  Each chapter typically starts with a poem. Then she starts to analyze the poem. Then the analysis goes off on tangents, bringing in other poems or the life of the poet or cultural events that may have a slight relationship to the poem. I got quite lost with some. My favorite one was Epitaph on a Hare by Cowper. The poem is a bit bizarre, but the analysis actually sheds light on the poem and the importance the poet had on the animal. Other poems are just as likely to talk about the poet as other poets that have referenced the poem. The author provided a simple definition of important poems: "poems that future poets continue to reference". That might be the most useful insight in the book.

The Portable William Blake

The Portable William Blake by William Blake, edited by Alfred Kazin

This is a more complete collection than the audiobook I listened to before. However, it still has gaps. Some of the poems are just "selections" from a greater work.  I've added dates primarily for ones that have complete works and a single date. His works tend to be very "grand" in scope. He has an elaborate mythology created. He used pictures and words, so would probably be right at home as a comic book author today. He has a large scale universe with grand mythological porportions.

There is No Natural Religion (1788) - a logical deduction series that looks at man being limited by senses. God is infinite. Man is Finite.

All Religions are One (1788) - Another logical deduction. This one uses a "poetical genius" as the source of all religions.

Songs of Innocence - these were 

Songs of Experience

Additional Poems

Verses and fragments from the Rossetti and Pickering manuscripts

Selections from the Letters

The Prophetic Books

• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793) - see previous entry
• For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise
• The Book of Thel (1789) - A sort of love poem. She is a deific woman who is all consuming. The boem ends with comparisons to many body parts.
• Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793) - tied a bit of love with mythological grandeur. 
• America - A Prophecy (1793) - Has a mixture of historical events and figured tied together with elaborate tales from Blake's mythology
• Europe (1794) - does mention Music of the Spheres. Did Coldplay get ideas here? Other than a few references such as England and Thames, this is more of a mythological world than identifiable Europe
• The First Book of Urizen (1794) - reminded me of Marvel works. This is a more typical epic poem of super beings 
• The Book of Ahania (1795) - Urizen is mentioned a lot in this work that extends the universe
• The Book of Los (1795) - another related Urizen work
• The Song of Los (1795) - ties together Urizen with biblical and contemporary figures
• Selections From ”The Four Zoas'' (1797) (or Vala) - This has nine "nights" each of which is a vvery long epic poem in its own right. It includes much of Blake's mythology 
• Selections From “Milton'' 
• Selections From “Jerusalem''

From The Laocoön Group

From A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures, Poetrical and Historical inventions...

From Public Address [From the Rosetti MS.]

On Homer's Poetry and on Virgil (1820) - short prose from Blake discussing old poets

Marginalia, I

Epigrams and Verses Concerning Sir Joshua Reynolds

Marginalia, II

Epigrams, Verses, and Fragments

Fragments - Inscription in the autograph album of William Upcott

The Everlasting Gospel (1818) - a look at Christianity and musings on the details of events from the Bible

A Vision of the Book of Job

From A Vision of the Last Judgemet [From the Rosetti MS]

A Visit from St. Nicholas

A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore

The classic Christmas poem is often known by the first line "Twas the Night Before Christmas". Since it was first published anonymously, the authorship is sometimes disputed (and attributed to Henry Livingston Jr.) The poem is a classic and defines many of the established Christmas traditions and Santa Clause. The 8 reindeer (but not Rudolph) all make their appearance here. Together with Washington Irving's History of New York, they show the power of literature to define the holiday season.

The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe

The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

There is a biography at the start. (Poe lived an interesting life with a morbid death.) There are also essays and dramas included. Poe was not a fan of long poems. He was a great, imaginative writer.

Annabel Lee (1849) - a somewhat morbid love poem, unfortunately read with a robotic voice

The Bells (1848) - the repetition of bells makes this one good

The Raven (1845) - Poe's famous poem. Captures his style well

To Helen (1831) - a poem of beauty with Helen of troy and others

A Dream (1827) - a dream, short and sweet

Alone (1829) - a loner in childhood

Fiaryland (1829) - imagery of a land of fairies

Song of Hiawatha

The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow composed an epic poem about Native Americans. The poem is filled with romantic imagery. There is a story in there also, but I had trouble grasping what was going on. The narration of this audiobook was also well done.

William Blake: Selected Poems

William Blake: Selected Poems by William Blake

This audiobook contains a lot of Blake's poetry, but suffers from lack of organization. There is no written table of contents or chapters in the audiobook. The Song of Innocence collection is roughly in order. Then it starts to get very random with the rest of the works. Blake's poems invoke imagery, and would probably be best read with the initial engravings. The audiobook format does not do them justice. Marriage of Heaven and Hell is an interesting longer work involving some conversations with biblical characters and situating them as people acting appropriately for their conditions. It has some interesting thoughts. "Why Was Cupid a Boy" is a fun little poem exploring gender roles and Cupid. I have a greater respect for Blake after listening to these, but now would like to read them as originally written

Song of Innocence (1789) - most of the poems are here

Song of Experience (1794) - the initial poems are present, then others are interspersed throughout.

I fear'd the fury of my wind (1793 from Blake's notebook)

Mental Traveler (written around 1803, published 1863)

Crystal Cabinet (written around 1801-1803 from pickering manuscript)

Grey Monk (written around 1803 in pickering manuscript)

Long John Brown and Little Mary Bell (pickering manuscript)

William Bond (1801-1803 pickering)

Why Was Cupid a Boy (1808-1811 in Blake's notebook)

And did those feet in ancient time (from Milton: a Poem 1804 or 1808)

Auguries of Innocence (written around 1803, published 1863)

A Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793) see above

Animal Crackers: Bedtime

Animal Crackers: Bedtime by Jane Dyer

This is a short book of bedtime poems. Some like "Wee Willie Winkie". Others are more obscure to English speakers. It is short enough to hold the attention of kids. 

A Light in the Attic

A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

This is the typical Silverstein collection. There is a girl that says she will die if she doesn't get a pony - and then does die from it. There are poems with rhythm and rhyme and those without. There are also plenty of drawings - including one short poem with illustrations spanning 4 pages. It is hard to distinguish from other poetry books by the author, but still good.

Animal Crackers: Animal Friends

Animal Crackers: Animal Friends by Jane Dyer

This book includes a variety of animal-related poems. Some are common nursery rhymes. There are some by well-known poets like William Carlos Williams, and others translated from other languages. Most are pretty good. The selection is short and easily readable.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Other Favourite Poems

The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Other Favourite Poems by Anton Lesser (Narrator), Anne Harvey (Narrator), Katinka Wolf (Narrator), Jan Fielden (Author), John Mole (Author)

This collection has a bit of classic poems. These poems are often "children's" poems, though the originals are often beyond the understanding of kids. The Pied Piper even has the children carried away by the piper. 

Falling Up

Falling Up by Shel Silverstein

This book of poetry is similar to Shel Silverstein's other works. It can be difficult to tell them apart. It has a bit of subversive child humour. A kid dreams of torturing a teachers with excessive work. In another someone tries to invent things, but they the things are ridiculous, like mustard ice cream. It is not quite as classic as Where the Sidewalk Ends, but still good.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Where the Sidewalk Ends Special Edition with 12 Extra Poems: Poems and Drawings by Shel Silverstein (Author, Illustrator)

Shel Silverstein has a keen wit that he shows with both words and illustrations. The poems have a variety of structures. Some are just a few lines. Others extend for multiple pages. The rhythm and rhyme differ from poem to poem. Some are almost unstructured, while others have a strict rhythm and rhyme that just begs to be sung. The poems are geared towards children and often have a subversive twist. There are some that rely on simple wordplay. (In one, the kid ate a drumstick, much to the chagrin of the drummer.) There is a long one about peanut butter and a short song about sucking your thumb and many others.

Hate That Cat

Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech

A kid is supposed to write poetry. The kid likes free verse, however, others think poetry must have rhythm and rhyme. The kid likes William Carlos William and his poetry. This is a really short book that uses the theme of a "cat" to write the short poetry. There are also some famous cat poems included (by the likes of William Carlos Williams and T.S. Eliot)

Guinea Voyage

The Guinea Voyage by James Field Stanfield

The bulk of the Guinea Voyage is told in verse, with some prose at the end. The theme is that slave voyages  were inhumane. The crew were treated horribly. The conditions were deplorable and they essentially had to sign their lives away before going on these slave voyages. And the condition of the crew was better than the conditions of the slaves. They were treated as less than human - possibly even less than animals would be treated. The author deplored slavery and saw the conditions of the slave trade as something awful.

The Lady of the Lake

The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott

Lady of the Lake is an epic poem that tells the story of some battles and fighting. I really have a challenge staying focussed on the overall narrative.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

Red Comet is a long biography of Sylvia Plath. Coming into it, I was not expecting much. I had heard of Plath, but couldn't distinguish her from other poets. As I read the first bart of the book, I became enthralled. I could relate to her experiences, and could picture other people that were similarly driven. She had strong academic standards for herself, yet she was battling internal demons (including her father's early death.) She grew up in an academic environment, and found herself drawn to the intellectual life. She got some high powered magazine jobs, but was disappointed in the superficiality. She struggled with suicide, and spent time in a mental institution. I felt both respect and pitty for her and a strong desire to seek out her additional writings.

As the story of her life progressed into adulthood, my interest waned. Plath came across as somewhat cocky. No longer the young striver, she was the young adult that was manipulating others while she was being manipulated. She fell into the various foibles of young adulthood. She was still motivated to continue writing and was willing to work through rejections to get her works published. The relationship with Ted Hughes seemed like a teenage romance that she wanted to turn into a domestic life. It felt like she was struggled between the desire to be a mother while also carry on an independent intellectual life. Alas, Hughes was a serial philanderer. He did great in the "fun" department, but not so much for the "domesticated". (The book focusses on the "good part". Plath eventually committed suicide. Perhaps it was a problem with her medication that drove her to it. Or perhaps she thought she would live through it as she had done before. Regardless, she probably achieved much more fame in death than she did in life.

Would Plath have faded into obscurity had she not died at an early age? Perhaps she would have focussed more on motherhood and let her writing fall by the wayside. Or perhaps she had her best years writing ahead of her. Or maybe she would have spent all the time battling mental illness. We will not know.  The biography starts out strong, then fades near the end. Comet is an apt metaphor for the life portrayed.

Pale Fire

Pale Fire is written as a scholarly annotated poem by a dead poet. The "author" (Charles Kinbote) is a scholar neighbor of the dead poet, Shade. It consists of an introduction by the author, the 999 line poem and the commentary of the poem. The introduction gives you a clue that there is something else going on here. The "author" is very full of himself, and feels overly impressed that he is friends with Shade. The poem itself is a very basic, juvenile work. Nothing that would be really "good" on its own.

The commentary seems to have nothing to do with the poem. The "explicator" uses minor bits of information in the poem to go off an a tangent about something totally different. There are a few main stories. One is about a King that escapes a fictional country. Another is about an assassin that is attempting to kill said King. The third tangent is somewhat more related to the poem and involves the life of Shade and his family and the relationship of Shade to Kinbote. The stories gradually become more intertwined, leading to some possible interrelations. Perhaps Kinbote is actually the King. Perhaps the murderer was trying to kill the King, rather than Shade. Maybe Kinbote is just a crazy stalker who has been much too obsessed with Shade and unable to accomplish significant scholarship on his own.

On one level, the work can be seen as a deep satire of academia. The Kinbote takes himself way too seriously and comes up with detailed interpretations that would be hard to justify based on the merits of the text. (Many long bits of commentary are related only in that Shade had written bits of the poem at the same time another event happened.) Even sections that may be somewhat justified are more highly influenced by the life of the commentator than the actual poet.

On another level, the use of a poem provides an innovative way to tell a "hypertext" story. Different sections can be followed back and forth to unearth the intertwined tales. They are a fiction wrapped in another fiction, making it open to many possible interpretations. I am not sure weather the fictional country is "real" in the universe of the story or if it is in fact made up in the mind of the "author." This opens many possible interpretations of the work.

TS Eliot: Voice of the Poet

TS Eliot: Voice of the Poet is part of a series of recordings of poets reading their own work. However, TS Eliot died in 1965. The quality of recordings in his days was not what it is today. (Think scratchy vinyl.) It does seem nice to get a recording from the actual poet. Thus you can hear what the pronunciation and rhythm are really supposed to be. However, why does this matter? Part of the beauty of the printed word is that it leaves the interpretation up to the reader. And besides, even if this is how the poet said things, is this really how he thought when he wrote things down?

As for the poems, this were some of his greatest hits. They have there strong points. However, you might as well read them instead of listening to a CD of Eliot reading them.