Where Water Comes Together With Other Water: Poems Review

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(More customer reviews)Carver can break your heart without seeming to try, and there is that quality in many of these poems. Written in the mid 1980s, in the last years before his death, they are that mix of bittersweet memory, melancholy, and joy taken in the here and now. Living with poet Tess Gallagher in a house overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington (Carver grew up in Yakima, Washington), he writes of the days that pass there, the frequent rains and the boats passing on the water, and he tracks the course of fleeting emotions, often triggered by long-forgotten memories.
He has this ability to discover the extraordinary in the absolute ordinary, and he can bring together ideas with images drawn from everyday life that disturb and shock the heart, as when he recalls an old relationship while describing the drops and smears of blood left in a kitchen sink after gutting fish. As with his stories, these poems are written in plain, conversational language while evoking at the same time the darkly inexpressible. Simple and direct on the surface, they are like being in a small boat on deep waters.

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Chicago Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) Review

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(More customer reviews)A recent death in the family prompted me to examine my life to see what I should be doing differently. The answer, one of them anyway, was I should be reading more poetry. So I got this little gem of a book from Amazon and read it through. Carl Sandburg was a master and one of the old time American poets who spoke simply and directly so that each of us could clearly understand. Fog is a typical example: The fog comes in on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. Wow! If that sounds like great writing it is because it is. I wish I could write a poem like that and I wish Chicago Poems would out sell my own poem book because it has so much more to offer.

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Written in the poet’s unique personal idiom, these early poems include "Chicago," "Fog," "To a Contemporary Bunkshooter," "Who Am I?" and "Under the Harvest Moon," as well as many others on themes of war, immigrant life, death, love, loneliness and the beauty of nature. New introductory Note. Alphabetical lists of titles and first lines.

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The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton Review

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You can like, or dislike, Anne Sexton. I won't describe her work (other reviewers have, and if you're here you're at least familiar), but say that if you've loved any poetry by Sexton, I highly recommend this book.
It's organized, chronologically, by her books (and hence her life): each poem from each book is within this one, plus some previously unpublished poems. Each of her books--in this case, chapters--is thematically consistent: fairy tales (Sexton-style "homages"), "love poems," time in the institution, etc.
You may not love every book/chapter, but the volume is a must-own. I don't see a need to buy "Love Poems," for example, or all or some of the rest of her books, when they're all in here - and each one not priced all that differently from this entirety. (It's also not oppressively long and hard to hold like some "complete" collections.)
Within this book, if you don't connect to one, two, or any of her other books, you've got them at hand and while enjoying the material you do--be it institution or masturbation--you'll be familiar with the rest.
Anne Sexton is my favorite poet, I admit, but when I reread a poem I far more often pick up this volume than the individual books.
As well, the chronological organization of "Complete Poems" tells a story itself - Sexton's life through her confessional poetry. It becomes a memoir, of sorts. While reading, you can easily see the year of each book's/chapter's publication. And in this way, the volume becomes a story and a biography.

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