Poetry and About Poetry

You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake by Anna Moschovakis My rating: 2 of 5 stars Another award winner from the Academy of American Poets that makes you wonder. It is an somewhat interesting attempt, but nothing memorable remains when you are done reading. OR Leave the book and take the canoe. View all my reviews

Flies by Michael Dickman My rating: 1 of 5 stars Publishers Weekly said this award-winning book was "deliberately awkward." I agree with the awkward part. It reads like much undergraduate verse I have read, undisciplined, lacking craft, trying to shock with naughty words. View all my reviews

The Cambridge Introduction to William Wordsworth by Emma Mason My rating: 4 of 5 stars A brief but nicely done introduction and overview. View all my reviews

                                     Today   Today, as two planes flew into the World Trade Center, I cut branches from the maple tree in front of our house.   Today, while another plane flew into the Pentagon, I cut a tall branch that grew from a low knot.   Today while the buildings collapsed and burned, I found three near-fledged cedar waxwing chicks.   They were holding tight with tiny feet to the fallen branch straining necks upwards.   Above, in the crook of a branch that had been brushed hard by the falling one, a spilt nest from which they’d come.   I took the ladder from the garage, opened it against the tree, and rebuilt the nest as best I could.   Then I carried each chick gently back to nest, small clawed feet clutching desperately to my hands.   As I moved the last, it opened its mouth as if to ask me to r...

Curses and Wishes: Poems by Carl Adamshick My rating: 3 of 5 stars Shows promise, inconsistent, but some very fine passages View all my reviews

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie My rating: 3 of 5 stars Worth reading, but while Caterine's life was certainly dramatic, the suthor sometimes writes as if a romance novel. View all my reviews