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Title: Love Poems by Sheila Kohler, Peter Washington ISBN: 0-679-42906-9 Publisher: Everyman's Library Pub. Date: 02 November, 1993 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An Understanding of Love
Comment: But true Love is a durable fire
In the mind ever burning;
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning. ~Walter Ralegh
I am naturally drawn to tiny books and this book was no exception. I saw it and instantly fell in love with the red library binding and gold embossing on the fabric cover. This is one of those books you want to carry around with you in your pocket to read on a sunny day while sitting on a park bench.
While most of the poems were new to me, I did find lines to make any poet drown in the pure beauty of words. "In My Sky at Twilight" is a paraphrase of the 30th poem in Raindranath Tagore's The Gardener. The images are lush and mingle emotion with nature. "In Former Days" by Bhartrhari (5th Century) is witty and beautiful in its simplicity. Two lovers are so in love they forget their separateness and then drift back to being "you" and "me." The poem is a mere four lines and yet it provides a intimate look at how lovers feel when in love and when they drift apart. I loved a few lines in "The Palanquin" where a butterfly lands on delicate skin and transfers colors onto the lover's skin.
The poems are divided into 7 sections:
Definitions and Persuasions
Love and Poetry
Praising the Loved One
Pleasures and Pains
Fidelity and Inconstancy
Absence, Estrangement and Parting
Love Past
You may recognize poems by Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman and Dorothy Parker. I was pleasantly surprised by poems by Leconte De Lisle, Pablo Neruda and Dioskorides.
You will find a wide range of love poems. This book contains selections from ancient China to modern America. These poems present the universal experience of the human soul. As soon as I get some flowers planted on my deck I'm going to go out there and read for hours and hours. I've read most of the poems, but these are poems you can really dissolve into and if you love words, some of the lines will take your breath away.
If you are in love this is a dreamy escape and if you want to be in love, you might just be in love with words by the end of this book. I must admit to writing a poem after reading "Love Poems." It really did inspire me. I found this tiny book on the same day I found: "Together Romantic Saxophone."
~TheRebeccaReview.com
Rating: 5
Summary: "...said my Muse to me, look in thy heart and write..."
Comment: This is both an excellent and beautiful collection of
love poetry collected from many different poets, male
and female, and from many different eras, and from
many different lands...but the focus is Love...and the
responses to Love...
The poems are grouped in sections. The titles of
the sections are: Definitions and Persuasions; Love
and Poetry; Praising the Loved One; Pleasures and
Pains; Fidelity and Inconstancy; Absence, Estrangement,
and Parting; Love Past.
The "selecter" and editor, Peter Washington, says
the best words about the nature, scope, and purpose
of this book in his "Foreword": "My selection of poems
for the anthology which follows has been guided by
simple principles. Each piece had to be first-rate
in its own way, and each had to contribute something
distinctive to our understanding of love. Where there
is similarity of mood, there is difference of emphasis;
where there is repetition of an idea, there is variety
in music. The juxtaposition of apparently comparable
lyrics brings out their differences, and although the
poems are arranged in broad categories which follow
an obvious sequence, it is the echoes they set up in
one another which enrich them all."
-- Peter Washington.
There are so many fine poems that it is very difficult
to pick a sample--but this is very fine indeed:
* * * * * * * * *
In the moonlit chamber, always she thinks of him
Soft wisps of silken willows, languor in the air
of spring.
Verdant were the grasses beyond the gates;
At their parting, she heard the horses neigh.
Draperies patterned of gold kingfishers;
Within, fragrant candle melts in tears.
Falling petals, the morning plaint of the cuckoo,
Green-gauze windows -- fragments of an illusive
dream.
-- Wen T'ing-Yun (?813-870)
[Trans. William R. Schultz]
Rating: 5
Summary: Lovely, In Every Respect
Comment: I love this little book. It's chock full of poetic gems, yet each one is so different. The differences in variety are surprising...there are different moods, cadences, emphases.
The poems are arranged in broad categories and follow a rather natural progression from the joys of meeting to the pleasures and pains of being "in love," to an absence of one's beloved and past loves.
Some poets are represented more extensively than are others. These include John Donne, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova and Christina Rossetti, among others. I don't think anyone who loves good poetry will complain about his disproportionate representation, however. The poets named above are so good, and their ideas so universal, that not repeating them would have been the mistake.
Although all of these poems concentrate on a universally recognized aspect of love, the perspectives vary sharply. There are poems from ancient India, classical Greece, medieval Japan, renaissance England, 19th century France and modern-day America.
The one quality all of these poems share is first-rate writing. You will no doubt find some poems you prefer over others, but you won't find poems that are "better" than others. They are all of the highest quality.
Another thing I like about this series of books is their size. They're small enough to carry in a purse or even a laptop case. I read mine on the train, on the bus, while waiting for the bus, anywhere, really. I couldn't think of a way to improve them.
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Title: Erotic Poems by Peter Washington ISBN: 0679433228 Publisher: Everyman's Library Pub. Date: 12 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.50 |
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Title: The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time by Leslie Pockell ISBN: 0446690228 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Love Letters by Peter Washington ISBN: 0679446893 Publisher: Everyman's Library Pub. Date: 23 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.50 |
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Title: Great Love Poems by Shane Weller ISBN: 0486272842 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 08 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
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Title: Marriage Poems by John Hollander ISBN: 0679455159 Publisher: Everyman's Library Pub. Date: 29 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.50 |
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