Three Poetry Book Reviews

It has been a good month for reading poetry. Here are three short reviews of poetry books I've read this month.

100 Poems to Break Your Heart by Edward Hirsch

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021

492 pages

Edward Hirsch has written over ten poetry books himself and several books like this one where he analyzes poetry. The guy clearly knows what he is talking about when it comes to poetry. First, I am gobsmacked that anyone could locate 100 poems on any one theme, let alone heart-breaking ones. Secondly he was able to identify not only the sad stuff in each poem, which is often coded or unclear, but he also knew the type of poem, the rhyming schemes, etc. Wow. Just wow. I admit that I often breezed my way through his descriptions of the technical stuff, preferring to read about the poet or his explanations where and why this poem was so poignant.

 

The 100 poems were organized chronologically starting with Wordsworth's "Surprised by Joy" (1815) through Meena Alexander's last poem before her death, "Kishna, 3:29 A.M." (2018). Some of the poems really affected me, while many left me feeling flat, but I agree that all were heartbreaking to some degree. I had to laugh when I got to the poems written in the 1970s. What a weird period of time and the poems reflected it. I found the poems written during the 1940s and WWII to be the most impactful. Apparently, Hitler had it in for poets and other artists and so much talent was destroyed during his regime. Those poets left behind had to be their witnesses and their voices.

Here is an excerpt from a poem, "What the Living Do", and how Hirsch handled the discussion about it. The poet Marie Howe had lost a dear brother to AIDS. She wanted to eulogize him but finally settled on writing him a letter, as if he is reading it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

Howe is describing an intense, revelatory moment, a "moment of being" to use Virginia Woolf's phrase. It is no accident that the speaker becomes dumbfounded and astonished at the end of the poem. It's only when she sees herself in reflection that she is gripped by a sense of self-care, of being alive, out in the open, exposed. She is robbed of speech and therefore concludes with a simple living pronouncement: "I am living. I remember you" (Hirsch, 334).

It were those types of little pieces of information that made me go back and reread the poems and experience them with new eyes. Though the book was long and sometimes tedious or just clearly over my head, I did enjoy reading it a lot. In fact, I think I will look around for one of Hirsch's earlier works like How to Read a Poem.

Rating: 4.25

Home Body by Rupi Kaur

Andrew McMeel Publishing, 2020

192 pages

 

Rupi Kaur is a poet, artist, and a performer. As a 21-year-old college student she self-published her first book of poems, Milk and Honey. It sold millions of copies and was translated into 42 languages. Her second collection, The Sun and Her Flowers, was equally well received. Home Body is Kaur's third poetry collection and it deals with some tough themes: love, loss, trauma, femininity, and migration. The poems are usually quite short accompanied by simple line drawings done by Kaur also. Just because they are short doesn't mean they don't pack a punch, however.  Many made me cringe or want to cry. Here is an example of one poem on kindness:

Apparently Rupi Kaur is taking her poems on the road, presenting them in a World Tour. She will be at the Paramount Theater in Seattle which is the largest theater in the city. Not sure how intimate that will feel but it shows she has a huge following.

Rating: 4

 

The Rain in Portugal: Poems by Billy Collins

Random House, 2016

108 pages

Billy Collins is just a fun poet to read. His poems, by and large, are witty and imaginative. Many of the poems seems to be mined straight from whatever Collins was thinking about or experiencing the moment before it was jotted down. The collection starts with the poem "1960" which relates to a joke and a recording of a jazz ensemble:

In the old joke,

the marriage counselor

tells the couple who never talks anymore

to go to a jazz club because at a jazz club

everyone talks during the bass solo.

 

It goes on to say that in actuality no one is really listening to the music, you just notice it during the quieter part when the bass has a solo. In fact, he is quite familiar with all the talking at jazz clubs because he knows exactly when the guy, who is making a move on his date, will speak out to be captured for all time on the recording. Collins' poems all seem to be witty like that. They might start on a serious subject and suddenly the reader will realize that they got fooled again by him, as the poem ends on funny note.

Though I would not consider any of these poems as favorite, I did read several out loud to my husband. It seemed like a nice counter-balance to the 100 Poems to Break Your Heart for their lighthearted nature. If you are poetry-shy, reading Billy Collins is a good place to start.

Rating: 4

-Anne