Title: The Sounds of Poetry
Author: Robert Pinsky
ISBN-13: 9780374526176
Publisher: Farrar, Straux and Giroux/1998
Pages: 117

Robert Pinsky is a poet of US, who teaches graduate writing programme at Boston University. Here in this book, he takes up poetry in the vocal form. He wants that we shoud how to read out poetry loud, where should we pause and where to stop. He gives stress on diction, syntax, accent, verse form..ie..rhymed poetry, metric poetry, free verse and blank verse.

To finish off Poetry Month, a lovely occasion: a poetry reading at my library. Stratford is jam-packed with artists, and this one, Gay Allison , is a poet who has worked in the literary field for many years. This is a quick bio, as it appears on our library website:

Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos . . . do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–if any–do you have in your library?

In honor of April being National Poetry Month, I signed up for a poem-a-day via Poets.org. Each morning a new poem has arrived in my inbox - not a bad way to begin the day! Go here to sign up for yourself.

Admittedly, not everything I've received thus far has tickled my "awe bone," and many poems receive a cursory read before being deleted. The following poems, however, I just can't bring myself to delete.

I hope you enjoy them.

"Alpha Zulu", by Gary Lilley

"Just", by Alan Shapiro

What is it about this time of year that just PISSES ME OFF??

I think it's the people. Sometimes, I just HATE people. Or maybe it's something else. Maybe it's all the emphasis on finding that perfect gift, which I can never seem to do. Maybe it's that sense of good cheer I'm supposed to be feeling at this time of year. Maybe it's the carbs.

Nah, it's probably the people.

Hell, even I'M annoying me. That can't be good.

← I received a beautiful book for my birthday.
Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair.
The poetry of Pablo Neruda.
I started going through these poems today and I am finding them to be just amazing.

Soldier's Heart, by Elizabeth Samet

How do you convince an eighteen-year-old cadet that poetry has any relevance to his life? Poetry seems pretty unimportant in the face of roadside bombs and suicide bombers. Hell, I have a hard time justifying poetry to my eighteen-year-old students, and none of them will ever come close to Iraq. So I read Samet’s Soldier’s Heart with a special interest, although one does not need to be an English teacher to enjoy this memoir.

Isn't poetry absolutely wonderful though? I mean, really there is something about it that prose writing will never be able to quite get to. Poetry is so not reporting. It's so finicky, it is inherently allowed to appeal to a much smaller audience than prose. It is always such a narrow rolled-up newspaper telescopic opinion of something.
To a certain extent, the fiction shelves have to be saying... "I can appeal to you, you will be able to relate to this, please buy me, BUY ME," but the poetry shelves [more scantily clad and less visited] whisper to no one in particular, "This is what I am. Perhaps no one can relate. But no matter. I am not really for sale."
-- Cipriano –

Poetry Month is almost here, and lovers of the language are looking for ways to turn children on to poetry without the turn off that so many remember from their school days.

I'm not a poetry reader, but I wanted to get out of my reading box this year. So when Becky decided to host 19th Century Women Writers Challenge I chose Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Love Poems as one of my picks.

If you read (and perhaps review) any poetry this month or children's books this coming week, come back and let me know!

April is National Poetry Month
April 2 - International Children's Book Day
April 23 - World Book and Copyright Day
May is Get Caught Reading Month (PDF file)

I've really been enjoying National Poetry Month this year; all the different types of poetry I've been reading (old and new, by men, by women, Canadians and others) are just sloshing around together in my brain. I don't usually read quite so much poetry all at once -- fiction is more my Thing. But it's been a great month of exploring poems and poets, so to meld the two, here is a booklist of novels about/including poets:

1. Possession / A.S. Byatt
This is quite a stunning book, featuring two modern grad students racing to find information on two Victorian poets; the variety of poetry and letters and papers Byatt produces is dazzling. Plus the Victorian story is lovely and romantic...

2. Sarah Binks / Paul Hiebert
I've mentioned this one before, but the humour in this imaginary biography of the "Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan" is a delight.

3. Mean Boy / Lynn Coady
A recent novel set in a creative writing program at a Maritime university, this is a look at a young man's eye-opening experiences with Poets and his own poetic aspirations. It's funny and spot on for anyone who has ever been either to a creative writing class or been an arts undergrad.

The Essential George Johnston / selected by Robyn Sarah
Erin, ON : Porcupine's Quill, c2007.

This is the first volume of a new series by Porcupine's Quill, called "Essential Poets" in which, they say, an attempt will be made "to offer the best possible introduction to preeminent figures in Canadian poetry."

I would call this a fruitful week in the sense that I finished two difficult books. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, which took me a long time to finish. However, when I finally completed, I felt it is worthwhile. I have a good mind to re-read it again and I know I will savour it.

I also finished The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. This I read, while travelling to and fro for my seminar being conducted in another part of Delhi. I liked this very much. This is Eco's first book and he has done a great job of it. I look forward to read more from him. I will check out his other works. What I loved about this book is that it is entirely based on a library and revolves in and around it. By the description one can almost feel as if one is inside that mysterious library.

Cake, by Doreen Fitzgerald

When you reference one of my favorite foods in your title, I'm immediately impressed. So I began Cake, a collection of selected poems by Doreen Fitzgerald, with a favorable outlook.

Cake's poems are short, mostly all a single page. The shortest is the title piece, which reads They say you can't / have it / and eat it too, / but then, / while you're chewing, / it's all yours.

Despite the playful tone of "Cake" most of the other pieces are more serious in nature, especially when Fitzgerald writes of her past. Those with a nostalgic feel are among the most powerful, as well as those which discussed nature. (The title of this post, by the way, comes from one of my favorites entitled "From the Far Side.")

IT'S ALIVE! ALIVE!

I'm back from the brink of death with lots of reviews to post. I have recently fallen prey to my annual back-to-school illness, which left me able to read but not so eager to type. So perhaps it wasn't so much "brink of death-ish," but whatever -- I don't handle illness very well. I'm back, though, and better than ever.

What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books, audiobooks — which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be “reading” — why? If something isn’t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the sound of is in a format you don’t consider to be reading? Share your personal definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance.

I didn't have time to collect any links this week. It's amazing what can get done in the few hours the kid is in school. Anyway, John is sending me Coureurs de Bois by Bruce MacDonald since I won the Canadian Book Challenge giveaway this week. No it's not in French. Thanks, John.

Today's find comes from Jacket Copy, which featured storySouth, an online literary journal of the new South.

In their own words,

storySouth's most important mission is to showcase the best fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry that writers from the new south have to offer. Special emphasis is given to finding and promoting the works of promising new writers.

In addition, storySouth aims to prove that the internet is not just a medium of flash and style; that excellent writing can attract attention without programming gimmicks and hard-to-read fonts. To this end, storySouth practices clean, simple web design.
I appreciate its clean design, but even more important to me is its inexpensiveness. Many online literary magazines offer only a taste for free - just before you're prompted to pay for the full meal. Not so with storySouth. Here you can get it all without paying a dime.

So if you find yourself in work today with nothing to do, browse the selection of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art, and blogs offered up by storySouth.

My summer is officially over. With that, here's a review of everything I read during June, July, and August. I set a few challenges for myself. I failed a few challenges for myself. Oh well. I read a lot. That's all that matters.

With that, I give you my summer in review (please note that the two starred entries refer to books I was, for whatever reason, unable to complete):

BOOKS READ IN JUNE
1. unSpun
2. Jude the Obscure
3. State of Fear
4. The Butterfly Revolution

The Island means Minago / Milton AcornNew Canada Press, c1975.
I've been so busy making reading plans for the new year, I haven't been looking back enough -- and I have a slew of reviews to catch up on. I'll call this my week of reviews and try to talk a bit about some of the books I read as the year was turning over.

Neurotica, by Elva Maxine Beach

Elva Maxine Beach’s Neurotica isn’t like anything I’ve ever read before. True, it features male-female dynamics as well as a thoughtful exploration of issues like power and control, but Beach explores these themes differently than most other authors do.

As indicated by the title, Neurotica blends both the psychological and the erotic. In fact, as Beach explains on her website, “My work isn’t necessarily erotica… It’s raw, yes, and there’s lots of fucking and sucking, but my work delves into the psyche. It’s psyche-sexual drama.”

Stars: ***1/2I read this book for the Four-Legged Friends and In Their Shoes challenges.

This book wasn’t exactly what I was imagining it to be. With a title of Dog Years and a genre of memoir, it was obvious it would be about someone’s life with dogs. However it’s more than that. It delves into the author’s life more than the average memoir and in fact, it’s labelled with a biography sticker at my library. The first 4 chapters I found quite dry and hard to follow. The antedotes about the dogs were interesting but he seemed to ramble on about his life and his view of life. From chapter 5 on however it got better. The stories got more interesting and I could tell there was a shift in style so that the story flowed easier.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris

My latest review is available at Pajiba, this time on the latest by David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames.

Many critics complain that this latest collection of personal essays isn't as hilarious as previous collections, such as Naked, which, to be fair, made me wet my pants from laughing too hard. However, comparing Engulfed to Naked is, in my mind, a bit unfair, and you can read what I say in response to such criticism here.

In a nutshell: Perhaps not as hilarious as previous works, but that doesn't mean When You Are Engulfed in Flames isn't worth the read.

Bibliolatry Scale: 5 out of 6 stars

There is paint work going on in one part of our house. The air is smelling of fresh paint. I love the smell of paint but it is getting too much lately. 10 more days to go. I am going nuts over it. I keep reading. This time I read a novel from a collection of three by Patricia Gaffney. I had not heard of her before this. I got this book as an advance birthday gift for March 22! (Anyone else interested to send me birthday gifts?! :D)

Circle of Three is one of the three novels in one FAT volume. I say fat becos, this in itself is 421 pages. I started it on Friday and managed to finish it a while back. It took me a while as I had to evaluate answersheets in the midst of it all, i.e, blogging, writing poetry, reading. You get the gist?

Okay, even I can’t read ALL the time, so I’m guessing that you folks might voluntarily shut the covers from time to time as well… What else do you do with your leisure to pass the time? Walk the dog? Knit? Run marathons? Construct grandfather clocks? Collect eggshells?

Of course, I give myself a break from books once in a while. I am yet to finish a book till now, since February started. Somehow I do not feel upto it.

That gives me time to listen to music..I am exploring new music. I have bought myself a Yamaha keyboard player and learning to play it. I am nowhere near perfection as yet!

I have been looking up into art. I am visiting museums, monuments and trying to learn the history sans books.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark

On a good day, I believe in signs. I’d like to believe that a superior being guides our lives, and in so doing sends signs, omens, and portents to direct or forestall our behavior. On a bad day, I feel there is only chaos, and while I know some who manage to find comfort in such disorder, I am not one of them.

Happily enough, I never find more signs than when searching for my next book to read. Without a set course of action, I bebop from book to book, author to author, period to period with no special plan. Many times, I feel a distinct “call” to read a particular novel, and I know its time has come. With few exceptions, each book I’ve been “called” to read has been essential to understanding some facet of my life at that moment. And so it was with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The bookish fates worked their magic again.

Jane Urquhart is probably best known for her many novels, however, she is also a poet. She is also a Stratfordian, so in celebration of my current home town and of poetry month in general, I'll share one of her works. And to see how poetry plays into her fiction writing, take a look at this lovely interview from a few years ago.
Her husband, artist Tony Urquhart, collaborated with her on her first book, a limited edition (531 copies) of a book of poetry, I am walking in the garden of his imaginary palace : eleven poems for Le Notre. (Panoramas by Tony Urquhart. -- Toronto : Aya Press, 1982.) Copies of the 140 first-state books are going for an average of $530 these days. Nice!