Product Description

The poems in Robert Hass's new collection—his first to appear in a decade—are grounded in the beauty and energy of the physical world, and in the bafflement of the present moment in American culture. This work is breathtakingly immediate, stylistically varied, redemptive, and wise.

Customer Reviews (16)

One of my favorites: I think this book will last
While there aren't a lot of surprises here, Hass deftly portrays the relationships between experience and idea, language and representation. With a classical eye and a post-modern toolbox, Hass both praises and addresses the inadequacies of language as a tool for representation--and rarely does language seem as powerful and relevant as it does in this collection.

In my opinion, this book displays a broader range than any of Hass's other original collections: he elucidates metaphor/language as well as he did in Praise, he uses broad linguistic styles to create surreal settings as in Sun Under Wood, and he plays with eros and politic as he did in Human Wishes. But, somehow, I find this collection more readable than his previous collections. Although occasionally paradoxical (using language as elegy for language), something about these poems is more generous than much of his prior stuff.

If you like his previous work, you should like this.

Why the fuss?
I remember being surprised, when this book first came out, to run into reviews of it everywhere - in all the familiar places and also where poetry is seldom reviewed. So obviously the name has a lot of cachet. But it's the poems that matter, and I'm sad to report that the poems are tired, very tired.

The characteristic Hass poem - longish over a few pages, with longish lines of four to five beats, in a cultured tone, on the theme of the sadness or futility of knowing - makes its regular appearance here. But in between there are also very short poems that are new for Hass, and signal (the poems continually hint at it, though they never outright say it) an artistic crisis resulting in the need to experiment in novel forms.

When Hass celebrates sensuality, the guilt in his being is palpable. When he updates his politics, trading the demise of Europe for the demise of modern America, I want to object: But sir, who pays you? I find academic critiques of industrialism/militarism/capitalism incredibly annoying - because as here, they perpetuate the dishonesty, and offer nothing but half-statements, vague despair and foreboding.

One of best poems here is one of the very shortest: In all the mountains / Stillness; / In the treetops / Not a breath of wind. / The birds are silent in the woods. / Just wait: soon enough / You will be quiet too. (The poem is called "After Goethe.")

Stunning
This is simply astonishing poetry;Hass is,without question,the finest poet writing today in the United States.His work is elegant,fearless and humane.Whole passages are touched by genius,especially when he writes-urgently - ofthe madness of war. No historian or statesman has ever placed the multiple holocausts of the twentieth century in more clear-eyed perspective than does Hass in his poetic forms.In April,this book received the Pulitzer Prize for 2008. When today's poetry is catalogued and discussed in fifty years,this poet will be regarded as a laureate.Set aside your copies ofpast masters.Here is poetry that sacrifices none of the richness or musicality of the English language,while speaking to the present day in all its' maddening ambiguity.

The Pleasure of Reading Robert Hass
If I only had to buy one book of poetry this year, it would be "Time And Materials" by Robert Hass.I say this because Hass is poet who can combine soulful meditation about his physical existence in a world surrounded by danger from humanity's destructive forces, to his own private personal inner thoughts of joy and sorrow from having lived his life between that hostile world and the world that creates art.

I like to think that if Baudelaire were born and raised in San Francisco in the 1950s, he'd write poems like Robert Hass, poems that have this double edge of horror and ecstasy, this fear and wonder at the movement of time, this repulsion and this attraction to nature, to beauty, to the body--those "evil flowers."

Because, as Hass writes in my favorite poem from this collection, "Art And Life," a poem that looks like prose but that reads like verse:



There is nothing less ambivalent than animal attention
And so you honor it, admire it even, that her attention,
Turned away from you, is so alive, and you are melancholy
Nevertheless.It is best, of course, to be the one engaged
And being thought of, to be the pouring of the milk.



And what amazes me is that Hass's meditation on life as art puts the reader into the mind of the poet wishing he were part of the painting, inside the act of artistic creation, inside a human wish to be part of something so simple, a fluid gesture of time caught at the threshold, a woman pouring milk in Vermeer's famous painting.

Hass continues his meditation in this poem to take in his surroundings, the world that rubs up against this painterly light-filled, time-frozen world of Vermeer, to place himself like Prufrock in a public space where people go about their waking lives while the poet dreams and imagines who the caretakers of this painting are, the plain people eating in the museum cafeteria who reveal their vulnerability:

...I wondered
Who the restorer was.The blondish young woman
In the boxy, expensive Japanese coat picking at a dish
Of cottage cheese--cottage cheese and a pastry? ...
...She seems to be a person
Who has counted up the cost and decided what to settle for.
It's in the way her soft, abstracted mouth
Receives the bits of bread and the placid sugars.
Or the older man, thinning brown hair, brown tweed coat,
Brown buckskin shoes like the place where dust and sunset
Meet and disappear...

The genius of Hass, like the genius of Vermeer, is in his ability to create metaphor that captures human fraility and emotion in his descriptions of small, animal gestures like a woman's hands breaking off pieces of bread, or a man's pair of sad shoes.It is in those small gestures that we all live.Hass has been sketching those fine details ever since his first book of poems, "Field Guide" was published almost forty years ago.He is a poet that I return to over and over again because I gain from reading him a better sense of my own art of living.

haas does it again
Robert Haas, former poet laureate USA, has a problem: he doesn't write enough. But then that may be our problem. His readership hangs on every poem, every word in every poem. And they (WE, US)WANT MORE.

Not high flown nor lofty, his verse covers his chosen terrain, ordinary things from the ground-view vantage point. It takes us over the moguls and the pot holes with enough bounce that we know these rough spots are there but we're not jolted skyward out of our seats.

Obscurantism has had its day with the passing last century's lords of the obscure, Pound, Eliot, Stevens and their ilk.

Haas, Collins, are the 'ilks' we clamor for today.



... Read more

Product Description

Robert Hass demonstrates once again the unmistakable intelligence and original voice that have won him both literary acclaim and the affection of a broad general readership. Here Hass extends and deepens his ongoing explorations of nature and human history, solitude, and the bonds of children, parents, and lovers. Here his passion for apprehending experience with language--for creating experience with language--finds supple form in poems that embrace all that is alive and full of joy. Sun Under Wood is the most impressive collection yet from one of our most accomplished poets.

Customer Reviews (6)

Acceptance is not resignation
The review from 'a reader' is a common tragedy. Hass, like any maturing master has found his happiness in acceptance. There is no resignation or distance in the work, it is deeply intimate and passionate. However, it is decidedly lacking in the immature rebellion against human reality. That rebellion relies on dualistic constructions: good experience vs. bad experience, good vs. evil, etc. Nature, of which humanity IS, can provide all the examples for finding our place in our world, no matter the pleasure or displeasure of our daily experiences. "nature stuff"--the very expression is absurd, its flavor indicative of the disconnection humankind lives with by choice.

This book is simply wonderful, cover to cover. Hass creates a long ignored need for peaceful contemplation of the common ignorance of the richness of life we move too quickly past, discard and unconsciously dismiss as unimportant.

Amazing imagery, flowing rhythm, new and precise 'witnessing' of nature and nature's meaning along with human sorrow. It gets uncomfortable, the way great poetry should, and yet Hass resolves the 'disenchantment' is very beautiful ways.

Highly recommended.

each its own orchestra & cell
What to say of someone for/of whom so much has been said? In Sun Under Wood Haas' subjects are neither pregnancy nor egg, but the film of both: shell & amniotic fluid, full of a delicate exigency.Animals haunt these pages with a sad accuracy, their eyes pointers on a blackboard-"Dreaming last night that a deer walked into the house while I was / writing at the kitchen table, / Came in the glass door from the garden, looked at me with a stilled / defiant terror, like a thing with no choices."Dragonflies "can't wound each other the way we do. / They don't go through life dizzy or groggy with their hunger, / kill with it, smear it on everything."

I sense in this book not so much an excavation of experience, or a symbol-seeking in nature (as he himself is conscious of in the opening poem, "Happiness," where a small flock of tundra swans "symbolize mystery, I suppose"), but a serious meditation on the forces (including people themselves) that give & take away-both "what seems / the entire vocabulary of resignation" and "a various blossoming."As I read, I kept thinking that I had come upon the pivotal poem-My Mother's Nipples, Faint Music, Shame: An Aria-but (as this list is a dollop) I kept coming upon another fulcrum, each its own orchestra & cell.Haas bring to mind [& body] pain, loss, desire in a way that feels truthfully complex-"small droplets in the sheets of the body's shuddering late-night / loneliness," and elsewhere, "underneath in hangul: we beget joy, we beget suffering."

There is a lovely oddity in the language, where "the raccoon-universe" takes place. The details (and description of) glisten: an elevator as a "commodious aluminum group coffin," "a room full of bright plastics," "the heavy sweet smell of mock orange," and yet nothing is so evident to me in this book as worldwide, personnarrow cruelty and loss. Read this book, where even "Notes" are poem enough."It is good sometimes that poetry should disenchant us."

good stuff
Hass doesn't cross "The Confessional Risk Line" as Tuor puts it because he's a great writer.Lesser writers tell us how they feel.Great writers show us how we feel.More personal opinion: As I read Sun Under Wood, I had to set it down every few minutes to jot down notes for other projects because it's one of those books that set the gears in your head all spinning away toward different ends.A good thing when you need to write.

Lyrical, fluid, spot-on.A small prize.

"A Reader" says this is "More nature stuff," and I always get bristly when I hear that."More nature stuff" sounds a bit reductive and condescending, don't you think?"A Reader" goes on to say that Hass "seems more resigned than before as to what life brings and is not fighting for happiness."Well.I don't think that writing a book of poems qualifies as resignation.

"I had the idea that the world's so full of pain / it must sometimes make a kind of singing. / And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps-- / First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing."

Fluid Navigator
In this book, Robert Hass treads close along the confessional risk line but never quite seems to slip over it. This avoidance is tricky, given the highly personal material in most poems here. (I'd define the CRL as the point at which a poet fails to generate sympathy in the reader when discussing what is posed as personal pain - truly autobiographical or not.) He manages not to trip up by the masterful use of several strategies:

1. Distraction: when approaching the kernel of pain in a poem, he mouths around it, noting with palpable wonder the beauty and strangeness of the natural world before returning to the kernel for another little gnaw. Eventually acceptance - not so much resolution, which is hard to find in this book - is the reward of rationed philosophical nibbling. In poem after poem, Nature is a necessary source of healing distraction, and occasionally so are the imagined lives of other people. What's implicit is a deep sense of trust in the process of healing, which requires time and attention, but not necessarily to the pain.

2. Fluidity: structural as well as tonal. Distracting himself and the reader when things start to sting could very well make for clunky, ungenerous verse, but his casual tone (which rarely if ever asks for pity, instead lingering over what excites his curiosity) somehow brings us along willingly. Even when the interruptions are overt ("Interrupted Meditation", "Regalia for a Black Hat Dancer"), he doesn't derail. Perhaps this is because the reader has been coaxed into accepting Hass's constant shuttle between private musing and scrupulous description by

3. Beautiful, accurate language: Hass has a fine eye, and a fine ear to match. "dragonback of pine", "toss off grails of pure white idly" - the book sings often enough to singlehandedly justify the reader's attention. It's nice that Hass mostly refrains from simply treating his natural materials as springboards for hokey or artificial metaphors - as the old man says in "Interrupted Meditation", Hass doesn't excel at metaphor - but he does excel at bringing non-human life to vivid presence on the page.

This book is largely about overcoming pain - not in the sense of triumph, but in the sense of swallowing, ingesting, receiving, and transforming. The ideas aren't all that big - just big enough to be useful and pleasurable. As Hass navigates his sorrow, we're glad he invited us along.

"Sun" shining
Robert Hass's fourth book of poetry, "Sun Under Wood," shows where he's travelled from since 1979's "Praise." In this book, he's sedate and contemplative, looking at nature and relationships with the air of a man who has mellowed with time. Beautiful and sensitive, this lacks the passion of "Praise," but has a mellow charm of its own.

Hass ponders his childhood, and the childhood of the US: visions of the Franciscan priests coming to California, and bringing illness with them -- "They meant so well, she said, and such a terrible thing/came here with their love..." He looks back on his mother, on his father's death, and his bond with his brother in college. Not to mention "Sonnet," as a man listens lovingly to his ex-wife's voice.

But don't think that Hass only contemplates family. He also fixes his eye on nature -- weather, plants, animals, mountains, and the almost magical web that surrounds them in his writing. Even when writing a gritty piece on an airstrip, "Layover," he pauses to describe the "snowy mountains," "moose feeding along the frozen streams/snow foxes hunting ptarmigans..." His infatuation with nature peaks in the exquisite "Woods in New Jersey," and the dreamlike "Iowa City: Early April."

Good poets are remembered, while mediocre ones are usually forgotten quickly. Robert Hass is one of the former. His descriptions of love, loss and nature are striking and beautiful, and in that "Sun Under Wood" is not a change. It's an evolution -- rather than the fire and passion of his earlier works, this is a quieter, meditative collection.

The peak of his writing in "Sun Under Wood" is "English: An Ode," an apparent tribute to the power of words. It seems fragmented even for free-style poetry, but as it's read it makes more and more sense -- it explores words, their roots, their meanings, and their evocations, only to end on a distinctly romantic note. It also seems quite appropriate, since his poetry is so evocative. Without having to use dramatic words, Hass brings to mind snowy woods, noisy tarmacs, a tearful eye or a creek fringed by fronds.

Hass's writing has changed over time, and "Sun Under Wood" is a polished, contemplative collection of beautiful poetry. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
Former Poet Laureate Robert Hass 1979's Praise, the writers second volume of poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

a Euclidean reverence for form
Once upon a time, I was a naive college freshman who felt that contemporary poetry just wasn't for me: I felt that I didn't "get" modern poetry and that I just couldn't relate to it. Then, one day, I read Robert Hass's poem "Meditation at Lagunitas," and I was like, "Oh!"

After that, there was no turning back.

My favorite poems in this sublime collection, besides "Meditation at Lagunitas," are "Heroic Simile" and "Against Botticelli." All three are poems in which Hass masterfully combines intellectual rigor, lucid expression, wistful romanticism, muted sensuality, and an almost Euclidean reverence for form, structure, symmetry, and recursion.

One of the Five Best Poetry Books of the 20th Century
This is Hass at his finest.In this work he deftly moves within and around human experience with a Rilkean penetration and tautness of line.In my view, Hass' later work labors because it attempts to emulate the vogue chattiness of current free verse poetry and doesn't adhere to the intensity he achieves in Praise.

There is not disappointing poem in this book, something that many "great" poets haven't achieved in their volumes.All of these poems deserve to be reread often and serious poets should study this book to learn exactly how Hass creates his magic.

This book is as good as poetry gets.By all means, buy it.

The most important book of poetry I own.
I can't imagine having not read this beautiful volume of poems. Haas is a master. His poems are holygraphic. You end up being inside them! What he does with time and space is unequaled in all of poetry. No, I'm not hismother! I'm just a totally awed reader who thinks great poetry is one ofthe hardest things in the world to write. Praise be to Praise!

A rich, fufilling journey into an admirable ideal structure
Former Poet Laureate Robert Hass has created lyrical mastery- with a decidely Californian touch- in 1979's "Praise", the writers second volume of poetry. The book is most certainly a wildly rich,fufilling journey into what may be an admirable ideal structure. Hass useslilting, engrossing language, wisping by like a breeze but with all of theintensity of the view through which he looks upon his powerful and immensesubject matter. Of particular note is "Meditation at Lagunitas",a beautiful soliloquoy that may be the finest and most languid of ourAmerican poetic voices. ... Read more

Product Description

The Apple Trees at Olema includes work from Robert Hass's first five books—Field Guide, Praise, Human Wishes, Sun Under Wood, and Time and Materials—as well as a substantial gathering of new poems, including a suite of elegies, a series of poems in the form of notebook musings on the nature of storytelling, a suite of summer lyrics, and two experiments in pure narrative that meditate on personal relations in a violent world and read like small, luminous novellas.

Customer Reviews (8)

Confessional?
It is debatable whether or not this collection of poems is confessional or not. However, I feel that is not the important thing. What is important is that Hass has taken events in his life and emotions and forces the reader to feel and see them as well. It causes one to look at things in a different way, a new way.

These are great poems, be it to read deeply and study, or to just read them casually and sink into the emotions and thoughts Hass' words provoke.

A must for any collection of poetic works.

A Seminal Work of Contemporary Poetry
I must begin by saying that Robert Hass' body of work is without many rivals in the world of contemporary American poetry, thus to call this book his "most accomplished" -which I wholeheartedly believe- is not to say that the rest of his poetry volumes are not wonderful and, in some cases, stunning.
Still, "Human Wishes," in my opinion, stands out as a work of delicate craft and compassionate thoughtfulness. Hass achieves something extremely uncommon -among modern poets, of course, and so much rarer among our politicians!- he conveys strong conviction without smearing you with righteous rhetoric.
Each of his poems invites you to enter his vision gently but not without requiring you to engage your heart, and risk whatever borrowed ideas one may call one's view, for the sake of attaining a new depth of thinking and seeing.
Poems like "Paschal Lamb," an extraordinary example of his prose poems, show this conclusively. I can honestly say that reading -and often re-reading- this poem, has changed me. What may appear at its beginning to be a scholarly meditation on the idea of the "sacrificial lamb," moves beautifully to a reminiscence of passionate young friends dealing with the Vietnam War, and becomes a moving reflection on how regular human beings could change the world. So, ultimately, this poem achieves all three: it is a meditation on sacrifice, a reminiscence of people with strong ideals, and powerful proof of the transformational capacity of language to have us see and engage with life, more deeply.
Now, of course, that is just one of this many, gorgeous gifts in this collection. This volume is full of great poems, for instance "Human Wishes," "The Privilege Of Being," "A Story About A Body," or "Tall Windows" which, each in its own way, are remarkable in their gentle wisdom and unassuming, flawless craft.
It is important to note that, in Robert Hass' case, words I chose to describe his work such as "delicate" or "gentle" are, by no means, chosen to convey fragility nor mild manners. Mr. Hass' words manage a different kind of strength, of fierceness even, without raising their voice nor sounding alarms to convey their urgency.
Robert Hass has been an inspiration to me as a fellow poet, and as a human being earnestly attempting to live an authentic life.
Lives not unlike the people he speak of in "Privilege Of Being", who, at times, may live their lives ...

[...] clutching each other with old, invented
forms of grace and clumsy gratitude, ready
to be alone again, or dissatisfied, or merely
companionable like the couples on the summer beach
reading magazine articles about intimacy between the sexes
to themselves, and to each other,
and to the immense, illiterate, consoling angels."

Human Wishes
I feel in debt to Robert Hass for this illustrious collection of poetry. I happened to be browsing a local bookstore one day a few years ago, and some strange impulse (the like of which I usually disregard) provoked me to purchase it. I was just out of high-school then, and wasn't too familiar with how emotionally engaging "free verse" could be. In fact, it took me a little while to absorb his words so that I could feel the true significance of them. Hass paints his poetry with tiny, delicate brush-strokes, and is very uncompromising in what he is trying to say. This is what I've come to adore about free verse: you can use the word that most accurately portrays what you're trying to say, without worrying about rhyme.

Hass often sheds light on the subtle (and often overlooked) undercurrents of daily life. For instance, take this dialogue between an adult and a very young child from "Santa Barbara Road," one of my absolute favorites:

"Household verses:"Who are you?"
the rubber duck in my hand asked Kristin
once, while she was bathing, three years old.
"Kristin," she said, laughing, her delicious
name, delicious self. "That's just your name,"
the duck said. "Who are you?" "Kristin,"
she said. "Kristin's a name. Who are you?"
the duck asked. She said, shrugging,
"Mommy, Daddy, Leif."

Very simple, yet it perfectly illustrates how, from a very young age, were taught to search for our identities semantically; in the narrow labels that are given to us.

But enough of my rambling, just buy the book.

On Hass
Robert Hass (UC Berkeley, English Dept.) is a wonderful poet and teacher. Human Wishes demonstrates that he is one of the most interesting poets on the scene today. His verse is vibrant and energetic. I highly recommend this collection of poems. Also, Hass has done much to introduce poetry to the general public.

Hass is a Northern California poet who has an eye for subtle movements in the natural world. Whether his setting is Tacoma, WA or Mt. Tamalpais, he always manages to capture images of life at its most fundamental source. For example, in "Spring Rain": "...the light will enlarge your days, your dreams at night will / be as strange as the jars of octopus you saw once in a fisherman's boat / under the summer moon...."

The strongest work here is the prose poems, such as "Museum" (describing a couple at a Kathe Kollwitz exhibit), "Human Wishes" ("This morning the sun rose over the garden wall and a rare blue sky leaped from east to west"), "Tall Windows," and "The Harbor at Seattle."

Also, the third section of this little book contains some gems, such as "Misery and Spendour," "Santa Barbara Road," and "Berkeley Eclogue."

Hass loves word craft and the spirit that inhabits diverse poetic voices. His enthusiasm and zeal for the 'poetic' is much felt in this rich, little volume. In reading Hass, one feels as if the printed page could crawl or even perhaps fly away with the beautiful life that is found there.

I also recommend: C. Milosz, R. Jeffers, and A. Zagajewski.

One of the best books of poetry ever
Hass shows us why it's more important to release a great book every decade or so than to publish a mediocre one annually.This is absolutely one of the best collections of poetry ever.It blurs the line between prose and poetry in its pages, so I recommend it to fans of fiction as well as fans of poetry.

You can do much worse than to emulate Robert Hass. ... Read more

Product Description
For brides and grooms who want to give their weddings new depth and meaning, two acclaimed poet-translators have gathered a stunning collection of poems and prose that will add a unique and personal dimension to the ceremony. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Good selection
I had been searching the internet for months for the right reading (i.e., romantic but not sappy) for my friends to read at my wedding without success. I eventually found it in this book!

beautiful unusual collection of wedding poetry
Into the Garden is an exquisite collection of very good poetry. It avoids the cliche and the "greeting" card versions of sentiment. These are words from skilled poets and graceful writers. I write marriage ceremonies for many couples in my work so I really appreciate the choices this book offers.It is my favorite along with the Australian classic: Ceremonies and Celebrations by Dally Messenger.

Remi

A very sweet book and a great resource for ceremony planning
This a heartfelt book filled with sweet poetry and writing about love and commitment, and it does this without feeling sappy or unrealistic.The authors/editors have interesting insights of their own, and the book maintained a real sense of joy throughout.I used this to select readings for my upcoming wedding, and I think it contains numerous selections for anyone looking for thoughts about marriage that resonate with real people; it successfully represents modern love for me, straddling the line between practicality and magic.

HORRIBLE!
So boring - could they not offer better suggestions?I think I earmarked ONE poem...this is better suited for a traditional, ultra-conservative person who likes these really old-fashioned poems.Nothing updated or modern about it.I hated it.Sorry.

A Wonderful Anthology for the Interfaith or Intercultural Wedding
There are many collections of writings out there today which can be used in wedding ceremonies, or in related activities like writing an invitation.

As a practicing interfaith minister, what makes this anthology so special to me is the diversity of sources for the material. It includes writings of everyone from Emily Dickinson, Maria Rilke, and the Christian Bible, to those of Seng-Ts'an, RUMI, and Parancoti Munivar.This is truly a unique gathering of words and philosophies for anyone involved in preparing a wedding ceremony! ... Read more

Product Description

American readers have been fascinated, since their exposure to Japanese culture late in the nineteenth century, with the brief Japanese poem called the hokku or haiku. The seventeen-syllable form is rooted in a Japanese tradition of close observation of nature, of making poetry from subtle suggestion. Infused by its great practitioners with the spirit of Zen Buddhism, the haiku has served as an example of the power of direct observation to the first generation of American modernist poets like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and also as an example of spontaneity and Zen alertness to the new poets of the 1950's.

This definite collection brings together in fresh translations by an American poet the essential poems of the three greatest masters: Matsuo Basho in the seventeenth century; Yosa Buson in the eighteenth century; and Kobayashi Issa in the early nineteenth century. Robert Haas has written a lively and informed introduction, provided brief examples by each poet of their work in the halibun, or poetic prose form, and included informal notes to the poems. This is a useful and inspiring addition to The Essential Poets series.Amazon.com Review
An exquisite collection of the finest works of three distinct masters of the haiku tradition: Matsuo Basho (the ascetic and seeker), Yosa Buson (the artist), and Kobayashi Issa (the humanist).

The editor, Robert Hass, United States poet laureate, is the author ofseveral books of poetry including Human Wishes aswell as a book of criticism TwentiethCentury Pleasures, forwhich he received The National Book Critics Circle Award. The book isone of the larger series of poetry collections, EssentialPoets Series published by Ecco Press. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Gotta Have It
No traveler through this life should be without the deep, beautiful and earthy poems of Basho, Buson, and Issa. Robert Hass translates with a poet's mind and heart.Make sure this wonderful collection is in your backpack.

ok
Received the book quickly-
looks like it has been kicking around for a while.. some dents and scratches in soft cover-definitely NOTlike new. Book was written in-on page 42; the book's previous owner wrote: "a little water falls"in blue pen.
My intent was to give the book as a gift- will keep this one -as a result I bought a new one for my gift giving.

Not quite what I was looking for...
I was a little disappointed in the translation itself, having read different versions of some of these poems and also there is a certain amount of vulgar language, (words I can't repeat in a review even).I don't know what words they used in the original Japanese, but had I know what was used here, I'd have bought an older translation from a more genteel generation...;)

Here is an example of the differences in translators.From this book we have,

"Weathered bones
on my mind
a wind pierced body."

But here is the more elegant and thoughtful Penguin Classics translation by Nobuyuki Yuasa,

"Determined to fall
A weather-exposed skeleton
I cannot help the sore wind
Blowing through my heart."

One of my favorites.
The scholars and masters will be able to write a technical review covering all the fine points of why this is such an excellent collection. For my part, I just find I'm able to lose myself in the imagery so easily. It's become a sort of "apple-a-day" for my soul. I will never be able to read these works in Japanese, but I sense these translations carry all the simple beauty and truth of the original poems. The biographies are succinct yet intimate. The poets are masters of the art. The selected poems are amazing, inspiring, humbling, uplifting. I've shared this over and over, with people of very different tastes, and it's never disappointed.

Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful
I love this collection of haiku.I've marked several favorites with Post-It flags and thumb through it often.I recommend it to anyone, especially people who are knew to haiku, because it includes a variety of themes and the poems were all written by true masters of the art.It's simply wonderful. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Poets, Poems and Banality
Very comprehensive book written by a renowned poet.His analysis is good and incisive.He apparently has not read a poet he doesn't like.The range of poets is narrow and tends to the 'traditional' and not spoken word or slammers.If you want to purchase a bunch of poems that are typical 21st Century, have at it.If you prefer a wider range of edgy poems or metaphysical pieces (like maybe the beats or Sufi or Zen or Gil Scott-Heron) forget it.

Hass was the best Poet's Choice Guy
Hass did a great job during his tenure as poet laureate, and as the first and best of the Washington Post's Poet's Choice columnists.He found interesting poets, filled in enough of their background, and made relevant choices from their work.

Even someone fairly familiar with contemporary poetry can find something new and interesting here.

Robert Hass rolls
Robert Hass has a most gentle and generous intelligence. You can experience this in each one of his brief literary columns introducing a poem, poet or poetic theme. His love of language and knowledge of poetry inspires as much as it touches. I savor each small essay the way a chocolate lover would cherish an elegant truffle. His honesty cuts through sentiment and the historical aspect of each column connects me to my own past. As with any of Hass' books, I cannot recommend this one highly enough. I searched it out and bought it the day a friend graciously told me of its publication. You might say, over the years, I have become a quiet Robert Hass addict, doubly satisfied these days by the publication of his book of poems, Time and Materials. ... Read more

Product Description

U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass considers some of the twentiethcentury poets who bring him pleasure: Robert Lowll, JamesWright, Tomas Transtromer, Joseph Brodsky, Yvor Winters,Robert Creeley, James McMichael, Czeslaw Milosz, and others,in this, his first collection of essays. Originally published in1984, Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry won theNational Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. A new collection of Robert Hass's essays will be published by Ecco in 1998.

Customer Reviews (2)

Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry
Thank you for a textbook that was clean and in excellent condition!

yes
part of what makes this book so wonderful is the way hass captures his love of poetry in prose that is warm and consistently interesting and inviting, which is a big difference from most essays on poems coming out these days, which are long on ideas and short on awe.excellent and heartfelt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Landscape of Hass's thoughts
Robert Hass is a former Poet Laureate of the United States and this is his first book of poetry. As a poet Hass is mostly an autodidact, and he learned the art of poetry long before the poetry workshops became popular. This results in much freshness and variety of the forms that his poems take. And yet even in these early poems one can sense a lot of maturity and self-assurance in the use of language that oftentimes come with many years of experience. He is confident enough to be able to use even the simplest language in his poems in order to convey complex and nonobvious images.

The landscape that Robert Hass provides us with is primarily the landscape of California. It is the landscape of a magnificent coast, but it's also a landscape of its people and thoughts. Hass is a keen observer of the human nature in its habitat, and he reports it sometimes with its raw nakedness, even if this verges on provocative and vulgar.

The poems in this collection vary in style and length, from three-line haikus, to more prose-like poems that span several pages. All of them, however, bear Hass' unique signature and style. They are a refreshing read and highly enjoyable for every lover of poetry.

Hass' first poetry book
Field Guide is Robert Hass' first volume. An experimental assortment of poetry that uses images of the California landscape, as well as images of everyday life, as a form of meditation. Interesting poems, thought provoking and strangely positive. The poems also explore many forms and through them Hass is looking for his voice. ... Read more

Product Description
A moving miscellany of poems, parables, essays, and epigrams from the Nobel Prize winner.

I went on a journey to acquaint myself with my province, in a two-horse wagon with a lot of fodder and a tin bucket rattling in the back. The bucket was required for the horses to drink from. I traveled through a country of hills and pine groves that gave way to stretches of forest, where tangles of smoke hovered over the roofs of houses, as if they were on fire, for they were chimneyless cabins; I crossed districts of fields and lakes. It was so interesting to be moving, to give the horses their reins, and wait till, in the next valley, a village slowly appeared, or a park with the white spot of a manor inside it. And always we were barked at by a dog, assiduous in its duty. That was the beginning of the century; this is its end. I have been thinking not only of the people who lived there once but also of the generations of dogs accompanying them in their everyday bustle, and one night--I don't know where it came from--in a predawn sleep, that funny and tender phrase composed itself: a road-side dog. -from Road-Side Dog ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

"Either people's gratitude and respect or an embittered man's four walls."
Czeslaw Milosz's "Road Side Dog" is a somewhat uneven and mind numbingly powerful treatise from the Polish giant, counted "Righteous Among the Nations" for his resistance to the Nazi regime (which included attending underground lectures and getting Jews fake baptismal certificates) and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, written when he was 87.As wrought with doubt and agony as "Second Space", a perhaps lesser work, these 208 pages contain perhaps more wisdom concerning faith and life than a 1,000 page theological treatise by anyone writing today.

Despite being serious as cancer, Milosz is also hilarious.His hangman's humor, the best kind, emerges occasionally--a kind of world weariness borne of love.His epitaph for youthful narcissism: "To believe you are magnificent.And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent.Enough labor for one human life." "Learning", pg. 60Who beyond a certain age cannot relate to this?

Milosz is adamant, despite being a believer's believer, puts a sharp emphasis upon the ignorance of human beings and our inability to know very much at all: "You have no idea what is going on in the heads of people who walk by you.Their ignorance is hard to imagine and it can be discovered only by accident.This does not mean you are wise and they are stupid: simply that everyone garners information up to a certain level only, and is unable to reach higher.Space is limited, and they be unaware of what is happening in the next street.Also, time is limited, and events, which for you happened yesterday, for them are sunken in the fog of an indefinite past.Thus TV, print can transform and alter as they please everything that is and has been.We should wonder not at the power of propaganda but at the modest amount of knowledge which somehow gets through."( "You Don't Know",pg. 91)This little aphorism seems to me more pertinent today than ever, when people believe for instance that the President is a card carrying member of the Communist party when he passes a bill to assist the poor.How confused can we get?

His Christianity is not the product of stale dialectics or absurd Creationism.He believes because, not in spite of, the horrors he witnessed."An atheist should accept the world as it is.But then whence comes our protest, our scream: "No!"Precisely this excludes us from Nature, determines our incomprehensible oddity, makes us a lonely species.Here, in a moral protest against the order of the world, in our asking ourselves where this scream the defense of the peculiar place of man begins." (pg. 103)

This is straight from the bleeding heart of a man also made of iron.Gold.Unreservedly recommended for all.

Musings of a master
Milosz writes so sparingly, so effortlessly and with such whimsicality (one cover reviewer refers to Milosz' essential "elusiveness") that one is simply not aware of technique.I am reminded of the way that the notes of a Mozart symphony or Bach cantata seem to spring forth in perfect order yet with absolute spontaneity.Having recently read the novel "The Issa Valley" I was not disappointed in "The Road-side Dog" although the form is completely different.The latter consists of a collection of one paragraph to several page prose vignettes and similarly sparing poems.If a great short story writer takes the reader on a journey and communicates insights in in several pages, Milosz in this book does the same in no more than several paragraphs.Discovering Milosz in the last 12 months has made a wonderful impact on my literary life.

Philip Pogson

Perhaps even worthy of "wise"
Milosz has given us another wonderful book - one firmly planted in memories but not obcessed with the past.A wonderful section is devoted to poetic ideas that he has never written which he offers as potential ideasfor those who are younger.Unlike many who espouse religion, he is veryopen regarding sexual desires and as such he appears to be a whole andgenuine person not a literary front.As for the quality of his poetry andprose, there is a reason he was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature - thisbook confirms the appropriateness of that award.

Milosz is a reader's delight.
He is able to see into the human heart and condition from childhood to old age and then to describe its humor, wonderment, joy and sadness in poetry-like prose.Guaranteed to claim a permanent place in your reading"heart." ... Read more

Product Description

When Robert Haas first took his post as U.S. Poet Laureate, he asked himself, "What can a poet laureate usefully do?" One of his answers was to bring back the popular nineteenth-century tradition of including poetry in our daily newspapers. "Poet's Choice," a nationally syndicated column appearing in twenty-five papers, has introduced a poem a week to readers across the country.

"There is news in poems," argues Robert Haas. This collection gathers the full two years' worth of Hass's choices, including recently published poems as well as older classics. The selections reflect the events of the day, whether it be an elder poet recieving a major prize, a younger poet publishing a first book, the death of a great writer, or the changing seasons and holidays. They also reflect Hass's personal taste. Here is "one of the most gorgeous poems in the English language" ("To Autumn" by John Keats): a harrowing Holocaust poem ("Deathfugue" by Paul Celan); and "my favorite American poem of spring" ("Spring and All" by William Carlos Williams). With a brief introduction to each poet and poem, a note on the selection, and insights on how the poem works, Robert Hass acts as your personal guide to the poetry shelves at your local bookstores and to some of the best poetry of all time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

He holds your hand and leads you to wonders
What is the honorific for a former poet laureate? Calling the editor "Mr. Hass" is too stiff for the friendly, easy tone he takes as he leads us to and through an amazing assortment of poems. But thejournalistic reduction to merely "Hass" doesn't suitably honorthe knowledge he shares. The British would knight him and we could say SirRobert.Off topic you say? Hey, you've read the official reviews and thesynopsis. This is merely a rave.Try it .. you'll like it.

excellent means to discover new (and not so) contemp. poetry
This volume collects Robert Haas's columns on poetry, which he publishedin the Washington Post during his time as poet laureate.Although they areorganized seasonally, that structure does not become cloying.Haaspresents a poem, suggesting ways in which the language works, offering somebackground on the writer or the volume in which he found it.I enjoydipping into the volume and have bought copies for friends.I amconsidering adopting it as a supplement in my Study of Poetry class.Ifyou enjoy poetry, but have not been actively paying attention tocontemporary writers, this book is a must buy.

Quite wonderful book to dip into again and again
Hass, our recent Poet Laureate, selects from his weekly column on poetryin the Washington Post Book World every Sunday, now syndicated around thecountry.Through the seasons, Hass introduces modern poets andnot-so-modern, with a story, some biographical tidbits, an appreciativeinterpretation.His affection for poetry is on every page, hisappreciation broad and deep, and his touch with those of us who are notused to reading poetry very often is sensitive.As a book to dip into timeand again, as a book to introduce oneself to modern poetry and poets andthe traditions from which they sprang, as a gift of one fine poet to awider audience ... this book is a gem. ... Read more

Product Description
Rushing, rolling, flowing - rivers provide the ultimate metaphor for movement. They carve borders, create livelihoods, provoke adventure, and offer healing. From white-knuckle rafting rides to fishing stories to eco-essays, this collection by top authors explores the historical, practical, and spiritual significance of rivers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Rivers-A Love Story
Of all the wonderful anthologies published by Traveler's Tales, the Gift of Rivers is my favorite. From the Pacuare in Costa Rica to the Tatshenshini in Alaska, I love rivers. Traveling on water is the easiest way to get into pristine, roadless wilderness areas. While floating effortlessly on calm stretches you can see wildlife on the shore without disturbing their environment. Your thoughts glide as easily as your rubber raft wandering softly over a panorama of constantly changing scenery. Being awakened by the thunder of white water ahead keeps the mind and senses alert for adventure to come. Rivers, once the favored mode of transport, harbor tales of ancient spirits. This collection of stories shares with us the richness of rivers.Each of the rivers included have their own "unique balance of menace and charm." This collection is like a candy store of adventures for this travel writer aching to know the pulse of more of the arteries nourishing our planet.

[...]
Lost Angel Walkabout-One Traveler's Tales

The gift of "The Gift of Rivers"
This book really is a gift. Once you read former Poet Laureate Robert Hass's beautiful introduction, you won't want to stop -- and you won't be disappointed. We're talking range here -- from Isabel Allende's Amazon toLorian Hemingway's Arkansas to William Least Heat-Moon's Mississippi ...and from icy mountain torrents like the En in Switzerland to cultural mainstreets like the Seine in France and the Nile in Egypt and the Ganges inIndia, to rivers choked by industry and neglect like the Columbia in theU.S. -- honestly, you'll laugh, you'll cry.

Thanks for the River Time
If all of the world's rivers formed a giant continuous watershed (which in a sense they do), I'd put-in at the top and proceed to ride, glide and meander my way down the arteries of our earth. As I entered into eachunique river system - Congo, Amazon, Seine, Futaleufu, Siuslaw,Mississippi, Narmada - the human and natural histories of each river wouldbe revealed to me, uncovered, discovered like the layers of time and tideof the Grand Canyon. At the take-out I'd be changed. I'd better understandJohn Calderazzo's observation that a river can "turn into a state ofmind, a kind of feeling." That is the gift of rivers. Of course,there is no such thing as a put-in at the top of the world's watershed, butjust as good is Pamela Michael's book, "The Gift of Rivers." Turnthe page, enter into river time, hear the stories, and fall in love withour watery ancestors, the world's rivers.

grazie grazie
I feel fortunate to have had the chance to read the precious river stories contained in this collection.Some brought me and my friends to fits of laughter, others to tears and amazement- most of all they inspired us tolisten more carefully to the rivers and waterways that bring nourishmentand joy to all our lives.

Thank you Pamela Michael for sharing thesestories from around the world with us! ... Read more

Product Description
Since the 1960's, Robert Adams has used his camera lensto document the changing landscape of the United States. Covering theturbulent period from 1978 to 1983, Robert Adams' photographs of theLos Angeles basin document a disintegration that is at once social andecological. At the same time, however, they reveal a persistentverdancy and vitality in the landscape that contains a glimmer ofhope. This hope that Adams shares with the viewer is much like thehope held out at the end of a classical tragedy--insistent, yetdifficult to account for. In "California" we find a bird in adefoliated orchard, a suddenly clear day on a quiet road, theastonishing silhouette of a eucalyptus in smog--and we are leftwondering how to explain these seemingly unreal moments.The imageshere constitute yet another chapter in the oeuvre of one of the mostimportant landscape photographers of our time, building on andcommunicating with Adams' continuing contribution to the nationaldialogue about America's health and future--as well as his monumentalcontribution to contemporary photography. Printed in stunningtritones, this new monograph features a revelatory introduction byformer United States Poet Laureate Robert Hass.
Hardcover, 11.25 x 9.5inches, 57 tritone illustrations. ... Read more

Product Description

One of the most vexing problems facing American modernist poets was how to find a place for poetry and religion in a culture that considered science its most reliable source of truth. By the time Robert Frost began writing, the Emersonian concept of nature as an analogue for a benevolent deity had been replaced among the scientifically educated by the view that nature's mechanisms were based solely upon accident, competition, and survival. Immersed in his mother's peculiar blend of Emersonian and Swedenborgian mysticism, and already inclined by age sixteen toward a career in poetry, Frost not only saw his religious belief shattered by Darwin's theory of natural selection but also recognized that poetry, in the wake of stunning scientific accomplishment, was slowly losing to science what was left of its cultural authority. With both designer and purpose absent from the post-Darwinian world, the old religious orders appeared trivial, and humankind found itself dislodged from the center of the natural order. This view of nature, coupled with a series of debilitating personal tragedies, plunged Frost into a spiritual crisis, which he surmounted by writing poetry.

Arguing that the central problem of Frost's career was his conflict with science, Robert Bernard Hass examines the ways in which the conflict affected the development of Frost's career from beginning to end. Hass situates the poet's work in the intellectual ferment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and argues that as materialism collapsed under the weight of new scientific discovery, Frost began to see science as a historically conditioned mode of perception. Gradually viewing science as an imposed construct rather than a literal transcript of the physical world, Frost ameliorated his fear of science's disturbing conclusions, reaffirmed his belief in a spiritual reality, and subsequently formulated the most convincing defense of poetry since Sidney.

In this engaging and substantial exploration of Frost and the philosophical and scientific currents that influenced him, Hass situates the poet as a foundational figure in ecocritical thought.

Customer Reviews (3)

Going by Contraries - An Extremely Stimulating Book
Dr. Robert Bernard Hass' mind is a vast pool of information on the subject of Robert Frost.It is amazing to see the amount of information he found and interwove into his book.He sites intellectuals like Kant, Bergson, Thoreau, Emerson, and others, and enlightens us as to how each affected Frost's life and writing.Dr. Hass gives a lot of deep, explanations that clearly illustrate how the ideas of science and philosophy influence Frost's writing.(On a lighter side, Dr. Hass references William James several times.If you love William James the way I do, you will love this book!)

Dr. Hass' writing moves us to look at life in a different way. He shows us how intellectual ideas, both scientific and philosophical, affected Frost's writing.I love what Dr. Hass found and wrote, about Henri Bergson concerning intuitive vision.It is especially amazing to me how he finds the many ways to apply Bergson's, and other contemporaries' thoughts to Frost's poetry.Hass' ability to communicate this knowledge is amazing and each sentence is so full of thought.I find myself contemplating certain sentences over and over in my mind until a light comes shining through with illuminated intensity!"Going by Contraries" is a book that truly makes you think as you read, and I love that in a book.

"Going by Contraries - Robert Frost's Conflict with Science - Under the Sign of Nature" by Dr. Robert Bernard Hass
"Going by Contraries" examines Robert Frost's poetry through the lens of nature by presenting Frost's conflict with science.Robert Bernard Hass, Phd., shows us the conflicts Frost wrestled with, by providing arguments of scientific and philosophical theorists, such as Darwin, Bergson, and many others.The book explores Frost's creative sources for writing and the inspiration behind his legendary poetry with examples such as "West Running Brook" from where the title, "Going by Contraries" was obviously conceived. Hass' book illustrates how scientific influence was inevitable in Frost's poetry because science was gaining popularity in the late 19th century and early 20th; the time Frost did most of his writing.If you are new to nature and travel writing, and literary theory or not, this book is a good place to start.
6/30/2008 Martha J. Rogus

Robert Frost's Conflict with Science
Robert Hass not only recognizes the difficulties that Robert Frost encountered as a poet in such a technologically advanced environment, he further addresses the obstacles one must overcome in his/her aspiration to compose.He has written an eminently enlightening book that virtually any individual with an adoration of literature, philosophy, and/or science can appreciate and surely relate to.Along with an educated analysis of Frost's life and his works, particularly in regard to Darwinian concepts, Hass also recognizes the unfortunate fall of literature and its growing insignificance as technology replaces the need for aesthetics. ... Read more

Product Description
Water is the inspiration for the River of Words contest, an annual challenge that highlights the art and poetry created by children from all over the world.

River of Words: Images and Poetry in Praise of Water offers a powerful selection of the finest work from the contest’s first six years. With selections by children from places as diverse as Azerbaijan and the U.S., China and Ivory Coast, as well as Thailand and the Ukraine, it is colorful and passionate evidence of fertile minds creating fertile visions of the world. From the hearts and minds of children come expressions of pure joy and exultation, as well as sorrow and longing, all inspired by water.

River of Words is proof that children have the capacity to be intelligent, articulate, caring, creative, humorous, inventive and most of all, passionate. For many adults, busy in their day to day lives, how could we not feel a pang of envy for those heady times, when, as children, the natural world was what it has always been, a wonderful place full of discovery. ... Read more

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Berkeley is a wellspring of literary and artistic history. As a way of preserving and celebrating that history, the City of Berkley called on former poet laureate Robert Hass and award-winning artist David Lance Goines to design a series of poetry panels that have been installed in the sidewalks of Berkeley’s thriving downtown arts and theater district. The Berkeley Poetry Walk is a unique testament to the living poetic tradition. Filled with history, poetry, and anecdote, it is a splendid introduction to the history of poetry in the city, with full commentary on each poem by Hass himself. This work makes clear the importance, passion, playfulness, and episodic looniness of one of America’s most vibrant cities.

Discover all those who have lived in or been moved by this city: from Robert Duncan, Josephine Miles, Czeslaw Milosz, and Lyn Hejinian to Thornton Wilder, Allen Ginsberg, and Kenneth Rexroth, from an Ohlone Indian song fragment to poems about urban spaces, war, music, and of course...love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

beautiful collection
just picked this up and it's a real treat. beautiful collection, excellent, understated commentary that provides just enough context. Great variety. Recommended. ... Read more

Product Description

The annual publication of The Best American Poetry is an eagerly awaited event among poetry fans across the country. This year's volume in the critically acclaimed series presents American poetry in all its dazzling variety at a moment of extraordinary richness and originality.

Guest editor Robert Hass, a former Poet Laureate and a central figure in the poetry world, brings his passionate intelligence to The Best American Poetry 2001. In his engaging introduction, Hass writes that after sifting through dozens of literary magazines, he "found that there were large numbers of poems that gave me pleasure, seemed to have inventive force, or intellectual passion or surprise." The works he selected are diverse in every way and have only their excellence in common. Ranging from the traditional to the innovative, the book features important new poems from Anne Carson, Robert Creeley, Michael Palmer, Robert Pinsky, and Adrienne Rich; rare posthumous works by Elizabeth Bishop and James Schuyler; and poems by marvelous newcomers like Amy England, Olena Kalytiak Davis, and Rachel Zucker.

With comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's always entertaining foreword assessing the current state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2001 is a book every reader of poetry will want to have. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

In the end
Usually the best of the books is in the front but I found these in the end.

Two must read poems:
Apple - Susan Stewart
I stopped writing poetry - Bernard Welt.

Poet's Personal Stories and Pleasures
"We're bent in the garden planting spring bulbs, pulling up
weeds, and I'm wondering how much longer we'll crouch here
on our knees in the damp soil sorting things out. Guardians
of shrubs and flowers, the first wild cyclamen sipping the sun.
We watch over each other as we watch over our garden,
woolly branches of cacti, fiery pokers of aloes in winter.
Especially during a long drought, after a snowfall, or following
the arcs of missiles on our screen. Flurries of extra caring.
Some mornings we hang on to each other as if we're afraid to let go."
~ pg. 126, Shirley Kaufman

The fascination I currently have with The Best American Poetry series seems born of my curiosity to see how each editor creates a world of poetry they feel possessed to love. The choices made by Robert Hass reflect so accurately his loves and dislikes. You can live in a short moment of his life through reflecting on what it is he enjoys about the selections in this book.

Each poet sees the world so uniquely, but many times they seem to write from a place of loneliness, the desire to speak to another soul of similar substance. This becomes very apparent in the personal stories of pleasure and pain, emotional and real, fresh and trying. At times lines from a poem feel distant and sad while others spring from the page, pouncing on you with the joy of a happy kitten. Poetry has its own rewards and good poetry is the reward for searching through a lot of moments, that while not mediocre to many, may be to you. Your personal taste figures in highly in what you will enjoy and to one person, a poem may mean nothing, and to another, it is the world.

For this reason, I try to view poems from many perspectives. I will say that the poems in this particular volume can be especially perplexing. The truth is, you may read this book one day and feel completely disconnected and come back and read it on another day and wonder what you were thinking.

The mood of this volume is especially intellectual and complex with many literary references, like discussions of the death of Virgina Woolf and the writings of Dostoevsky. The poems are mysteries to be solved and require your full attention and don't seem to immediately welcome you into their intimacy. But then you happen upon a poem like Linda Gregg's "The Singers Change, The Music Goes On" and you know you have happened upon a moment of truth that will endure.

"We live our myth in the recurrence,
pretending we will return another day.
Like the morning coming every morning.
The truth is we come back as a choir."

Allen Grossman's "Enough rain for Agnes Walquist" has some very intriguing thoughts:

" -a smooth stone
passed in a kiss from the mouth
of a Fate into my open mouth
amidst odors of metal
and slamming doors
at the dark end of a railway car
as the train was leaning
on a curve and slowing
to stop-is lost. Lost"

Alice Noteley's poem must be printed sideways because the lines are so long it can't possibly fit on the pages any other way:

"always near the border and never in the snows come again and the purple sinister sky
so I can die and read the books they leave me always alive the letters and the letters letters."

Robert Pinsky's "Jersey Rain has beautiful images of the moon where he talks about "The chilly liquefaction of day to night." James Richardson writes "Ten-second Essays" that are numbered and give you snippets of moments to enjoy and expand upon in your own mind. A few of the lines are quite funny, like: "Say nothing as if it were news" or witty like: "The road not taken is the part of you not taking the road."

Mary Ruefle's "Furtherness" is especially beautiful in the most poignant of ways as she writes about death. The poem I loved the most was "Apple" by Susan Stewart which made me long for the Apple tree in my grandmother's yard.

"You can roast late apples
in the ashes. You can run
them in slices on a stick.
you can turn the stem to
find the letter of your love."

Most poets will find Bernard Welt's "I stopped writing poetry" rather amusing. I loved his line: "It's a terrible thing to receive exactly the attention you want." The entire poem gives insight into why poets write in the first place and any poet could relate to: "still a breeze reaches me from time to time fragrant of verse."

If you read this book and stopped at page 58, you would miss an entire world! I was so happy I kept reading.

~The Rebecca Review

why nobody reads poetry.
want to know why nobody reads poetry anymore? read the first 58 pages of this book and you will know. 58 pages is all of my free time that i could justify wasting. page after page of dull words thrown up by pretentious people with next to nothing to say. truly horrible.

What is poetry?
There has been much debate over the past ten years of what constitutes poetry. This book involves a broad scope of what is now considered poetry and why very few people "like" poetry. To sum it up, "good grief!"

The usual best and worst of poetry
Nearly every edition in this series contains I like and poems I hate. It really does depend on the editor's tastes. Since Hass is big on ambiguity, language poetry, and fragmented narratives, many of the poems here follow that.My favorites include:Bly, Rich, Lydia Davis,James Galvin. I think overall this is one of the top few books in this series. I can already see that I'm not going to like the 2002 edited by Creeley ... Read more

Product Description

Czeslaw Milosz did not believe he would ever return to the river valley in which he grew up. But in the spring of 1989, exactly fifty years after he left, the new government of independent Lithuania welcomed him back to that magical region of his childhood. Many of the poems in Facing the River record his experiences there, where the river of the Issa Valley symbolizes the river of time as well as the river of mythology, over which one cannot step twice. This is the river Milosz faces while exploring ancient themes. He reflects upon the nature of imagination, human experience, good and evil--and celebrates the wonders of life on earth.

In these later poems, the poems of older age, this Nobel laureate takes a long look back at the catastrophic upheavals of the twentieth century; yet despite the soberness of his themes, he writes with the lightness of touch found only in the great masters.