Poetry Logging
Jul. 29th, 2018 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckFeld, Andrew. Citizen - Short book of poetry. The publication date on this volume is 2003, but a lot of the poems felt anchored earlier in time. They also read to me as elliptical narratives that talked around things rather than about them.
Flynn, Nick. My Feelings - Short book of poetry. These felt like fragments of glass that had to be carefully pieced together for meaning and that would slice unwary fingers. Contains references to parental suicide, to death due to illness, and to addiction.
Fogliano, Julie. When Green Becomes Tomatoes - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at children. There are four sections to the book, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, and each poem has a month and day instead of a title. Mostly, there’s no capitalization which is something that makes reading harder for me. I liked some of the poems and found others not quite hitting the mark. I still have Opinions about shelving children’s picture books as non-fiction. Basically, I feel like the non-fiction section is hidden from a lot of families with very small children. If the parents don’t know that the resources are exist before they go to the library, they’re never going to find them by browsing the shelves because non-fiction is a jumble of things that are three year old appropriate and interesting and things that really, really, really aren’t.
Forche, Carolyn. Blue Hour - Short book of poetry. I almost stopped a couple of times in this book. There’s a long poem (pp. 23-69) that’s just an alphabetical list of fragmented lines, some of them lines from other poems in the book, that I couldn’t find a through line for. Each line is an image, but at least for me, they didn’t fit together to make anything but cacophony.
Frost, Robert. In the Clearing - I’ve liked Frost’s poetry before, but this one has some clunkers. Some of the ideas are also clearly dated in cringy ways. Some of the poems in the volume are okay, but I can’t really recommend it.
Katz, Susan. Looking for Jaguar and Other Rain Forest Poems - Short, illustrated book of poems aimed at children. All of them are about bits of rainforest wildlife. This is not focused on one continent’s rainforests which might be confusing for those who don’t already know where the different animals come from (there’s a section at the end of the book that gives that information) since it’s not clear that different poems are set in different places.
Madrid, Anthony. Try Never - Short book of poetry. There’s a lot of repetition in these, repeated phrases, that is. In most of the poems every stanza starts with the same phrase (usually the title). I may have liked these. I didn’t dislike them, certainly. I just have a hard time judging between finding poetry smooth reading and actually liking it. Those aren’t necessarily the same things.
Murray, Carol. Cricket in the Thicket - Short, illustrated book of poems about bugs and spiders and such and intended for children. These were very jingly, but each poems has accompanying text giving a little bit of information about the creature that’s the subject.
Nguyen, Hieu Minh. This Way to the Sugar - Short book of poetry. These read to me as slashes of anger that cut the author as much as (more than?) the reader. That is, I got a thread of self-blame/self-hatred in a lot of poems for things that didn’t read to me as meriting that. Some poems reference child sexual abuse, some family dysfunction, some homophobia, some racism. I suspect that they could be triggering on all counts.
Niedecker, Lorine. Harpsichord & Salt Fish - Short book of poetry. The poems are all very sparse, and the longer ones are clearly referring to specifics of the lives of those they’re named for. I didn’t really enjoy most of these because I felt like I was supposed to be able to fill in the white space and really couldn’t so much or-- as in the case with the long poem about Thomas Jefferson-- was filling in the wrong backdrop.
Nye, Naomi Shihab. A Maze Me: Poems for Girls - Each poem here is a moment in life, mostly moments in childhood and adolescence but some adult experiences, too. Nye’s phrasing is very clear. It doesn’t tend to the flowery or to the metaphoric. I miss those aspects, but I understood what she was saying in each poem and don't always when the language is more oblique.
Ryan, Kay. Erratic Facts - Very short book of poetry. I generally liked these and was able to follow the ideas in each poem.
Sidman, Joyce. This Is Just to Say - Short, illustrated book of poetry meant for children. The conceit of the book is members of a sixth grade class writing apology poems and then having the people they wrote to write poems back to them. The only place I found the information about the kids being fictional was in Sidman’s author profile on the dustjacket, so a reader could easily think that this was a real class project.
Simic, Charles. Hotel Insomnia - Short book of poetry. These felt kind of plodding to me. The words worked together, but there wasn’t any spark that made me feel like I was reading something other than prose. I expect not-me people might react differently.
Soto, Gary. Worlds Apart: Traveling with Fernie and Me - Short, illustrated book of poems for children. The idea here is two middle school aged boys traveling around the world. Each poem is set in a different place.
Updike, John. Americana and Other Poems - Short book of poetry. I enjoyed Updike's poetry more than I expected to.
Updike, John. Endpoint and Other Poems - Short book of poetry. Most of these poems have Updike looking through the lens of knowing that the time he has left is very short. He's clearly both resigned and not ready.
Yolen, Jane and Rebecca Kai Dotlich. Grumbles from the Forest - Short, illustrated book of poems. The poems are paired, one from each author about each specific fairy tale. None of the stories are at all obscure, so I would expect most readers to know them. Some of the angles on them are a little odd, but they connect very clearly to the fairy tales.
Zapruder, Matthew. The Pajamist - Short book of poems. I found a number of these dense in the wall of text sense. Beyond that, I don’t remember much.
Started but not finished:
Schaub, Michelle. Fresh-Picked Poetry: A Day at the Farmer’s Market - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. I bounced hard on this one, but I think it would appeal to the intended audience.
Voigt, Ellen Bryant. Kyrie - Short book of poetry. The theme here is the flu epidemic of 1918-1919. The poems aren’t labeled or titled, but some of them clearly follow specific people. I got about 25% of the way in and realized that I couldn’t face the rest. I might have had more ability to keep going if the characters had names.
Flynn, Nick. My Feelings - Short book of poetry. These felt like fragments of glass that had to be carefully pieced together for meaning and that would slice unwary fingers. Contains references to parental suicide, to death due to illness, and to addiction.
Fogliano, Julie. When Green Becomes Tomatoes - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at children. There are four sections to the book, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, and each poem has a month and day instead of a title. Mostly, there’s no capitalization which is something that makes reading harder for me. I liked some of the poems and found others not quite hitting the mark. I still have Opinions about shelving children’s picture books as non-fiction. Basically, I feel like the non-fiction section is hidden from a lot of families with very small children. If the parents don’t know that the resources are exist before they go to the library, they’re never going to find them by browsing the shelves because non-fiction is a jumble of things that are three year old appropriate and interesting and things that really, really, really aren’t.
Forche, Carolyn. Blue Hour - Short book of poetry. I almost stopped a couple of times in this book. There’s a long poem (pp. 23-69) that’s just an alphabetical list of fragmented lines, some of them lines from other poems in the book, that I couldn’t find a through line for. Each line is an image, but at least for me, they didn’t fit together to make anything but cacophony.
Frost, Robert. In the Clearing - I’ve liked Frost’s poetry before, but this one has some clunkers. Some of the ideas are also clearly dated in cringy ways. Some of the poems in the volume are okay, but I can’t really recommend it.
Katz, Susan. Looking for Jaguar and Other Rain Forest Poems - Short, illustrated book of poems aimed at children. All of them are about bits of rainforest wildlife. This is not focused on one continent’s rainforests which might be confusing for those who don’t already know where the different animals come from (there’s a section at the end of the book that gives that information) since it’s not clear that different poems are set in different places.
Madrid, Anthony. Try Never - Short book of poetry. There’s a lot of repetition in these, repeated phrases, that is. In most of the poems every stanza starts with the same phrase (usually the title). I may have liked these. I didn’t dislike them, certainly. I just have a hard time judging between finding poetry smooth reading and actually liking it. Those aren’t necessarily the same things.
Murray, Carol. Cricket in the Thicket - Short, illustrated book of poems about bugs and spiders and such and intended for children. These were very jingly, but each poems has accompanying text giving a little bit of information about the creature that’s the subject.
Nguyen, Hieu Minh. This Way to the Sugar - Short book of poetry. These read to me as slashes of anger that cut the author as much as (more than?) the reader. That is, I got a thread of self-blame/self-hatred in a lot of poems for things that didn’t read to me as meriting that. Some poems reference child sexual abuse, some family dysfunction, some homophobia, some racism. I suspect that they could be triggering on all counts.
Niedecker, Lorine. Harpsichord & Salt Fish - Short book of poetry. The poems are all very sparse, and the longer ones are clearly referring to specifics of the lives of those they’re named for. I didn’t really enjoy most of these because I felt like I was supposed to be able to fill in the white space and really couldn’t so much or-- as in the case with the long poem about Thomas Jefferson-- was filling in the wrong backdrop.
Nye, Naomi Shihab. A Maze Me: Poems for Girls - Each poem here is a moment in life, mostly moments in childhood and adolescence but some adult experiences, too. Nye’s phrasing is very clear. It doesn’t tend to the flowery or to the metaphoric. I miss those aspects, but I understood what she was saying in each poem and don't always when the language is more oblique.
Ryan, Kay. Erratic Facts - Very short book of poetry. I generally liked these and was able to follow the ideas in each poem.
Sidman, Joyce. This Is Just to Say - Short, illustrated book of poetry meant for children. The conceit of the book is members of a sixth grade class writing apology poems and then having the people they wrote to write poems back to them. The only place I found the information about the kids being fictional was in Sidman’s author profile on the dustjacket, so a reader could easily think that this was a real class project.
Simic, Charles. Hotel Insomnia - Short book of poetry. These felt kind of plodding to me. The words worked together, but there wasn’t any spark that made me feel like I was reading something other than prose. I expect not-me people might react differently.
Soto, Gary. Worlds Apart: Traveling with Fernie and Me - Short, illustrated book of poems for children. The idea here is two middle school aged boys traveling around the world. Each poem is set in a different place.
Updike, John. Americana and Other Poems - Short book of poetry. I enjoyed Updike's poetry more than I expected to.
Updike, John. Endpoint and Other Poems - Short book of poetry. Most of these poems have Updike looking through the lens of knowing that the time he has left is very short. He's clearly both resigned and not ready.
Yolen, Jane and Rebecca Kai Dotlich. Grumbles from the Forest - Short, illustrated book of poems. The poems are paired, one from each author about each specific fairy tale. None of the stories are at all obscure, so I would expect most readers to know them. Some of the angles on them are a little odd, but they connect very clearly to the fairy tales.
Zapruder, Matthew. The Pajamist - Short book of poems. I found a number of these dense in the wall of text sense. Beyond that, I don’t remember much.
Started but not finished:
Schaub, Michelle. Fresh-Picked Poetry: A Day at the Farmer’s Market - Short, illustrated book of poetry aimed at kids. I bounced hard on this one, but I think it would appeal to the intended audience.
Voigt, Ellen Bryant. Kyrie - Short book of poetry. The theme here is the flu epidemic of 1918-1919. The poems aren’t labeled or titled, but some of them clearly follow specific people. I got about 25% of the way in and realized that I couldn’t face the rest. I might have had more ability to keep going if the characters had names.
