Advantages: Ultimatly life-affirming Disadvantages: Hard to obtain in England (try the Internet)
I prefer American poets. British poets are too self-obsessed and parochial. Of all Modern American Poets, Jim Carroll is the most emotionally direct. While some of his early work can be contextually obscure, his heart always comes through. Carroll’s creat ...
Advantages: Hard hitting, raw energy Disadvantages: sometimes a bit oblique
Jim Carroll is probably best known for the emotionally charged diary The Basketball Diaries. That journal written by a young teenager growing up in New York City has become a legendary book. It was also made into a semi-successful movie featuring Leo ...
Advantages: Ballad style poetry: easy to read and to listen to Disadvantages: Makes you try to look deeper
“The Hunting of the Snark”, a poem by Lewis Carroll, was first published 1876. Lewis Carroll, the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, is best known for 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', probably the only book of his that the majority of people remem ...
Advantages: strange, intruiging and startling. Disadvantages: hard to make sense of
I first read e.e.cummings about three years ago and have never really got over him. An amazing innovative poet with the power to transofrm words and reveal meanings. Famous for using punctuation and capitalisation in strange ways, cummings has the ability ...
Advantages: English literature at its finest Disadvantages: None
Chaucer has a special place in my memory for very personal reasons. “Canterbury Tales” changed me, it altered how I thought about myself and let me grow in confidence. That’s pretty high praise so though this is a book opinion, I’ll add into it the manner ...
