Poetry > S Poetry

Advantages: insightful visionary inspired
Disadvantages: cryptic if you're thick

Songs of Innocence and of Experience is an enlightening piece of literature. Blake is a visionary well ahead of his times in his opinions on sexism, racism, individualism, religion, free love, sexuality, equality, unity etc etc. Blake was inspired by the old testement and christianity but his views were so radical and controversial that he was ostriced by the christians of his time. Songs of innocence and of experience reflects this in many of its ...
...cryptic man and although his songs had their lullaby appeal they also had something very deep and very serious to say. if you've ever wondered about the progression of man from a basic animal with simple needs to the complicated creature living in a metropolitan world abiding by rules, working for the rat race, then you'll identify with this collection of songs and you have to read it. if you only ever read one poem from this collection make it ... Read review

Advantages: very good read
Disadvantages: controversion

John Donne is one of the most fantastically interesting metaphysical poets. Just to give you a brief description of what metaphysical poetry is about: metaphysical poets were a group of poets in the 17th century whose name was given to them after they had been writing by Samuel Johnson. It's hard to describe exactly what a metaphysical poem is just because, well there isn't really a strict pattern they follow as most of them were not famous until ...
...Anyway, the key thing that more or less all of the metaphysical poems contain is an extended metaphor or conceit throughout the poem. For example in John Donne's 'The Flea' the conceit is that he imagines himself and his lover throughout the poem making love inside of the flea, their "marriage temple". Sounds strange, i know but it really is fantastically hilarious if you read the rest of his poems and see that he is essentially trying to chat up ... Read review

Advantages: Definitly different
Disadvantages: Just the slightest bit wordy

I picked up a copy of Catullus, quite by accident really. Looked interesting in an educated sort of way. And well it certainly opened my eyes, to *just* what the Roman has been doing. The vast majority of Catullus's work (at least what I've read of it) is marvellously backbiting gossip, reprimanding friends for bad habits, spreading rumours about their sexuality, longing for his lover. Indeed it's like a modern soap opera, except it's poetry, and ...
...light and the tone above all is one of wryness, but also a vitality. You imagine Catullus as being an energetic person, someone with time for men and woman (he didn't discriminate, if it meant he could have the best of both worlds!) I read some in their original Latin, but as a previous reviewer said, that kinda took the fun away- having to translate them literally, meant that much of the beauty was lost on my numbskull ears, so eventually I just ... Read review

Advantages: Highly entertaining, approachable, wittily-illustrated guide
Disadvantages: Purists may cringe occasionally!

William Shakespeare would weep if he could see the manner in which his works are sometimes studied today. He would surely be bemused to see the seriousness with which lines of wit from his comedies have been dissected and analysed to extract their double-or-treble-or-quadruple entendres when it is a well-known fact that humour is lost when jokes have to be explained. I wonder what he would make of some of today’s productions at the Globe Theatre, ...
...a performance by the Reduced Shakespeare Company? Or lament the irreverence shown to some of the more serious themes? There are no right or wrong answers to such hypothetical questions. I would like to think, however, that the bard would give his stamp of approval to “Shakespeare in a Nutshell”, a rhyming guide that has the ability to unite both lovers and loathers of Shakespeare in merriment. James Muirden, already known as the author of “A Rhyming ... Read review

Advantages: Complex points alluded to
Disadvantages: Can be depressing

Strange title? Well: We have been studying the poetry of Plath and Jennings ... both suffered from mental illness and both allude to this quite heavily in their poetry. What are our teachers doing? 3 months away from exams and we are forced to study two lots of depressing, insanity encourageing poems ... which we aren't even going to be examined on! Don't get me wrong, Plath ... and Jennings ... as poets are really good writers and it is a shame ...
...Level text book. You have to enjoy leveled poetry to read work by either of these poets and must never take them at face value. They both are powerful women and they have a lot to say, they do this in a variety of complex ways! My only recommendation is to read the works of Plath for yourself, but not when you are depressed or stressed and only in the summer! Enjoy, Enjoy, Enjoy! ... Read review