Poetry > S Poetry

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

Advantages: Stong visual images
Disadvantages: can take a fair bit of getting into

Andrew marvel is one of the Metaphysical poets - a group who were not a conscious movement but who were about contemporary to Shakespeare. Other names include John Donne, George Herbert and Thomas Carrew. There are some others who might or might not belong with this set. (but for rasons of sanity, i shall not go into details.) What is metaphysical poetry? The term was initially coined as an insult, a citicism of a group of people with strange ideas ...
...writers is their use of a technique called the conceit. A metaphor is saying something is something else "The fire was a raging demon locked in a prison or iron" "The man at the window was no more than a shadow, a whisp of smoke, a fragment of a long forgotten dream." Obviously none of these things are literaly true but they are great ways of representing concepts. The conceit goes one step further and doesn't mention the object - thus you can have ... Read review

Advantages: captures voices from the past.
Disadvantages: Kipling has a reputation for being racist.

Kipling has been much criticised for the racist and pro empire elements of his writing. Kipling was born in India in 1865 and later sent to England to be educated. he was stepped in the Empire and in the times, but was not a blind celbrant as some critics have suggested. The lines "East is east and West is West" are most often quoted to back up the theory that Kipling was racist, however it is worth noting that he goes on to point out that when two ...
...As a recorder of the time, Kipling is perhaps most famous for his backroom ballads: poetry using the voices and tales of the comman soldier which do refelct the racist attitudes of the time. He records the disasters, like a fatal attempt at kabul river where many men drowned in the ford, and is often surprisingly realistic. "God help them if they blunderd For their boots 'ud pull them under At the ford of kabul River in the dark" - long boots ... Read review

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: 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