Poetry

Advantages: It's probably printed on recycled paper.
Disadvantages: It's dire. Totally dire.

There's a rule written somewhere which says "stick to what you know", and if Jewel had done this, as a Jewel fan, I wouldn't have to be writing this review. Jewel the musician is excellent, heartfelt and meaningful. How on earth this went on to be one of the best selling books of poetry in the US, ever, is simply inconceivable. This collection is basically distilled teenage angst, a pop star whining about her awful life while wearing Versace and ... Read review

Advantages: A breezy format; excellent discussion of translation; cheap price; highly provocative
Disadvantages: None

...(Paz’s own entry). Numbered in nineteen sections, the first three are devoted explicitly to the original: 1) Wang Wei’s text in Chinese characters, 2) its transliteration using the Pinyin system of rendering Chinese sounds with our alphabet, and 3) a word-for-word gloss of each character, including numerous potential translations. Weinberger provides excellent commentary on all nineteen sections, and Paz adds a little essay at the end. While ostensibly ...
...it can be transmuted, and in some cases, utterly ruined through translation, the authors’ text can easily serve as a mini-course on the vicissitudes of translation in general. The universal applicability of their conclusions to any notion of poetic translation is an added bonus to what is first and foremost a guide to the challenges and demands of translating classical Chinese poetry. The book tells as much about "bad" translation practices as it ... Read review

Advantages: Funny, childish, funny...
Disadvantages: Childish, funny, childish...

...since been moved to purchase These Were Your Father’s for £4.99 from Waterstones, published by Mandarin. ****************************************************** The collection is illustrated by Hegley himself in a memo-jottings style of relatively few lines in thick felt-tip pen (my interpretation). They are used with great effect to compliment the silly, the inane, the meaningful and the insightful poems alike. On the cover is a sketch of what ...
...glasses to an upturned dog in a cradle. Why? I have no idea, we're all going to have to make up our own little stories for this one! I have it on good authority that more often than not the children’s section of any good booksellers will have a full compliment of Hegley's work: and I can see the appeal. Simple, short, funny and insightful, his poems always enjoy a simplicity that must certainly appeal to children in their direct approach. Indeed, ... Read review

Advantages: Accessible and easy to read
Disadvantages: Poetry put some people off!

...have to admit I’m not a great reader of poetry but from time to time I come across something that seems to connect with me. With this in mind I thought I’d do a review of one my favourite poetry collections, ‘A Sense Of Movement’ by British born poet Thom Gunn. Those of you who have read some of my previous opinions will know that I an a fan of the Beat movement, a loose collection of American poets and writers who managed to give an alternative ...
...music. Thom Gunn was not a fully paid up member of this literary movement but in this collection he covers the same ground. Youth angst and culture in general is the principal subject as it was for many writers of the Beat movement like Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg. A BIT OF BACKGROUND Thom Gunn was born in Gravesend in 1929 and was brought up in Hampstead North London. After leaving school, Gunn did two years of National Service and then got ... Read review

Advantages: A true classic of the English language
Disadvantages: In Middle English without translation, it can be difficult to read

In Chaucer's work, 'The Canterbury Tales', perhaps the greatest of English literary works from the period of the language known as Middle English, there is one particular piece that have always stood out for me. 'A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also,' This is perhaps my favourite character, as when I first read it, it seemed to epitomise what I hoped for in my own life. 'That unto logik hadde longe y-go. .... For him was lever have at his beddes ...
...to his magnus opus, 'The Canterbury Tales', a collection of stories with prologue told by pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury (car radios and in-flight movies were rare in those days), Chaucer wrote minor poems to suit various occasions (his first record as poet comes from having written a poem as elegy on the death of John of Gaunt's first wife, Blanche, in 1369), and the major work for which he was noted for 'Troilus and Criseyde', which showed ... Read review