What do you think?
Rate this book
Dog Music: Poetry About Dogs
A unique collection of more than 150 poems about dogs, including works by Elizabeth Bishop, Raymond Carver, John Optic, and others, offers a range of emotions, from heartfelt grief to wild celebration, as it pays tribute to man's best friend.
274 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1995
22 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 22, 2023
Overall, I f**king hate this book. You would think that with over 160 poems there would be a fair number of good ones, or at least passages within poems that were noteworthy. What I don’t expect is so many poems on dead dogs, dogs dying, dogs getting hurt or being hurt. Maybe I am just not sophisticated enough to ‘get it,’ whatever it the author of most of the poems was trying to get across other that just cleaver word usages that often don’t go anywhere. Also, there were too many poems that just made me angry that I had to spend my time reading what they were talking about.
There were a few poems I liked. Some others had a passage here and there I think I liked, although even some of those I was not always sure. I will include the ones I liked but will warn you, especially the last one is so powerful and sad, that I would warn off some people from reading it, those people who don’t want to read dog books when Kleenex is need. So, for those people, read on but stop when I warn you again. (And even the first one has a sad part.)
The book starts with a poem I liked. It is right after the table of contents and before some words from the author on ‘Words Mingo Knows’ on how he came to write the book. This also pisses me off because it makes you think the book will be filled with nice poems, and then throughout the rest of the book the author must be laughing how he suckered dog lovers into getting the book that seems to have so many poems from people that in my opinion don’t like dogs. Anyway, here is the first poem and one of the few I liked:
OLD BLUE (Anonymous)
Had an old dog and his name is Blue.
Betcha five dollars he’s a good’n too.
Here Blue, you good dog you.
Showed him the gun and I tooted my horn,
Gone to find a possum in the new-ground corn.
Old Blue barked and I went to see,
Cornered a possum up in a tree.
Come on Blue, you good dog you.
Old Blue died and he died so hard,
Shook the ground in my backyard.
Dug him a grave with a silver spade,
Lowered him down with a golden chain.
Every link I did call his name.
Here Blue, you good dog you.
Here Blue, I’m coming there too.
I liked another poem ‘A Guardian Tanya’ by Thomas Carper:
Sensing when I must travel, she refuses
To sleep downstairs. She comes into the bathroom.
Nuzzles her biscuit into a corner,
Circles twice, and lies down at my feet.
Her sleep is sound, and I sleep soundly too,
As if we two were sculptures in an abbey,
Memorialized by a forgotten artist
Who understands necessities of friendship.
It’s likely she will die before I die,
An though I have no faith in streets of gold,
I have half-confidence that I will meet her
On this side of a bridge across death’s river,
Letting arriving spirits pat and scratch her,
Or stretching out, her head between her paws
As if for sleep, but with her eyes wide open,
Watching, waiting, sure that I will get there,
Sure that I will find her among thousands,
Coming gladly with a leash to link us
So we can go to death as on a walk.
This next poem I found a bit interesting (but not sure I liked it). The poem is ‘Your Dog Dies’ by Raymond Carver. (Did I mention that majority of the poems were about dogs dying, or dead dogs?) Anyway it involves her daughters dog getting run over by a van, and in the course of the poem….
And that poem turns out so good
You’re almost glad the little dog
Was run over, or else you’d never
Have written that good poem.
Then you sit down to write
A poem about writing a poem
About the death of that dog,
But while you’re writing you
hear a woman scream your name,
both syllables
Another bit I find interesting is the end of ‘How To Like it’ by Stephen Dobyns:
But the dog says, Let’s go make a sandwich.
Let’s make the tallest sandwich anyone’s ever seen.
And that’s what they do and that’s where the man’s
Wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
As if into the place where the answers are kept-
The ones telling why you get up in the morning
And how it is possible to sleep at night,
Answer to what comes next and how to like it.
Another poem I liked was ‘Dear Marvin’ by William Stafford. I liked the whole piece, but will give you my favorite part to save me some typing (and sometimes wish I could stand books on kindle where you copy and paste a passage out…).
You wake up my instinct for puppyhood
And bring that summer bubble around me:
Forgiveness everywhere, a yearning, a grace
Coming out of awkwardness to capture
Us, a touch from the beginnings of things.
This next bit is from ‘Newfoundland-Praise’ by Pamela Stewart. Although not mentioned in the poem but alluded to in the title, I love Newfoundland dogs, so I guess you could say the poem had me at the first word. Also, no dog had to be killed in the making of this poem.
Sometimes she howls at moonshine, or a rustle
In the trees. She’s scared of light
On midnight shapes. Molly’s absolute and clear.
She pulls my own love out against the air
As her huge body presses toward me.
Molly undoes my vanities and fear so I
Feel almost safe.
An almost mention, well, I guess I will mention, for my list is ‘Uncle Dog: The Poet at 9’ by Robert Sward. It opens with:
I did not want to be old Mr.
Garbage man, but uncle dog
Who rode sitting beside him.
Ok, before I get to the really sad poem, this next bit is also sad, but very often we all have to live through this kind of thing, so the memory and feeling is worth a cry for all of us to share together. Here is a part of ‘May’ by Bruce Weigl:
She passed the needle to the doctor
And for once I knew what to do
And held her head against mine.
I cleaved to that smell
And lied into her ear
That it would be all right.
The veterinarian, whom I’d fought
About when to do this thing
Said through tears
That it would only take a few minutes
As if that were not a long time
But there was no cry or growl,
Only the weight of her in my arms,
And then on the world.
Ok, here is the really poignant poem that really kicked me in the gut. Called, ‘Dog’s Death’ by John Updike.
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, “Good dog! Good dog!”
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath my youngest’s bed.
We found her twisted limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
In spite of the few good poems that I mentioned here, most of the rest of the poems are just bad from my dog lovers point of view, so just settle with what I have here. Hard to know how to rate a book with so much I hated to read, but then with a few gems, but I give it two stars for the ones I mentioned.
There were a few poems I liked. Some others had a passage here and there I think I liked, although even some of those I was not always sure. I will include the ones I liked but will warn you, especially the last one is so powerful and sad, that I would warn off some people from reading it, those people who don’t want to read dog books when Kleenex is need. So, for those people, read on but stop when I warn you again. (And even the first one has a sad part.)
The book starts with a poem I liked. It is right after the table of contents and before some words from the author on ‘Words Mingo Knows’ on how he came to write the book. This also pisses me off because it makes you think the book will be filled with nice poems, and then throughout the rest of the book the author must be laughing how he suckered dog lovers into getting the book that seems to have so many poems from people that in my opinion don’t like dogs. Anyway, here is the first poem and one of the few I liked:
OLD BLUE (Anonymous)
Had an old dog and his name is Blue.
Betcha five dollars he’s a good’n too.
Here Blue, you good dog you.
Showed him the gun and I tooted my horn,
Gone to find a possum in the new-ground corn.
Old Blue barked and I went to see,
Cornered a possum up in a tree.
Come on Blue, you good dog you.
Old Blue died and he died so hard,
Shook the ground in my backyard.
Dug him a grave with a silver spade,
Lowered him down with a golden chain.
Every link I did call his name.
Here Blue, you good dog you.
Here Blue, I’m coming there too.
I liked another poem ‘A Guardian Tanya’ by Thomas Carper:
Sensing when I must travel, she refuses
To sleep downstairs. She comes into the bathroom.
Nuzzles her biscuit into a corner,
Circles twice, and lies down at my feet.
Her sleep is sound, and I sleep soundly too,
As if we two were sculptures in an abbey,
Memorialized by a forgotten artist
Who understands necessities of friendship.
It’s likely she will die before I die,
An though I have no faith in streets of gold,
I have half-confidence that I will meet her
On this side of a bridge across death’s river,
Letting arriving spirits pat and scratch her,
Or stretching out, her head between her paws
As if for sleep, but with her eyes wide open,
Watching, waiting, sure that I will get there,
Sure that I will find her among thousands,
Coming gladly with a leash to link us
So we can go to death as on a walk.
This next poem I found a bit interesting (but not sure I liked it). The poem is ‘Your Dog Dies’ by Raymond Carver. (Did I mention that majority of the poems were about dogs dying, or dead dogs?) Anyway it involves her daughters dog getting run over by a van, and in the course of the poem….
And that poem turns out so good
You’re almost glad the little dog
Was run over, or else you’d never
Have written that good poem.
Then you sit down to write
A poem about writing a poem
About the death of that dog,
But while you’re writing you
hear a woman scream your name,
both syllables
Another bit I find interesting is the end of ‘How To Like it’ by Stephen Dobyns:
But the dog says, Let’s go make a sandwich.
Let’s make the tallest sandwich anyone’s ever seen.
And that’s what they do and that’s where the man’s
Wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
As if into the place where the answers are kept-
The ones telling why you get up in the morning
And how it is possible to sleep at night,
Answer to what comes next and how to like it.
Another poem I liked was ‘Dear Marvin’ by William Stafford. I liked the whole piece, but will give you my favorite part to save me some typing (and sometimes wish I could stand books on kindle where you copy and paste a passage out…).
You wake up my instinct for puppyhood
And bring that summer bubble around me:
Forgiveness everywhere, a yearning, a grace
Coming out of awkwardness to capture
Us, a touch from the beginnings of things.
This next bit is from ‘Newfoundland-Praise’ by Pamela Stewart. Although not mentioned in the poem but alluded to in the title, I love Newfoundland dogs, so I guess you could say the poem had me at the first word. Also, no dog had to be killed in the making of this poem.
Sometimes she howls at moonshine, or a rustle
In the trees. She’s scared of light
On midnight shapes. Molly’s absolute and clear.
She pulls my own love out against the air
As her huge body presses toward me.
Molly undoes my vanities and fear so I
Feel almost safe.
An almost mention, well, I guess I will mention, for my list is ‘Uncle Dog: The Poet at 9’ by Robert Sward. It opens with:
I did not want to be old Mr.
Garbage man, but uncle dog
Who rode sitting beside him.
Ok, before I get to the really sad poem, this next bit is also sad, but very often we all have to live through this kind of thing, so the memory and feeling is worth a cry for all of us to share together. Here is a part of ‘May’ by Bruce Weigl:
She passed the needle to the doctor
And for once I knew what to do
And held her head against mine.
I cleaved to that smell
And lied into her ear
That it would be all right.
The veterinarian, whom I’d fought
About when to do this thing
Said through tears
That it would only take a few minutes
As if that were not a long time
But there was no cry or growl,
Only the weight of her in my arms,
And then on the world.
Ok, here is the really poignant poem that really kicked me in the gut. Called, ‘Dog’s Death’ by John Updike.
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, “Good dog! Good dog!”
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath my youngest’s bed.
We found her twisted limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
In spite of the few good poems that I mentioned here, most of the rest of the poems are just bad from my dog lovers point of view, so just settle with what I have here. Hard to know how to rate a book with so much I hated to read, but then with a few gems, but I give it two stars for the ones I mentioned.
February 23, 2014
One of my favorite anthologies of poetry. I was NOT and I repeat, NOT! a dog-person before I read this book. The poems are so deeply touching that they made me realized I needed a dog in my life. And so Sophie came to live with me, and our relationship has turned into one of the most sweetly innocent and beautiful connections of my life, and she's made me a dog-person. Well, if not exactly a dog-person, definitely Sophie's person. Even if you aren't a dog-person, you should read this!
July 15, 2020
“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's.” - Mark Twain.
October 27, 2013
Uneven, but there were some wonderful poems in this collection.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews