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Constellation
Constellation is poetry on a larger scale than we are used to, an extraordinary combination of memory and meditation, precise and personal, ritualistic, soaring, by turns, with eloquence, erudition, candor. In both rich and allusive verse, and prose with poetic charge, the work draws you in and won’t let you forget the vivid motifs and variations that repeat as in an oratorio, often playful, in the idioms of today, while touching the timeless and magnificent. ―Robert Morgan, author of Dark Territory
96 pages, Paperback
Published June 20, 2023
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April 10, 2024
This was simply spectacular: thought provoking, poignant, and impressive.
Even some of the things that I thought I had complaints about I found were at least done with purpose.
For example, I thought there were some sentences within the first poem that could have flowed with a more pleasing or engaging rhythm with some small change. And I still think I’m technically right about that. But those small changes that the part of me that prioritizes flow yearned for would have lost the fifteen-syllable rule from that poem, and at least on my own end, I have been entirely unable to come up with any other more effective phrasing to fit that rule than the ones Hix utilizes. Rather than a flaw, it is simply a difference between the author’s priorities or goals and my own natural assumptions and habitual preferences as a reader.
Otherwise… I think what I loved most about this is that it coaxes you into a different way of thinking in order to read it — not in an opaque way, where you’re completely lost unless you happen to form the right insight, but in a teaching way, where the act of reading prepares you to understand the next phrase, the next line, the next stanza, or the next section. You do have to work at it, but the language lesson is embedded right within the text.
(…not literally. A dictionary might still be helpful. 😂)
I also loved the unique worldview and imagery, the careful twisting and repurposing of vocabulary, and the introspective topics that were covered.
Even some of the things that I thought I had complaints about I found were at least done with purpose.
For example, I thought there were some sentences within the first poem that could have flowed with a more pleasing or engaging rhythm with some small change. And I still think I’m technically right about that. But those small changes that the part of me that prioritizes flow yearned for would have lost the fifteen-syllable rule from that poem, and at least on my own end, I have been entirely unable to come up with any other more effective phrasing to fit that rule than the ones Hix utilizes. Rather than a flaw, it is simply a difference between the author’s priorities or goals and my own natural assumptions and habitual preferences as a reader.
Otherwise… I think what I loved most about this is that it coaxes you into a different way of thinking in order to read it — not in an opaque way, where you’re completely lost unless you happen to form the right insight, but in a teaching way, where the act of reading prepares you to understand the next phrase, the next line, the next stanza, or the next section. You do have to work at it, but the language lesson is embedded right within the text.
(…not literally. A dictionary might still be helpful. 😂)
I also loved the unique worldview and imagery, the careful twisting and repurposing of vocabulary, and the introspective topics that were covered.
Displaying 1 of 1 review