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The Poetry of Sex
'It's the way that you say I don't usually do this.'
Romance and poetry seem to go hand in hand but - implicit, explicit, nuanced or starkly frank - sex itself has long been a staple subject for poets. In fact it's hard to imagine a more fruitful subject for poets than sex, in all its glorious manifestations: from desire and hope, through disappointment and confusion, to conclusion and consequence. And little has changed over the centuries, as Sophie Hannah's anthology vividly demonstrates, from Ovid describing a summer afternoon of love-making to Rosemary Tonks telling the 'Story of a Hotel Room'. Moods and attitudes may vary but the drive persists, as does the desire to write about it.
Sophie Hannah's selection ranges from ancient Rome to modern New York, from gay to straight, from marital bliss to furtive adultery. There are poems that take a cavalier approach to sexual behaviour which some would regard as immoral, poems about fantasizing about a lover while being in bed with another, poems about blow jobs and sex in the office - alongside many poems about wholesome, committed, sanctioned sex that breaks no rules. But all the poems in the anthology have one resounding characteristic: they are low on the sugar and high on the excitement.
Romance and poetry seem to go hand in hand but - implicit, explicit, nuanced or starkly frank - sex itself has long been a staple subject for poets. In fact it's hard to imagine a more fruitful subject for poets than sex, in all its glorious manifestations: from desire and hope, through disappointment and confusion, to conclusion and consequence. And little has changed over the centuries, as Sophie Hannah's anthology vividly demonstrates, from Ovid describing a summer afternoon of love-making to Rosemary Tonks telling the 'Story of a Hotel Room'. Moods and attitudes may vary but the drive persists, as does the desire to write about it.
Sophie Hannah's selection ranges from ancient Rome to modern New York, from gay to straight, from marital bliss to furtive adultery. There are poems that take a cavalier approach to sexual behaviour which some would regard as immoral, poems about fantasizing about a lover while being in bed with another, poems about blow jobs and sex in the office - alongside many poems about wholesome, committed, sanctioned sex that breaks no rules. But all the poems in the anthology have one resounding characteristic: they are low on the sugar and high on the excitement.
220 pages, Hardcover
First published January 30, 2014
16 people are currently reading
427 people want to read
About the author
Sophie Hannah
106 books4,509 followersSophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 27 countries. In 2013, her latest novel, The Carrier, won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards. Two of Sophie’s crime novels, The Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives, have been adapted for television and appeared on ITV1 under the series title Case Sensitive in 2011 and 2012. In 2004, Sophie won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story The Octopus Nest, which is now published in her first collection of short stories, The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets.
Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is forty-one and lives with her husband and children in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. She is currently working on a new challenge for the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.
Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is forty-one and lives with her husband and children in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. She is currently working on a new challenge for the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 42 reviews
March 19, 2019
I'm currently reading a book called The Grandmothers which contains 4 novellas by Doris Lessing, and I'm miserable. I'm miserable for several reasons, but I'm determined to finish, but I'm also wondering why. Why, Doris Lessing, why are you obsessed with incest?
After knocking out two of the four stories (which both had incestuous themes), I decided to take a break this weekend from all the family lovin' and dabble in some poetry instead. I had a new collection on my end table, The Poetry of Sex, recommended to me by Goodreads, probably a result of my review last month of The Best American Erotic Poems.
Okay, I decided: Yes, let's read more sexy poems! I couldn't think of a better way to procrastinate finishing this miserable book.
Sigh.
Well you won't even believe it, but this is one of the first poems I encountered in the book:
Guacamole
Avocados were somewhere on the lust-list
we made sated on the floor of room 404.
Write down, you said, write down every wicked
little dirty thing you'd like us to try. I pitted
the felt-tip against my teeth, then whispered:
I want you to carefully split a ripe avocado,
loosen its pip, scoop out the warm yellowy
flesh and squeeze it to a gentle pulp, then-
I stopped-back suddenly at my mother's side,
eye-level with hip and kitchen top, glued to
her hands as she cuts and twists the wizened pears,
mashes in garlic, the devil-tailed chillies, a
splash of lime. Ravenous, open-mouthed, I crave
to lick the buttery mush between her fingers,
the jaded smear from her wrist, to suck her
wedding ring, to suck her wedding ring clean.
Oh, for fuck's sake. How revolting. Now I can't eat peaches (thanks, Call Me by Your Name) OR guacamole??
And, true story, just a few pages later, I encountered “The Wasp Station,” a poem centered around a young man getting it on with an older woman in a garden shed. Which was pretty hot, until I got to this part:
She arrived first, bucking, nails digging into his coal tender.
He squealed and spurted, head back like a plume of wind-whipped
smoke,
then panted in her ear, “I love you, Aunt Alice.”. . .
Folks, consider my review of this book my official public service announcement: STOP CONVINCING PEOPLE THAT INCEST IS SEXY AND GO DATE SOMEONE OUTSIDE THE FAMILY. Your mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousins are FAMILY MEMBERS, not DATES.
This planet is BURSTING with people. Just exploding with them. Don't believe me?
Go to Disney World.
Go to Mexico City.
Go to Bombay.
There's scads of people, loads of them, everywhere, who are NOT RELATED TO YOU.
Also, while we're at it, here's the second part of my public service announcement: Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are NOT sexy poets. Stop including them in these compilations. Please, stop it.
I'm reluctantly giving 3 stars to this collection for the following 3 men that saved the book with their contributions:
E.E. Cummings
D.H. Lawrence
Robert Frant (Whoever you are. Call me?)
And, stop ruining food for me, people! I'll have nothing left to eat soon.
After knocking out two of the four stories (which both had incestuous themes), I decided to take a break this weekend from all the family lovin' and dabble in some poetry instead. I had a new collection on my end table, The Poetry of Sex, recommended to me by Goodreads, probably a result of my review last month of The Best American Erotic Poems.
Okay, I decided: Yes, let's read more sexy poems! I couldn't think of a better way to procrastinate finishing this miserable book.
Sigh.
Well you won't even believe it, but this is one of the first poems I encountered in the book:
Guacamole
Avocados were somewhere on the lust-list
we made sated on the floor of room 404.
Write down, you said, write down every wicked
little dirty thing you'd like us to try. I pitted
the felt-tip against my teeth, then whispered:
I want you to carefully split a ripe avocado,
loosen its pip, scoop out the warm yellowy
flesh and squeeze it to a gentle pulp, then-
I stopped-back suddenly at my mother's side,
eye-level with hip and kitchen top, glued to
her hands as she cuts and twists the wizened pears,
mashes in garlic, the devil-tailed chillies, a
splash of lime. Ravenous, open-mouthed, I crave
to lick the buttery mush between her fingers,
the jaded smear from her wrist, to suck her
wedding ring, to suck her wedding ring clean.
Oh, for fuck's sake. How revolting. Now I can't eat peaches (thanks, Call Me by Your Name) OR guacamole??
And, true story, just a few pages later, I encountered “The Wasp Station,” a poem centered around a young man getting it on with an older woman in a garden shed. Which was pretty hot, until I got to this part:
She arrived first, bucking, nails digging into his coal tender.
He squealed and spurted, head back like a plume of wind-whipped
smoke,
then panted in her ear, “I love you, Aunt Alice.”. . .
Folks, consider my review of this book my official public service announcement: STOP CONVINCING PEOPLE THAT INCEST IS SEXY AND GO DATE SOMEONE OUTSIDE THE FAMILY. Your mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousins are FAMILY MEMBERS, not DATES.
This planet is BURSTING with people. Just exploding with them. Don't believe me?
Go to Disney World.
Go to Mexico City.
Go to Bombay.
There's scads of people, loads of them, everywhere, who are NOT RELATED TO YOU.
Also, while we're at it, here's the second part of my public service announcement: Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are NOT sexy poets. Stop including them in these compilations. Please, stop it.
I'm reluctantly giving 3 stars to this collection for the following 3 men that saved the book with their contributions:
E.E. Cummings
D.H. Lawrence
Robert Frant (Whoever you are. Call me?)
And, stop ruining food for me, people! I'll have nothing left to eat soon.
January 20, 2019
This was a mixed collection of poetry, based on love and sex. When I say mixed, I mean that some of it was pretty subtle, and some were more frank and explicit. I do enjoy reading poetry about sex. I like reading the ways in which poets describe sex, and go about writing about it. These poems conjured up many emotions within me while reading, sadness, excitement, surprise and even plain disgust, I mean, some of these poems could have easily been left out of this book, especially the few that felt rather misogynistic, strangely enough.
Although I enjoyed some of this poetry, the way in which it was organised was chaotic. I think this could have been laid out in a more orderly fashion, which would have made things easier for the reader. I also don't think that the poetry wasn't as erotic as promised by the editor of the book. I wanted more! However, this was a quick, interesting read for me, and would be ideal read, just before bedtime!
Although I enjoyed some of this poetry, the way in which it was organised was chaotic. I think this could have been laid out in a more orderly fashion, which would have made things easier for the reader. I also don't think that the poetry wasn't as erotic as promised by the editor of the book. I wanted more! However, this was a quick, interesting read for me, and would be ideal read, just before bedtime!
October 17, 2024
Why don't we just begin the review with the opening lines of Caroline Bird's ‘The Plague’, which sets exactly the tone of gleeful, frantic extravagance that makes this collection such a joy:
Reviewing an anthology of French erotic verse recently (and I'm not sure which real-life frustrations have led me to read so much of this in the last few weeks), I made the comment that, good as many of those poems were, as a collection they lacked the sense of fun that I associate with erotic verse in the English tradition. This anthology from Sophie Hannah is a very welcome corrective. It's one of the best collections of its kind that I've read (and, as I think we've now established, I've read if anything too many of them).
Pondering, in her introduction, the thorny question of how sexualisation and objectivisation intersect, Hannah notes that some of the poems here ‘might seem misandrist or misogynist’, but then at least there's an even-handedness there that is not always present in such ventures. Unlike, again, the aforementioned French anthology, this includes plenty of focus on men's bodies as well as women's – as in Rich Goodson's laudatory ‘Daniel Craig: The Screensaver’:
Strangely – or perhaps not – this is not even the only poem about Daniel Craig in the book. Elsewhere, Hannah goes back to Ovid and Catullus and picks up a few of the classics of the genre en route (Donne's ‘The Flea’, EE Cummings's ‘i like my body’); her main source, though, is to be found in British (and, to a lesser degree, American) poets of the last couple of generations. Throughout, there is a strong sense of linguistic inventiveness and general wit, which can be as simple as the comic verse of Nic Aubury's ‘Casanever’—
—or as complex and elusive as something like Don Paterson's ‘Imperial’:
There are so many great pieces in here, both old favourites and new discoveries, that I could go on quoting things forever. But I won't; I'll only add that this collection makes a great argument for the unique abilities of poetry to tackle the awkward, conflicted subject that is sex, with its tangled relationship to selfishness, gender relations, social convention, taboo. Which are the things that make it so wonderful and also so potentially upsetting and infuriating. As Samantha Willis, summing up her own new approach, puts it:
In the case of this book, fortunately, the answer is – plenty.
It takes more than pants and zips
to hide my cunt, it yells in its sleep,
the town is bucking, villagers are pillaging each other.
The bodies pile up, threesomes become foursomes,
the priest fucked a firework, a second coming,
a third, it's a plague, seven dwarves in one bed,
the policemen have permanent erections,
no one has any blood in their heads…
Reviewing an anthology of French erotic verse recently (and I'm not sure which real-life frustrations have led me to read so much of this in the last few weeks), I made the comment that, good as many of those poems were, as a collection they lacked the sense of fun that I associate with erotic verse in the English tradition. This anthology from Sophie Hannah is a very welcome corrective. It's one of the best collections of its kind that I've read (and, as I think we've now established, I've read if anything too many of them).
Pondering, in her introduction, the thorny question of how sexualisation and objectivisation intersect, Hannah notes that some of the poems here ‘might seem misandrist or misogynist’, but then at least there's an even-handedness there that is not always present in such ventures. Unlike, again, the aforementioned French anthology, this includes plenty of focus on men's bodies as well as women's – as in Rich Goodson's laudatory ‘Daniel Craig: The Screensaver’:
…& when I fail to focus, when I tire,
he rises like a Christ newly baptised
in sky-blue trunks, reminding me desire
will always lie in wait & be disguised
as men with healing hands & cute-cruel lips
& arms I'd die for should they ever press
too hard against my throat.
When water drips
from him the fish swim to his feet, confess
how happily waylaid they are, congeal
in spasmic foil &, even then, mouth how
the breeding pools upstream are no big deal.
Before my eyes bake white like theirs I vow
I'll hit a key. Before I go berserk
I'll kill him with one finger. Wake up. Work.
Strangely – or perhaps not – this is not even the only poem about Daniel Craig in the book. Elsewhere, Hannah goes back to Ovid and Catullus and picks up a few of the classics of the genre en route (Donne's ‘The Flea’, EE Cummings's ‘i like my body’); her main source, though, is to be found in British (and, to a lesser degree, American) poets of the last couple of generations. Throughout, there is a strong sense of linguistic inventiveness and general wit, which can be as simple as the comic verse of Nic Aubury's ‘Casanever’—
To most men, the notion
Of ‘romance and mystery’
Means clearing the porn from
Their Internet history.
—or as complex and elusive as something like Don Paterson's ‘Imperial’:
Is it normal to get this wet? Baby, I'm frightened –
I covered her mouth with my own;
she lay in my arms till the storm-window brightened
and stood at our heads like a stone.
After months of jaw-jaw, determined that neither
win ground, or be handed the edge,
we gave ourselves up, one to the other
like prisoners over a bridge
and no trade was ever so fair or so tender;
so where was the flaw in the plan,
the night we lay down on the flag of surrender
and woke on the flag of Japan
There are so many great pieces in here, both old favourites and new discoveries, that I could go on quoting things forever. But I won't; I'll only add that this collection makes a great argument for the unique abilities of poetry to tackle the awkward, conflicted subject that is sex, with its tangled relationship to selfishness, gender relations, social convention, taboo. Which are the things that make it so wonderful and also so potentially upsetting and infuriating. As Samantha Willis, summing up her own new approach, puts it:
Though I used to be coy and coquettish,
as all men like their women to be,
my new-leaf aspirational fetish
is demanding, ‘What's in it for me?’
In the case of this book, fortunately, the answer is – plenty.
September 27, 2018
Like many collections from various authors, there were bits of this that I thought were wonderful and bits that I thought were meh. Also a few bits that didn't quite seem to fit in with the subject, but I suppose that's bound to be subjective. A bit over 3*.
March 8, 2017
Some of these poems I really enjoyed, some I didn't at all.
I liked this one a lot:
Rubbish at Adultery
Sophie Hannah
Must I give up another night
To hear you whinge and whine
About how terribly grim you feel
And what a dreadful swine
You are? You say you’ll never leave
Your wife and children. Fine;
When have I ever asked you to?
I’d settle for a kiss.
Couldn’t you, for an hour or so,
Just leave them out of this?
A rare ten minutes off from guilty
Diatribes – what bliss.
Yes, I’m aware you’re sensitive:
A tortured, wounded soul.
I’m after passion, thrills, and fun.
You say fun takes its toll,
So what are we doing here? I fear
We’ve lost our common goal.
You’re rubbish at adultery.
I think you ought to quit.
Trouble is, at fidelity,
You’re also slightly shit.
Choose one and do it properly
You stupid, stupid git.
I liked this one a lot:
Rubbish at Adultery
Sophie Hannah
Must I give up another night
To hear you whinge and whine
About how terribly grim you feel
And what a dreadful swine
You are? You say you’ll never leave
Your wife and children. Fine;
When have I ever asked you to?
I’d settle for a kiss.
Couldn’t you, for an hour or so,
Just leave them out of this?
A rare ten minutes off from guilty
Diatribes – what bliss.
Yes, I’m aware you’re sensitive:
A tortured, wounded soul.
I’m after passion, thrills, and fun.
You say fun takes its toll,
So what are we doing here? I fear
We’ve lost our common goal.
You’re rubbish at adultery.
I think you ought to quit.
Trouble is, at fidelity,
You’re also slightly shit.
Choose one and do it properly
You stupid, stupid git.
Want to read
February 11, 2016The Elephant is Slow to Mate
D. H. Lawrence, 1885 - 1930
The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait
for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
and drink and browse
and dash in panic through the brake
of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
together, without a word.
So slowly the great hot elephant hearts
grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
hiding their fire.
Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts
so they know at last
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts
for the full repast.
They do not snatch, they do not tear;
their massive blood
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near
till they touch in flood.
D. H. Lawrence, 1885 - 1930
The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait
for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
and drink and browse
and dash in panic through the brake
of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
together, without a word.
So slowly the great hot elephant hearts
grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
hiding their fire.
Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts
so they know at last
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts
for the full repast.
They do not snatch, they do not tear;
their massive blood
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near
till they touch in flood.
February 6, 2015
DNF at 30%
Not for me.
Not for me.
December 4, 2017
Poetry should taste like sex, says Catullus. This sentence epitomizes this collection of poetry. Despite its name, it includes poems on both love and lust, and their myriad variations. Poems range from explicit to symbolic to mundane.
Though, I liked the whole collection very much, I have a few gripes with it. Except for central theme of sex, nothing holds these poems together. It includes works by classical antiquity poets Petronius and Catullus to 16th-17th century poets Shakespeare, Herrick and Donne to contemporary poets. Also included are a few translated poems. It would have been better if years of publication and original languages were mentioned. But I'm just nitpicking, poetry can be enjoyed in any language without any background.
This was my first collection of poetry ever. Until now I used to think poetry is not for me but this book changed that view. Since starting this, I've bought about half a dozen books on poetry and poetry criticism to get most out of them.
Everyone who is fond of poetry or erotica should read this collection. Finally, I leave you with this eternal poem by Robert Herrick.
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
Though, I liked the whole collection very much, I have a few gripes with it. Except for central theme of sex, nothing holds these poems together. It includes works by classical antiquity poets Petronius and Catullus to 16th-17th century poets Shakespeare, Herrick and Donne to contemporary poets. Also included are a few translated poems. It would have been better if years of publication and original languages were mentioned. But I'm just nitpicking, poetry can be enjoyed in any language without any background.
This was my first collection of poetry ever. Until now I used to think poetry is not for me but this book changed that view. Since starting this, I've bought about half a dozen books on poetry and poetry criticism to get most out of them.
Everyone who is fond of poetry or erotica should read this collection. Finally, I leave you with this eternal poem by Robert Herrick.
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
January 31, 2022
I'm new to poetry, but after reading works by Amanda Lovelace and Rupi Kaur, I was left disappointed by this anthology. I didn't find a single author whom I liked, and overall I only liked three poems. None of them really spoke to me, and I found some of them hard to understand. I hope to like more my next poetry collection.
March 4, 2016
I've been into poetry lately & I thought I would give this a whirl. Who knew that there could be so many different poems out there about sex? I felt a wide variety of emotions as I read the poems: excitement, confusion, surprise, disgust. You get the idea. I liked how the poems were grouped into different categories. I don't think it would have worked as well, otherwise.
May 31, 2015
I really enjoyed this, I bought it because it had Rich Goodsons 'Daniel Craig: The Screensaver', in it which is one of my favorite poems of recent times, but there is a good mix of old, new, familiar and not in this anthology.
And oh yes, the cover - it is pretty damn good
And oh yes, the cover - it is pretty damn good
January 1, 2020
Their Sex Life
One failure on
Top of another
- A. R. Ammons
This was one of the first books I bought after completing my undergraduate. A different medium and a different central subject to anything I'd read for 4 years, and it was wonderfully freeing and liberating to read something for pleasure (and on pleasure, as the case turned out to be). The whole collection is certainly Hannah's and you have a unique insight into her 'groupings' of sexual activity in the anthology that have clear and close ties to her own poetry, which of course features at opportune moments. I loved the breadth of the collection from the heartfelt to the silly which endeavoured to encompass the many different types of sex, relationships, and relationships to sex.
My two difficulties with the collection were that the canon certainly bears up with poems from Donne, Marvell, D.H.Lawrence, etc. and whilst I can see how having these poets, who in many ways shaped the poetry of sex, included for context and due diligence is useful to a general reader, it does make me wonder whether other poems in the collection are also cornerstones of the canon, albeit a canon I am unfamiliar with, and whether such an anthology might not have included lesser-known works, or perhaps been bigger. But this is tied into my second difficulty with the collection. It is advertised as The Poetry of Sex, and I wonder if this is in any great part a sales attempt, but I do not know if sex is the right umbrella term. There seemed a great degree of intimacy in the relationships and a sensuality that was not always directly describing or relating to the sexual. I wonder if it might not have been better described as the Poetry of Intimacy. Particularly since the desire for and fear of intimacy features strongly in a great portion of the poems as expressed through sex, whereas poetry that dismisses sex is lacking from the collection, and could have provided an interesting insight paralleling narratives of intimacy.
One failure on
Top of another
- A. R. Ammons
This was one of the first books I bought after completing my undergraduate. A different medium and a different central subject to anything I'd read for 4 years, and it was wonderfully freeing and liberating to read something for pleasure (and on pleasure, as the case turned out to be). The whole collection is certainly Hannah's and you have a unique insight into her 'groupings' of sexual activity in the anthology that have clear and close ties to her own poetry, which of course features at opportune moments. I loved the breadth of the collection from the heartfelt to the silly which endeavoured to encompass the many different types of sex, relationships, and relationships to sex.
My two difficulties with the collection were that the canon certainly bears up with poems from Donne, Marvell, D.H.Lawrence, etc. and whilst I can see how having these poets, who in many ways shaped the poetry of sex, included for context and due diligence is useful to a general reader, it does make me wonder whether other poems in the collection are also cornerstones of the canon, albeit a canon I am unfamiliar with, and whether such an anthology might not have included lesser-known works, or perhaps been bigger. But this is tied into my second difficulty with the collection. It is advertised as The Poetry of Sex, and I wonder if this is in any great part a sales attempt, but I do not know if sex is the right umbrella term. There seemed a great degree of intimacy in the relationships and a sensuality that was not always directly describing or relating to the sexual. I wonder if it might not have been better described as the Poetry of Intimacy. Particularly since the desire for and fear of intimacy features strongly in a great portion of the poems as expressed through sex, whereas poetry that dismisses sex is lacking from the collection, and could have provided an interesting insight paralleling narratives of intimacy.
February 20, 2024
two stars alone for that rotten poem comparing love to 'jihadi martyrs'
I have to admit I have long been captivated by the anthology, though not pictured, there is a gorgeous addition with a callow lily on the front and promising sleek design.
While reading, I scrambled over Hannah's smug introduction and found that the collection could have just been... better. A shame, given the promisng topic!
I have to admit I have long been captivated by the anthology, though not pictured, there is a gorgeous addition with a callow lily on the front and promising sleek design.
While reading, I scrambled over Hannah's smug introduction and found that the collection could have just been... better. A shame, given the promisng topic!
February 4, 2025
Well... I’m not sure if it’s just my luck in picking the wrong poetry books, but I’m really struggling to connect with this one. I want to get it, but it’s just not clicking.
I was expecting romance, sensuality, maybe even some raunchiness or comedy! Instead, I found a lot of confusion and boredom.
There were two poems I actually liked, but the majority of them felt either too long or too abstract for my taste.
Overall, disappointing.
I was expecting romance, sensuality, maybe even some raunchiness or comedy! Instead, I found a lot of confusion and boredom.
There were two poems I actually liked, but the majority of them felt either too long or too abstract for my taste.
Overall, disappointing.
July 11, 2024
Not a slight at Sophie Hannah or the poets of this book whatsoever. I just wasn't expecting so many older/classic poems and I'm generally more inclined towards modern poetry. All in all, some extremely enjoyable works and formatting was carried out very nicely (really liked each section starting with a poetry quote to set the mood), but overall this just didn't float my boat.
October 15, 2018
3.75*
This was a fun, interesting, funny and sometimes weird collection of poetry covering the topics of love and sex. I am currently really enjoying reading poetry and poetry collections and I think this one was a great pick for a newbie in the poetry genre.
This was a fun, interesting, funny and sometimes weird collection of poetry covering the topics of love and sex. I am currently really enjoying reading poetry and poetry collections and I think this one was a great pick for a newbie in the poetry genre.
August 7, 2017
Loved every single line of this collection. Would highly recommend.
December 15, 2018
Neke bezobrazne, neke cudne, neke dosadne, neke lepe sa preciznoscu da te ubodu u srce.
December 19, 2018
A fine collection of erotic poetry, but some poems felt out of place or needless.
July 7, 2019
3.5 (W H Auden is a saucy boi)
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May 18, 2020Around The Year in 52 Books 2020: A book with a silhouette on the cover.
May 18, 2021
A few really good poems, but several that were just not my thing.
July 4, 2021
Disappointed but not surprised. The heteronormativity here is just a straight up nope for me.
December 30, 2021
Pretty good a lot of these poems were gorgeous but a lot more were very eh
Favourite was the Fig 👍🏼
Note to self read more Lawrence poetry
Favourite was the Fig 👍🏼
Note to self read more Lawrence poetry
January 1, 2023
I would have liked more romance and less misogyny and adultery.
June 14, 2023
barely concealed smut, and on my bookshelf! Three stars. Recommended.
December 1, 2023
some better than others!
A very mixed bag of poems. Some were wonderful and others not so much! Typically for me the one I liked least was the longest!
A very mixed bag of poems. Some were wonderful and others not so much! Typically for me the one I liked least was the longest!
January 24, 2024
some of it were meh, but some were really really good
September 2, 2024
“God, to be wanted once more before dark.”
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