Love Poems of Elizabeth Sargent

by Elizabeth Sargent

1971 Herder and Herder Soft Cover. Pages not numbered. What a great book of love poems. This is a must read for everyone.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

Reviews

[Ariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book playing the "Powells Game" (buying and reading the first thing you find under $3). I'm glad I found it. Her poetry was unconventional, transgressive, erotic, and Sargent as a writer is a bit of a mystery. I couldn't find much about her online, as she seems to be quite the private person, so to read her poetry seems a real privilege.

[Sydnee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can find poetry pretentious or cliche so I tend to stick to narrative poetry like Toni Morrison or some lovely books of fiction. Elizabeth Sargent's writing is hypnotic. Her writing takes me places and I breeze through pages only stopping to process some of her most punching lines I have ever read.
"I am holding you". Is the one that always stops me in my tracks.
If you love to be engrossed in poetry, but have a distaste for the kitschy, I highly recommend this book. It is magnetic and transports you to another place.

[Katrina Sark · Rating 2 out of 5]

P.1 - Spring Songs

Love, who moves the sun and other stars
Said, “Let me tell you about my Mother.”
“It’s you I want!” “You can’t have me without Her.”
I turned cold. “It may take forever
To find her, I may die before –”
He spread his golden wings. “Where, where
Can I find her?” “Look along the shore
She sometimes walks there, naked. Look among firs
And laurels. She likes deep cover
And, oh yes, look in cities. Dark places between
buildings, those are
Her playgrounds…” I watched him soar
Far, farther; a golden speck; and then too far.
I close my eyes. “Her name is Memory,” I whisper.
“No, darling,” a voice dark and low, “her name is Desire.”

p.8 – A Sailor at Midnight

A sailor at midnight came ashore
You know what he came looking for
But he found me instead
And he followed where I led.
I took him home through dark streets, glad
To have him. I took him home to bed.
He had kisses, it seems, in store
For man, woman or whore
And soft caresses and stories
Of wrecks and dead men and many more
Things I liked; it wasn’t so much what he said
As how he said it – “Dead men floating all around!”
He cried, and shoved the head
Of his thing into me (I bled
A little, he was so large) A sort of dread
Struck him. “What are you, anyway,” he whispered.
“Are you a virgin?”
“No, I’m a poet,” I said. “Fuck me again.”

[Frank Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read these poems probably more than 40 years ago, there's a sequence in there called "A Season in Paradise" which is unique and I've never found anything like it in English poetry anywhere else. She doesn't have the finely-honed literary technique of people like Plath and Eliot but if you respond to the poems they are very powerful indeed.