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Ten Poems to Open Your Heart
Ten Poems to Open Your Heart is a book devoted to to the intimacy of personal love and lovemaking, to a loving compassion for others, and to the love that embraces both this world and the next. This new volume from Roger Housden features a few of the same poets as his extraordinarily moving Ten Poems to Change Your Life, such as Mary Oliver and Pablo Neruda, along with contributions from Sharon Olds, Wislawa Szymborska, Czeslaw Milosz, Denise Levertov, and others. Any one of the ten poems and, indeed, any one of Housden’s reflections on them, can open, gladden, or pierce your heart.
Through the voices of these ten inspiring poets, and through illustrations from his own life, Housden expresses the tenderness, beauty, joys, and sorrows of love, the presence of which, more than anything else, gives human existence its meaning.
As Housden says in his eloquent introduction, “Great poetry happens when the mind is looking the other way and words fall from the sky to shape a moment that would normally be untranslatable. . . . When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours this world, and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be.”
Through the voices of these ten inspiring poets, and through illustrations from his own life, Housden expresses the tenderness, beauty, joys, and sorrows of love, the presence of which, more than anything else, gives human existence its meaning.
As Housden says in his eloquent introduction, “Great poetry happens when the mind is looking the other way and words fall from the sky to shape a moment that would normally be untranslatable. . . . When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours this world, and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be.”
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 7, 2003
About the author
Roger Housden
46 books125 followersRoger Housden is the author of some twenty books of non fiction, including the best selling Ten Poems series. His new book, SAVED BY BEAUTY: ADVENTURES OF AN AMERICAN ROMANTIC IN IRAN, comes out on May 17 2011 with Broadway Books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
December 11, 2010
Upside: good poetry. Downside: author writes so honestly about himself that it gets embarrassing and uncomfortable to read in places. (Made it seem like this was a book of the author's experiences supplemented by poetry, rather than the other way around.)
Favorite part: "Love at First Sight," the poem by W. Szymborska. It moved me to tears.
Favorite part: "Love at First Sight," the poem by W. Szymborska. It moved me to tears.
May 18, 2019
I appreciated his choice of poems and, while I didn't agree with all of his interpretations or his life choices, he added some lovely thoughts and fleshed out some of the poems with great quotes from other poets and other sources. I was intrigued by how many reviewers did not appreciate the personal nature of his descriptions and interpretations of the poems, I thought that such introspection is what poetry is all about!
This small volume offered up some powerful quotes to remember...
"Great poetry, like great art, is a bridge between our heart and the heart of the world."
"In her book The Leaf and the Cloud, Mary Oliver speaks of a poem this way:
It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything."
(For me, this applies to scripture and powerful prose as well.)
"When a priest blesses his flock, he serves as a conduit for the stored spiritual power of his tradition. When a father blesses his son, he is passing on the blessings of his own father and his ancestral line. That flow of energy is the blessing. So a blessing, wherever it comes from, joins us to the larger body of life. It nourishes and heals us with sustenance from the invisible realms."
"Blessings don not always come gift wrapped in gold. Usually some time after the event, we may speak of great misfortune as being a blessing in disguise. There is both a poetic and an etymological connection between our word bless and the French blessure, meaning 'wound'. Our wounds confer blessings on us when we embrace them as part of who we are, when we accept that the brightness of our fire also casts shadows. The wounded healer is one who has dived deep into his own vulnerability and sickness, and returned with the gift of compassion as well as a knowledge that can heal others."
"The true guide knows that he does nothing of himself; that all blessings come from a source beyond himself."
"Szymborska said that the inspiration of the poet is born more than anything else from a moment-by-moment attitude of 'I don't know'."
"Humility, humus, humor - they all come from the same linguistic root, which means 'of the earth'. Humility brings us down to earth, and allows us the latitude to laugh at ourselves."
"Like so many other things, people have also misunderstood the position love has in life; they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure are more blissful that work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, precisely because it is the supreme happiness, can be nothing other than work." - Rilke
"It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation." -Rilke
"The golden bees are making sweet honey
From all my old failures." -Antonio Machado
"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry." -Emily Dickinson
This small volume offered up some powerful quotes to remember...
"Great poetry, like great art, is a bridge between our heart and the heart of the world."
"In her book The Leaf and the Cloud, Mary Oliver speaks of a poem this way:
It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything."
(For me, this applies to scripture and powerful prose as well.)
"When a priest blesses his flock, he serves as a conduit for the stored spiritual power of his tradition. When a father blesses his son, he is passing on the blessings of his own father and his ancestral line. That flow of energy is the blessing. So a blessing, wherever it comes from, joins us to the larger body of life. It nourishes and heals us with sustenance from the invisible realms."
"Blessings don not always come gift wrapped in gold. Usually some time after the event, we may speak of great misfortune as being a blessing in disguise. There is both a poetic and an etymological connection between our word bless and the French blessure, meaning 'wound'. Our wounds confer blessings on us when we embrace them as part of who we are, when we accept that the brightness of our fire also casts shadows. The wounded healer is one who has dived deep into his own vulnerability and sickness, and returned with the gift of compassion as well as a knowledge that can heal others."
"The true guide knows that he does nothing of himself; that all blessings come from a source beyond himself."
"Szymborska said that the inspiration of the poet is born more than anything else from a moment-by-moment attitude of 'I don't know'."
"Humility, humus, humor - they all come from the same linguistic root, which means 'of the earth'. Humility brings us down to earth, and allows us the latitude to laugh at ourselves."
"Like so many other things, people have also misunderstood the position love has in life; they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure are more blissful that work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, precisely because it is the supreme happiness, can be nothing other than work." - Rilke
"It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation." -Rilke
"The golden bees are making sweet honey
From all my old failures." -Antonio Machado
"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry." -Emily Dickinson
September 20, 2013
This was a lovely collection of some interesting poems and a personal explanation as to how they opened the author’s heart. A unique approach to understanding poetry, and I liked Housden’s voice most of the time.
“When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours in: this world, and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be.”
“That is what happens when the heart door opens- you become less yourself than part of everything.” Many are the sentinels who guard that door: our fears, our self-importance, our meanness, our greed, our bitterness, and others.”
“Love, like everything else, exists in a spectrum. Love of another, love of the world, love of God, all these loves are really one love in different degrees of light and density.”
I just was expecting something different; when I think of opening my heart, I think of anything else but romantic love, but these poems in general focus on that, and while it may be important to approach a new love with an open heart, I feel that it is more important to have an open heart in everything. The author places extreme importance on romantic love, although he admits there are other forms that are important, but he details every love affair he has, and it is a little boring. The collection should be called, ten poems to understand love, or how to love better.
West Wind #2~ Mary Oliver ~
You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.
The Knowing ~Sharon Olds
Afterwards, when we have slept, paradise-
comaed and woken, we lie a long time
looking at each other.
I do not know what he sees, but I see
eyes of surpassing tenderness
and calm, a calm like the dignity
of matter. I love the open ocean
blue-grey-green of his iris, I love
the curve of it against the white,
that curve the sight of what has caused me
to come, when he’s quite still, deep
inside me. I have never seen a curve
like that, except the earth from outer
space. I don’t know where he got
his kindness without self-regard,
almost without self, and yet
he chose one woman, instead of the others.
By knowing him, I get to know
the purity of the animal
which mates for life. Sometimes he is slightly
smiling, but mostly he just gazes at me gazing,
his entire face lit. I love
to see it change if I cry–there is no worry,
no pity, no graver radiance. If we
are on our backs, side by side,
with our faces turned fully to face each other,
I can hear a tear from my lower eye
hit the sheet, as if it is an early day on earth,
and then the upper eye’s tears
braid and sluice down through the lower eyebrow
like the invention of farmimg, irrigation, a non-nomadic people.
I am so lucky that I can know him.
This is the only way to know him.
I am the only one who knows him.
When I wake again, he is still looking at me,
as if he is eternal. For an hour
we wake and doze, and slowly I know
that though we are sated, though we are hardly
touching, this is the coming the other
coming brought us to the edge of–we are entering,
deeper and deeper, gaze by gaze,
this place beyond the other places,
beyond the body itself, we are making
love
“When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours in: this world, and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be.”
“That is what happens when the heart door opens- you become less yourself than part of everything.” Many are the sentinels who guard that door: our fears, our self-importance, our meanness, our greed, our bitterness, and others.”
“Love, like everything else, exists in a spectrum. Love of another, love of the world, love of God, all these loves are really one love in different degrees of light and density.”
I just was expecting something different; when I think of opening my heart, I think of anything else but romantic love, but these poems in general focus on that, and while it may be important to approach a new love with an open heart, I feel that it is more important to have an open heart in everything. The author places extreme importance on romantic love, although he admits there are other forms that are important, but he details every love affair he has, and it is a little boring. The collection should be called, ten poems to understand love, or how to love better.
West Wind #2~ Mary Oliver ~
You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.
The Knowing ~Sharon Olds
Afterwards, when we have slept, paradise-
comaed and woken, we lie a long time
looking at each other.
I do not know what he sees, but I see
eyes of surpassing tenderness
and calm, a calm like the dignity
of matter. I love the open ocean
blue-grey-green of his iris, I love
the curve of it against the white,
that curve the sight of what has caused me
to come, when he’s quite still, deep
inside me. I have never seen a curve
like that, except the earth from outer
space. I don’t know where he got
his kindness without self-regard,
almost without self, and yet
he chose one woman, instead of the others.
By knowing him, I get to know
the purity of the animal
which mates for life. Sometimes he is slightly
smiling, but mostly he just gazes at me gazing,
his entire face lit. I love
to see it change if I cry–there is no worry,
no pity, no graver radiance. If we
are on our backs, side by side,
with our faces turned fully to face each other,
I can hear a tear from my lower eye
hit the sheet, as if it is an early day on earth,
and then the upper eye’s tears
braid and sluice down through the lower eyebrow
like the invention of farmimg, irrigation, a non-nomadic people.
I am so lucky that I can know him.
This is the only way to know him.
I am the only one who knows him.
When I wake again, he is still looking at me,
as if he is eternal. For an hour
we wake and doze, and slowly I know
that though we are sated, though we are hardly
touching, this is the coming the other
coming brought us to the edge of–we are entering,
deeper and deeper, gaze by gaze,
this place beyond the other places,
beyond the body itself, we are making
love
September 10, 2017
Simple compilation and commentary on 10 poems.
Italian amatore, a 'lover.'
All the particles in the world
Are in love and looking for lovers.
Pieces of straw tremble
In the presence of amber.
- Rumi
West Wind #2
by Mary Oliver
You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.” ― Mary Oliver, West Wind
Walt Whitman
"There will soon be no more priests. Their work is done... Everyman shall be his own priest."
Whichever way they appear, blessings give an experience of the world that is richer, more full of life and meaning than the one we had known before. Like the sensation of belonging, of realizing that you have your own unique place in the family of things. A blessing is an influx of grace.
Saint Augustine: Love and do what you will. For everything is already well, and just as it needs to be.
Tell me about despair, yours. I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. - Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth. - Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
Choose carefully / all you are going to lose, though any of it would do - Jane Hirshfield
None of us has any firm ground beneath our feet. We are all on our way to the exit door.
Everything we cherish will pass out of our lives, and we, too, shall pass away. When we come to know this truth as a lived experience, we also know a deep love and kindness for everyone else who must take the same road. Our pain, our suffering, does not make us special; it joins us to the human race.
bodhicitta the great beating heart of compassion that naturally exists in all beings
Compassion - to suffer with
Then it is only kindness that makes any sense anymore. - Naomi Shihab Nye
Like so many other things, people have also misunderstood the position love has in life; they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure are more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, precisely because it is the supreme happiness, can be nothing other than work. - Rilke
It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. - Rilke
Love Sonnet LXXXIX
When I die, I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me once more:
I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.
I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.
I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you
to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,
to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.
I want what I love to continue to live,
and you whom I love and sang above everything else
to continue to flourish, full-flowered:
so that you can reach everything my love directs you to,
so that my shadow can travel along in your hair,
so that everything can learn the reason for my song.
-Pablo Neruda
No one, in reality, goes anywhere when they die. "Where would they go?" the Indian saint Ramana Maharshi used to say.
'Listening,' after all is the original, root meaning of obedience.
To praise is to praise
how one surrenders
to the emptiness.
- Rumi
I used to be respectable and chaste and stable. - Rumi
Shams was Rumi's only true spiritual friend. Rumi's students murdered Shams b/c they were jealous.
There is a way, Rumi says. Fall backward into love.
I saw you and became empty.
This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes
existence thrives and creates more existence.
- Rumi
Feel the motions of tenderness
around you, the buoyancy.
- Mary Oliver
We have turned our face to the pearl lying on the ocean floor
So why then should we worry if this wobbly old boat keeps going or not?
- Hafiz
[Rumi (1207 to 1273) was born in the eastern-most province of Persia, but his family fled west during the Mongol invasion, and he lived most of his life in the Sultanate of Rum, in present-day Turkey
Hafiz came along a hundred years later (1320 to 1389). He lived most of his life in Shiraz. He is considered the most beloved poet of Persia, and one of the finest lyricists in the Persian language. He was a devout Sufi. He lived about the same time as Chaucer in England.
https://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2...]
Italian amatore, a 'lover.'
All the particles in the world
Are in love and looking for lovers.
Pieces of straw tremble
In the presence of amber.
- Rumi
West Wind #2
by Mary Oliver
You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.” ― Mary Oliver, West Wind
Walt Whitman
"There will soon be no more priests. Their work is done... Everyman shall be his own priest."
Whichever way they appear, blessings give an experience of the world that is richer, more full of life and meaning than the one we had known before. Like the sensation of belonging, of realizing that you have your own unique place in the family of things. A blessing is an influx of grace.
Saint Augustine: Love and do what you will. For everything is already well, and just as it needs to be.
Tell me about despair, yours. I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. - Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth. - Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
Choose carefully / all you are going to lose, though any of it would do - Jane Hirshfield
None of us has any firm ground beneath our feet. We are all on our way to the exit door.
Everything we cherish will pass out of our lives, and we, too, shall pass away. When we come to know this truth as a lived experience, we also know a deep love and kindness for everyone else who must take the same road. Our pain, our suffering, does not make us special; it joins us to the human race.
bodhicitta the great beating heart of compassion that naturally exists in all beings
Compassion - to suffer with
Then it is only kindness that makes any sense anymore. - Naomi Shihab Nye
Like so many other things, people have also misunderstood the position love has in life; they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure are more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, precisely because it is the supreme happiness, can be nothing other than work. - Rilke
It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. - Rilke
Love Sonnet LXXXIX
When I die, I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me once more:
I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.
I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.
I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you
to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,
to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.
I want what I love to continue to live,
and you whom I love and sang above everything else
to continue to flourish, full-flowered:
so that you can reach everything my love directs you to,
so that my shadow can travel along in your hair,
so that everything can learn the reason for my song.
-Pablo Neruda
No one, in reality, goes anywhere when they die. "Where would they go?" the Indian saint Ramana Maharshi used to say.
'Listening,' after all is the original, root meaning of obedience.
To praise is to praise
how one surrenders
to the emptiness.
- Rumi
I used to be respectable and chaste and stable. - Rumi
Shams was Rumi's only true spiritual friend. Rumi's students murdered Shams b/c they were jealous.
There is a way, Rumi says. Fall backward into love.
I saw you and became empty.
This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes
existence thrives and creates more existence.
- Rumi
Feel the motions of tenderness
around you, the buoyancy.
- Mary Oliver
We have turned our face to the pearl lying on the ocean floor
So why then should we worry if this wobbly old boat keeps going or not?
- Hafiz
[Rumi (1207 to 1273) was born in the eastern-most province of Persia, but his family fled west during the Mongol invasion, and he lived most of his life in the Sultanate of Rum, in present-day Turkey
Hafiz came along a hundred years later (1320 to 1389). He lived most of his life in Shiraz. He is considered the most beloved poet of Persia, and one of the finest lyricists in the Persian language. He was a devout Sufi. He lived about the same time as Chaucer in England.
https://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2...]
January 18, 2020
I am slowly savoring Housden's "Ten Poems" series, although not in order. I tend to pick them up topically based on what is happening in my life or the kind of quiet poetic companion I am seeking on my journey at the time. As always, I enjoyed the poems he featured, others he quoted, and his thoughtful personal meditations on each.
This line near the end particularly struck me as I was reading this in Florida near the Gulf of Mexico:
"Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck we could have." ~ Rumi
This line near the end particularly struck me as I was reading this in Florida near the Gulf of Mexico:
"Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck we could have." ~ Rumi
December 21, 2024
diet poetry
December 30, 2010
If I had to choose a series of books as my all time favorite, it would be Roger Housden's Ten Poems to....
I've discovered my all time favorite poet (Naomi Shihab Nye) because of these books! He chooses the most exquisite, sublime, challenging and inspiring poetry, and his commentaries are superb, analysis that truely gets into the marrow of a poem. This is the perfect series, the perfect gift - boxed set of Roger Housden's Ten Poems... will be life-changing (and I don't use that word lightly.)
LOVE IT.
I've discovered my all time favorite poet (Naomi Shihab Nye) because of these books! He chooses the most exquisite, sublime, challenging and inspiring poetry, and his commentaries are superb, analysis that truely gets into the marrow of a poem. This is the perfect series, the perfect gift - boxed set of Roger Housden's Ten Poems... will be life-changing (and I don't use that word lightly.)
LOVE IT.
January 15, 2020
I’ve continued my practice of reading poetry in bed with a cup of tea most work mornings. It seems a nice start to the day than getting sucked into the news, or views.
This book didn’t hold as many delights for me as some of the others, but there were still two poems that stood out for me:
- The knowing by Sharon Olds
- Love at first sight by Wislawa Szymborska
This book didn’t hold as many delights for me as some of the others, but there were still two poems that stood out for me:
- The knowing by Sharon Olds
- Love at first sight by Wislawa Szymborska
June 8, 2023
Either with the poem, or with the accompanying essay, I felt deep resonance and a pull, a tug, towards love, or in love. I feel more whole, and also a little sadness that I've finished this beautiful work.
Read
September 28, 2017Measured poetic review on a thoughtful subject. I loved reading this to start the day.
May 4, 2018
Enjoyed putting the book down intermittently to absorb the poems and thought-provoking commentary... to allow space for musing and even jot down a few lines of my stream of consciousness
May 14, 2019
A variety of love poems and Housden's response to them.
May 29, 2019
Great poems/
March 28, 2021
3.5 Enjoyable poems and commentary.
April 10, 2023
THIS BOOK WAS CRAZY THX GRANDMA
July 23, 2023
Beautiful poetry. Vulnerable and meaningful interpretations. Very quick and worthwhile read.
September 23, 2023
Good, but not as good as others in the series.
January 8, 2024
Beautiful and thoughtful poems that speak to the heart
August 9, 2025
Only one of the poems spoke to me. And the author's personal recollections mostly involved life choices I do not agree with.
May 3, 2023
Mission accomplished, my heart has been opened! I immediately purchased 8 more of Roger Housden's poetry collections. The author chose incredible poems, and his analysis is gorgeous!
November 1, 2009
I really liked this book. It's an interesting format--- a poem on the topic followed by an essay on the lesson of the poem by Housden, incorporating his knowledge of the poet and his/her works, personal reflections, and comparisons to other works inside and outside this collection. It introduced me to thought-provoking works by poets outside my experience, made me think about love and its many forms. Easy to read in small bursts, befitting poetry. I liked that it wasn't specifically literary criticism.
September 30, 2019
Since April is Poetry Month, I thought rereading this book would be good. I have several of Roger Housden's poetry collections. These poems are his choice of good poems to make you think of Love. I think my favorite is the first poem by by Mary Oliver,"Row for Your Life". I was also fond of "Love" by Czeslaw Milosz. This is a good book to just pick up and read through or pick one poem and savor it.
Sometimes we forget how wonderful a poem is when it moves you to think beyond your everyday life.
Sometimes we forget how wonderful a poem is when it moves you to think beyond your everyday life.
January 29, 2012
Housden writes from the heart, and somehow manages to encapsulate that intensity of his vivid, selfish emotions...which he has every right to be selfish about, and ironically by sharing this book with us, it is selfless - to showcase such beautiful and vivid emotions which simply cannot be described by vocabulary, but as a general construct of fluidity in language. An excellent read, though I daresay this would be undermining it.
June 7, 2015
Another great collection of beautiful, simple, heart-opening poetry to keep near by, at the breakfast table or on your nightstand (isn't that a great word?). Special favorites: West Wind #2, by Mary Oliver, and Saint Francis and the Sow, by Galway Kinnell:
The bud stands for all things,
Even for things that don't flower, ...
And then there is The Third Body, by Robert Bly -- which I believe in, and would love to experience again.
The bud stands for all things,
Even for things that don't flower, ...
And then there is The Third Body, by Robert Bly -- which I believe in, and would love to experience again.
June 21, 2016
The poems were alright but honestly the commentary was a bit bizarre. My favorites from the collection are Love at First Sight by Wislawa Szymborska, Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye, and Pablo Neruda's sonnet that begins "when I die I want your hands on my eyes". Love at First Sight is a new favorite of mine and I appreciate that this book gave me that. But the book itself is nothing extraordinary. I'm glad I got it from the library.
February 15, 2012
Housden works magic in his handling and explanation of the poems he's chosen. Like his other Ten Poems books, the carefully chosen works do exactly what they promise. I found it hard not to become one of his adoring fans when I saw him speak recently. So sensitive! Yikes! The real adoration is for the words of the poets he has brought to us.
December 28, 2009
Great book series to introduce someone to poetry. I fell in love with poetry and Housden's insightful reflections. Rumi, Oliver, Rilke are in the whole series and so many others--Jane Hirschfield, Marie Howe, David Whyte, Naomi Shihab Nye, to name a few.
April 11, 2010
I'll have to write a blog post about this book, but really about all of these Ten Poems books, because they all reach out and grab me. I love the selection of poems, and I love debating the analysis of the poems in his essays that follow. I need to find more of these to read!
August 25, 2010
4.5 stars for this one if I could
3 of the poems in here I loved a ton and I appreciated Housden's commentary on each.
West Wind # 2 by Mary Oliver
Love Sonnet LXXXIX by Pablo Neruda
Buoyancy by Rumi
3 of the poems in here I loved a ton and I appreciated Housden's commentary on each.
West Wind # 2 by Mary Oliver
Love Sonnet LXXXIX by Pablo Neruda
Buoyancy by Rumi
March 19, 2014
not being familiar or experienced in reading poetry, this was a nice introduction, and I like the author's analysis of the poems, not from a literary critic's point of view, but rather a person one. I like the format.
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