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Drinks With Dead Poets
“I am walking along a country lane with no earthly idea why . . .”
Poet Glyn Maxwell wakes up in a mysterious village one autumn day. He has no idea how he got there—is he dead? In a coma? Dreaming?—but he has a strange feeling there’s a class to teach. And isn’t that the poet Keats wandering down the lane? Why not ask him to give a reading, do a Q and A, hit the pub with the students afterwards?
Soon the whole of the autumn term stretches ahead, with Byron, Yeats and Emily Dickinson, the Brontës, the Brownings, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Wilfred Owen, and many more all on their way to give readings in the humble village hall.
And everything these famed personalities say—in class, on stage, at the Cross Keys pub—comes verbatim from these poets’ diaries, essays, or letters. A dreamy novel of a profound autumn term with Poe, Yeats, Whitman, Dickinson, and the Brontës.
Poet Glyn Maxwell wakes up in a mysterious village one autumn day. He has no idea how he got there—is he dead? In a coma? Dreaming?—but he has a strange feeling there’s a class to teach. And isn’t that the poet Keats wandering down the lane? Why not ask him to give a reading, do a Q and A, hit the pub with the students afterwards?
Soon the whole of the autumn term stretches ahead, with Byron, Yeats and Emily Dickinson, the Brontës, the Brownings, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Wilfred Owen, and many more all on their way to give readings in the humble village hall.
And everything these famed personalities say—in class, on stage, at the Cross Keys pub—comes verbatim from these poets’ diaries, essays, or letters. A dreamy novel of a profound autumn term with Poe, Yeats, Whitman, Dickinson, and the Brontës.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published August 8, 2017
16 people are currently reading
1155 people want to read
About the author
Glyn Maxwell
52 books46 followersGlyn Maxwell is a poet and playwright. He has also written novels, opera libretti, screenplay and criticism.
His nine volumes of poetry include The Breakage, Hide Now, and Pluto, all of which were shortlisted for either the Forward or T. S. Eliot Prizes, and The Nerve, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He was one of the original ‘New Generation Poets’ in 1993, along with Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy and Don Paterson. His poetry has been published in the USA since 2000. His Selected Poems, One Thousand Nights and Counting, was published on both sides of the Atlantic in 2011. He has a long association with Derek Walcott, who taught him in Boston in the late 1980s, and whose Selected Poems he edited in 2014.
On Poetry, a guidebook for the general reader, was published by Oberon in their Masters Series in 2012. It was described by Hugo Williams in The Spectator as ‘a modern classic’ and by Adam Newey in The Guardian as ‘the best book about poetry I’ve ever read.’
Fifteen of Maxwell’s plays have been staged in London and New York, including Liberty at Shakespeare’s Globe, The Lifeblood at Riverside Studios, and The Only Girl in the World at the Arcola, as well as work at the Almeida, Theatre 503, Oxford Playhouse, the Hen and Chickens, and RADA. He has written extensively for the Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in Chester.
His opera libretti include The Firework Maker’s Daughter (composer David Bruce) which was shortlisted for ‘Best New Opera’ at the Oliviers in 2014, Seven Angels (Luke Bedford) inspired by Paradise Lost, and The Lion’s Face (Elena Langer), a study of dementia. All of these were staged at the Royal Opera House and toured the UK.
He is currently working on a screen adaptation of Henry James’s The Beast in the Jungle for the Dutch director Clara Van Gool.
His nine volumes of poetry include The Breakage, Hide Now, and Pluto, all of which were shortlisted for either the Forward or T. S. Eliot Prizes, and The Nerve, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He was one of the original ‘New Generation Poets’ in 1993, along with Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy and Don Paterson. His poetry has been published in the USA since 2000. His Selected Poems, One Thousand Nights and Counting, was published on both sides of the Atlantic in 2011. He has a long association with Derek Walcott, who taught him in Boston in the late 1980s, and whose Selected Poems he edited in 2014.
On Poetry, a guidebook for the general reader, was published by Oberon in their Masters Series in 2012. It was described by Hugo Williams in The Spectator as ‘a modern classic’ and by Adam Newey in The Guardian as ‘the best book about poetry I’ve ever read.’
Fifteen of Maxwell’s plays have been staged in London and New York, including Liberty at Shakespeare’s Globe, The Lifeblood at Riverside Studios, and The Only Girl in the World at the Arcola, as well as work at the Almeida, Theatre 503, Oxford Playhouse, the Hen and Chickens, and RADA. He has written extensively for the Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in Chester.
His opera libretti include The Firework Maker’s Daughter (composer David Bruce) which was shortlisted for ‘Best New Opera’ at the Oliviers in 2014, Seven Angels (Luke Bedford) inspired by Paradise Lost, and The Lion’s Face (Elena Langer), a study of dementia. All of these were staged at the Royal Opera House and toured the UK.
He is currently working on a screen adaptation of Henry James’s The Beast in the Jungle for the Dutch director Clara Van Gool.
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September 23, 2018
I rarely write negative reviews – I prefer to just abandon a book and move on. But I was provoked by reading on the cover that “this is the best book about poetry I’ve ever read” (The Guardian), “among my indispensible books” (Poetry Review) and a “modern classic (The Spectator), and also so many enthusiastic reviews on Goodreads; it would be cowardly of me to shrink from the task. I need to warn you – don’t read this book. There are far better alternatives.
It’s a novel. Many wonderful poems are cited in it, and if I wanted a selection of nice poems I would look for one put together by Gladwell. A few are even written by Gladwell, a poet unafraid to risk his own work in this impressive company, keen to remind us at frequent intervals that he is indeed a poet. I have no doubt whatsoever that he knows his stuff and I turned to his book for inspiration. I did not turn to his book just to read a selection of nice poems. Having set the book up as a novel that is how it should be judged.
Gladwell does stop on occasion to make remarks about the poems he cites and he has some enlightening things to say. If he said more I would have appreciated that very much - I'd bet he could write a brilliant guide to poetry - but he says very little. He offers only snippets, starts to get interesting, then switches the subject. He leaves the poetry and returns to his novel.
In most chapters, Gladwell describes an exercise for aspiring writers of poetry and I imagine some readers will enjoy taking on these assignments. I can only assume these are the sort of activity one could expect on a creative writing course, since Gladwell depicts himself as a tutor for a group of students following his programme through a term. I am not sure I would want to have him for a tutor, since he describes his approach to teaching in such an offhand way. I am not sure that the exercises as described are terribly constructive, nor that his programme is in reality structured around any cumulative learning goals, but perhaps his attitude is based on an awareness that one cannot teach poets to write, one can only invite them to have a go.
In every chapter, a different (dead) poet turns up to offer a reading and to answer questions from the students of poetry. They are all significant figures from the 19th Century (plus Yeats) and there is a huge amount to be gained by considering things they have each said about the craft of poetry.
Unfortunately, they do not actually say very much in this book and the glimpses we are offered are infuriatingly trite. Poets have not only said a great deal, they have also engaged in strident and outspoken disagreements with each other, with their predecessors and with their critics. For pity’s sake there is a wealth of material to be picked over in a guide such as this – or alternatively, in a guide that rose to the occasion and did not flop like this flaccid text for lack of energy and drive. Take Coleridge’s Frost at Midnight, which is used in this text: it was not just a jolly nice poem worth reading, it was also part of a serious assault on conventional poetry in its day, a remarkable and radical announcement of something new, a Quixotic tilt at windmills. There is just no sense of the sheer energy at work in the most interesting poetry of any period, then or now. The best poets do not just write poems – they write manifestos, they make statements, they demand attention, they provoke change. There is a reason why Coleridge was awake and hyper-alert at midnight and it is for the same reason that poets are described as the movers and shakers of the world forever, and no hint of that appears here.
None of these interesting things happen in this book because it continually switches from poetry to the absurd plot of a bland and unimaginative novel. It is not as if Gladwell even aspires to write novels rather than poems. Very early – on page 25 – a student says to him “I’m writing a novel.” Gladwell responds: “Oh. I said that to my teacher and he called me a whore...” [p25]
Well, Gladwell has written one all the same and there is nothing the matter with the concept of teaching through a novel. [Among the very best and most challenging textbooks on management theory taught on my MBA course was a novel called The Goal, which I recommend warmly – though it is a bit lateral to our interest here!] In this novel, Gladwell is the tutor on a creative writing course for students wishing to write poetry, and through an Autumn term of twelve sessions, he introduces his students to a range of 19th Century poets and sets exercises for them. The creative twist is that the dead poets actually turn up to give a reading of their work and answer questions from the students. I doubt if any reader would have the least difficulty suspending disbelief for the duration of his novel, in order to bring dead poets back to life, and many readers would probably enjoy hearing how and why ST Coleridge invented the concept of suspending disbelief to answer the long running conundrum as to how drama works with its audiences.
What could go wrong with that perfectly workable plan is that Gladwell lacks the imagination or the technique to make it work – he is a poet but he is clearly not a novelist. He tries to sustain throughout the delusion that he has no memory of what or where he is, and that he is completely unaware of what takes place on the six days between his weekly teaching assignments. Where am I, who am I, what am I doing here, what is happening to me, the whole thing is dull. When he does wheel his dead poets onto his stage, he makes infuriatingly limited use of them. He seems content just to have name-checked them. All that tells me is that he has failed to summon up a sensible description of his imagined world and is floundering instead with tedious and repetitive nonsense. There is just about none of the necessary circumstantial detail that paints a believable picture for the reader in a well written novel. I suspect that readers who loved his book have used their own imaginations to fill in the huge empty spaces and given Gladwell the credit, which he does not deserve.
Even worse, the tutor in his novel is continually trying to use streetwise language and ‘cool’ mannerisms to establish credibility with his much younger students and that is pretty well always a terrible approach to younger people from any older adult, let alone from any teacher; it normally falls flat and it earns more scorn than respect. I further despise the assumption that the public, or students, or young people (whoever is the imagined target audience here) will only stick with his novel if it is insistently amusing and witty. Most poetry is not comical, much really great poetry makes us want to cry and I fail to appreciate why readers of poetry must be treated like the audience of a stand up comedian. Even stand up comedians can sometimes do an entire gig without being overtly funny.
The idea that great teachers behave like one of the kids is in my humble opinion false and also undesirable. There is even a clue to one reason for this in the novel, which makes reference several times to the notion that students are customers who buy their education and can choose to attend or not whatever session they choose. They are not customers, poetry is not a commodity, education is not a commercial transaction, and their payments could never purchase what Gladwell has to offer because they could never afford its true value and it is not his to sell – it is a common, shared heritage created by dead poets. If he wants to teach this heritage, we need him to act the adult.
Of course he is a good poet. Of course he writes many magical passages showing his genuine insight into poetry. He’s just a rubbish novelist and this book is not on my list of recommended reading. There is so much out there which is far better. Try Richard Holmes on Coleridge for example.
So there you go. Sorry to be so horrible. I’ve even spoiled my own evening.
It’s a novel. Many wonderful poems are cited in it, and if I wanted a selection of nice poems I would look for one put together by Gladwell. A few are even written by Gladwell, a poet unafraid to risk his own work in this impressive company, keen to remind us at frequent intervals that he is indeed a poet. I have no doubt whatsoever that he knows his stuff and I turned to his book for inspiration. I did not turn to his book just to read a selection of nice poems. Having set the book up as a novel that is how it should be judged.
Gladwell does stop on occasion to make remarks about the poems he cites and he has some enlightening things to say. If he said more I would have appreciated that very much - I'd bet he could write a brilliant guide to poetry - but he says very little. He offers only snippets, starts to get interesting, then switches the subject. He leaves the poetry and returns to his novel.
In most chapters, Gladwell describes an exercise for aspiring writers of poetry and I imagine some readers will enjoy taking on these assignments. I can only assume these are the sort of activity one could expect on a creative writing course, since Gladwell depicts himself as a tutor for a group of students following his programme through a term. I am not sure I would want to have him for a tutor, since he describes his approach to teaching in such an offhand way. I am not sure that the exercises as described are terribly constructive, nor that his programme is in reality structured around any cumulative learning goals, but perhaps his attitude is based on an awareness that one cannot teach poets to write, one can only invite them to have a go.
In every chapter, a different (dead) poet turns up to offer a reading and to answer questions from the students of poetry. They are all significant figures from the 19th Century (plus Yeats) and there is a huge amount to be gained by considering things they have each said about the craft of poetry.
Unfortunately, they do not actually say very much in this book and the glimpses we are offered are infuriatingly trite. Poets have not only said a great deal, they have also engaged in strident and outspoken disagreements with each other, with their predecessors and with their critics. For pity’s sake there is a wealth of material to be picked over in a guide such as this – or alternatively, in a guide that rose to the occasion and did not flop like this flaccid text for lack of energy and drive. Take Coleridge’s Frost at Midnight, which is used in this text: it was not just a jolly nice poem worth reading, it was also part of a serious assault on conventional poetry in its day, a remarkable and radical announcement of something new, a Quixotic tilt at windmills. There is just no sense of the sheer energy at work in the most interesting poetry of any period, then or now. The best poets do not just write poems – they write manifestos, they make statements, they demand attention, they provoke change. There is a reason why Coleridge was awake and hyper-alert at midnight and it is for the same reason that poets are described as the movers and shakers of the world forever, and no hint of that appears here.
None of these interesting things happen in this book because it continually switches from poetry to the absurd plot of a bland and unimaginative novel. It is not as if Gladwell even aspires to write novels rather than poems. Very early – on page 25 – a student says to him “I’m writing a novel.” Gladwell responds: “Oh. I said that to my teacher and he called me a whore...” [p25]
Well, Gladwell has written one all the same and there is nothing the matter with the concept of teaching through a novel. [Among the very best and most challenging textbooks on management theory taught on my MBA course was a novel called The Goal, which I recommend warmly – though it is a bit lateral to our interest here!] In this novel, Gladwell is the tutor on a creative writing course for students wishing to write poetry, and through an Autumn term of twelve sessions, he introduces his students to a range of 19th Century poets and sets exercises for them. The creative twist is that the dead poets actually turn up to give a reading of their work and answer questions from the students. I doubt if any reader would have the least difficulty suspending disbelief for the duration of his novel, in order to bring dead poets back to life, and many readers would probably enjoy hearing how and why ST Coleridge invented the concept of suspending disbelief to answer the long running conundrum as to how drama works with its audiences.
What could go wrong with that perfectly workable plan is that Gladwell lacks the imagination or the technique to make it work – he is a poet but he is clearly not a novelist. He tries to sustain throughout the delusion that he has no memory of what or where he is, and that he is completely unaware of what takes place on the six days between his weekly teaching assignments. Where am I, who am I, what am I doing here, what is happening to me, the whole thing is dull. When he does wheel his dead poets onto his stage, he makes infuriatingly limited use of them. He seems content just to have name-checked them. All that tells me is that he has failed to summon up a sensible description of his imagined world and is floundering instead with tedious and repetitive nonsense. There is just about none of the necessary circumstantial detail that paints a believable picture for the reader in a well written novel. I suspect that readers who loved his book have used their own imaginations to fill in the huge empty spaces and given Gladwell the credit, which he does not deserve.
Even worse, the tutor in his novel is continually trying to use streetwise language and ‘cool’ mannerisms to establish credibility with his much younger students and that is pretty well always a terrible approach to younger people from any older adult, let alone from any teacher; it normally falls flat and it earns more scorn than respect. I further despise the assumption that the public, or students, or young people (whoever is the imagined target audience here) will only stick with his novel if it is insistently amusing and witty. Most poetry is not comical, much really great poetry makes us want to cry and I fail to appreciate why readers of poetry must be treated like the audience of a stand up comedian. Even stand up comedians can sometimes do an entire gig without being overtly funny.
The idea that great teachers behave like one of the kids is in my humble opinion false and also undesirable. There is even a clue to one reason for this in the novel, which makes reference several times to the notion that students are customers who buy their education and can choose to attend or not whatever session they choose. They are not customers, poetry is not a commodity, education is not a commercial transaction, and their payments could never purchase what Gladwell has to offer because they could never afford its true value and it is not his to sell – it is a common, shared heritage created by dead poets. If he wants to teach this heritage, we need him to act the adult.
Of course he is a good poet. Of course he writes many magical passages showing his genuine insight into poetry. He’s just a rubbish novelist and this book is not on my list of recommended reading. There is so much out there which is far better. Try Richard Holmes on Coleridge for example.
So there you go. Sorry to be so horrible. I’ve even spoiled my own evening.
August 18, 2017
I've learned so much. This book has it's own kind of magic, it's made me appreciate poetry and what it can do, which I thought was impossible.
This review was originally published on my blog, Literary Alliteration
*I received an arc through netgalley in exchange for an honest review*
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5 stars.
I’m usually intimidated by poetry because I generally don’t understand it. It has always been either hit or miss for me, and sadly mostly miss. Then came along this peculiar novel.
A professor, who shares the author’s name, finds himself in a mysterious village, where he’s expected to teach a poetry class. The story plays out over the course of the fall semester where each week is about a new poet. The poets, though dead, arrive in their corresponding week to perform a reading and have drinks with the class while answering questions from the students.
The first thing that was clear to me while reading was the genuine passion for poetry it consists of. It’s not just a story, it’s like experiencing the inside of the narrator’s mind. Sometimes it can be confusing, especially if you’re not completely focused on every sentence. That’s part of the appeal. It’s fascinating. The further I dived into the story the more I started to appreciate it for it’s strangeness and intensity. It possesses an enthralling magic that wraps itself around you, refusing to let go.
Drinks with Dead Poets has managed to change my perception of poetry. I may not comprehend the majority on a strictly fact-based level, but I’ve learned that it’s much more than that. It’s emotional and everything matters, not just the words but the breaks, the length, the rhythm, everything. I will never look at a poem the same way again.
Don’t expect it to be light reading, there is an enormous amount of information, thoughts and theories, that demands to be pondered. I had to stop and take breaks throughout, because it inspired me and made me so excited about poetry, which I honestly thought nearly impossible. Don’t go into it with any expectations. Let it guide you, surprise you, teach you and most importantly, let it inspire you.
This review was originally published on my blog, Literary Alliteration
*I received an arc through netgalley in exchange for an honest review*
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5 stars.
I’m usually intimidated by poetry because I generally don’t understand it. It has always been either hit or miss for me, and sadly mostly miss. Then came along this peculiar novel.
A professor, who shares the author’s name, finds himself in a mysterious village, where he’s expected to teach a poetry class. The story plays out over the course of the fall semester where each week is about a new poet. The poets, though dead, arrive in their corresponding week to perform a reading and have drinks with the class while answering questions from the students.
The first thing that was clear to me while reading was the genuine passion for poetry it consists of. It’s not just a story, it’s like experiencing the inside of the narrator’s mind. Sometimes it can be confusing, especially if you’re not completely focused on every sentence. That’s part of the appeal. It’s fascinating. The further I dived into the story the more I started to appreciate it for it’s strangeness and intensity. It possesses an enthralling magic that wraps itself around you, refusing to let go.
Drinks with Dead Poets has managed to change my perception of poetry. I may not comprehend the majority on a strictly fact-based level, but I’ve learned that it’s much more than that. It’s emotional and everything matters, not just the words but the breaks, the length, the rhythm, everything. I will never look at a poem the same way again.
Don’t expect it to be light reading, there is an enormous amount of information, thoughts and theories, that demands to be pondered. I had to stop and take breaks throughout, because it inspired me and made me so excited about poetry, which I honestly thought nearly impossible. Don’t go into it with any expectations. Let it guide you, surprise you, teach you and most importantly, let it inspire you.
October 22, 2016
I will never look at a blank page the same way again.
Poetry is close to my heart, so I was bound to enjoy this book from the get go. I was not prepared how much I would love it. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me pick up a pen and write again.
I think this will go on my "read it over and over again" shelf.
Poetry is close to my heart, so I was bound to enjoy this book from the get go. I was not prepared how much I would love it. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me pick up a pen and write again.
I think this will go on my "read it over and over again" shelf.
October 3, 2017
I read this because I read On Poetry by the same author, a book I gave the full 5 stars to. A little masterpiece, in my opinion.
This one takes the same basic premise and expands on it. There's a wise teacher (the Author) who finds himself teaching a poetry class to mature students - this time on a dreamlike university campus somewhere rural. It's always Thursday for some reason, but we follow this weekly class for the full term, and the (dead) poets on the reading list actually turn up! and chat with the class.
It's a great idea, and the true cleverness lies in how the dead poets stay 'in character' as they interact with their modern audience, they say only things they were known to have said, so it all ends up being very illuminating both for the fictional classmates and for the reader.
This one takes the same basic premise and expands on it. There's a wise teacher (the Author) who finds himself teaching a poetry class to mature students - this time on a dreamlike university campus somewhere rural. It's always Thursday for some reason, but we follow this weekly class for the full term, and the (dead) poets on the reading list actually turn up! and chat with the class.
It's a great idea, and the true cleverness lies in how the dead poets stay 'in character' as they interact with their modern audience, they say only things they were known to have said, so it all ends up being very illuminating both for the fictional classmates and for the reader.
May 27, 2017
Glyn Maxwell has written a quirky and challenging book that presents itself as a novel, but might more accurately be read as a guide to reading and understanding poetry. Maxwell's principal character
greets the reader in a confused state: he unsure of where he is, or how he landed there, but he is leading a rather unorthodox (and unofficial) college class in poetry and his students experience a series of notable guests from Keats to Whitman to the Brownings and Poe.
The magic of this book is not that the guests are all notable dead poets, but it is in how each of Maxwell's chapters prepares the reader for what to listen for in each poet's work. We start to understand how (and why) a poet uses meter. We gain an understanding of how an idea is presented in a poem. And, we start to think about how the form and language influences what we hear and how we feel about the words.
I would love to be a student of Glyn Maxwell's, but it would be equally exciting to be teaching poetry using this book as a text. This is a quirky and challenging novel (and one that is rather slow to pick up steam), but it is a brilliant guide to understanding and appreciating poetry. The more I read, the more enthusiastic I became. It is, perhaps, a book that requires re-reading. I read it quickly to understand what was happening (and/or see IF anything was going to happen that would "clear the haze" created by the author) . Now, I can return to the book at my leisure, perhaps reading one author at a time to gain a better appreciation of them and their work.
NetGalley provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
greets the reader in a confused state: he unsure of where he is, or how he landed there, but he is leading a rather unorthodox (and unofficial) college class in poetry and his students experience a series of notable guests from Keats to Whitman to the Brownings and Poe.
The magic of this book is not that the guests are all notable dead poets, but it is in how each of Maxwell's chapters prepares the reader for what to listen for in each poet's work. We start to understand how (and why) a poet uses meter. We gain an understanding of how an idea is presented in a poem. And, we start to think about how the form and language influences what we hear and how we feel about the words.
I would love to be a student of Glyn Maxwell's, but it would be equally exciting to be teaching poetry using this book as a text. This is a quirky and challenging novel (and one that is rather slow to pick up steam), but it is a brilliant guide to understanding and appreciating poetry. The more I read, the more enthusiastic I became. It is, perhaps, a book that requires re-reading. I read it quickly to understand what was happening (and/or see IF anything was going to happen that would "clear the haze" created by the author) . Now, I can return to the book at my leisure, perhaps reading one author at a time to gain a better appreciation of them and their work.
NetGalley provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
July 5, 2017
Drinks with Dead Poets is a wonderfully eccentric book that defies categorization. Poet and teacher Glyn Maxwell is scheduled to teach a poetry class on a campus in a village that he doesn't recognize and can't remember coming to. Every Thursday until the end of term, he awakens in the same room in the same village to teach his class, each featuring a different poet's work. It so happens that the poets whose work Maxwell is teaching are all dead, and Student Services has booked them as visiting poets for Maxwell's classes.
Everything the poets say during their visits is taken verbatim from historical records--a fine conceit that gives context to their poetry and brings them, literally, to life. Maxwell (yes, he's not only the book's protagonist but its author too) brings a great sense of fun to his subject. He knows academia well, too, inventing an idiosyncratic array of students, teachers, and assorted bureaucrats whose behavior is both amusing and on the mark.
Drinks with Dead Poets is also a brilliant commentary on understanding poetry: how it works and how best to enjoy it. Using examples from the "visiting poets'" work, these are its most spirited, enjoyable, and and instructive parts. It's a book that I can see myself re-visiting more than once.
Everything the poets say during their visits is taken verbatim from historical records--a fine conceit that gives context to their poetry and brings them, literally, to life. Maxwell (yes, he's not only the book's protagonist but its author too) brings a great sense of fun to his subject. He knows academia well, too, inventing an idiosyncratic array of students, teachers, and assorted bureaucrats whose behavior is both amusing and on the mark.
Drinks with Dead Poets is also a brilliant commentary on understanding poetry: how it works and how best to enjoy it. Using examples from the "visiting poets'" work, these are its most spirited, enjoyable, and and instructive parts. It's a book that I can see myself re-visiting more than once.
July 30, 2018
Drinks with Dead Poets is a follow on from Maxwell's On Poetry. If you've read and appreciated that book, then you're well situated to read and appreciate this book. What it is not is a novel which functions primarily in terms of what happens to the protagonist, nor how the protagonist develops as a character. What it is, rather, is a fictional conceit which gives Maxwell the space to talk about reading and writing poetry without being godawful boring as he channels the perfunctory "poetry appreciation" class at your local community college. This is not a book of instruction so much as a demonstration of inspired reading. He dramatizes a creative reading experience, full of imaginative association and with a sensitivity to the fertility of words and rhythms. And he gives us an approach to "the greats" free of solemn pageantry or stultifying veneration. Do not read this book to find out what happens. Read this book to see how a creative mind reads.
July 24, 2017
This book should be included on everyone's bucket list, it is awesome.
I enjoyed every word that was written on the pages and felt a sense of loss when I finished the story.
Will be reading this book again as I enjoyed it so much.
Thank you to Goodreads and Oberon books for giving me the chance of reading this wonderful book.
It was really appreciated.
I enjoyed every word that was written on the pages and felt a sense of loss when I finished the story.
Will be reading this book again as I enjoyed it so much.
Thank you to Goodreads and Oberon books for giving me the chance of reading this wonderful book.
It was really appreciated.
dnf
August 21, 2017DNF
February 6, 2019
I really wanted to like this book and I tried several times, but it did not grab nor hold my attention. Maybe it's just me?
August 3, 2017
I received a copy of this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.
I have to admit, I find poetry quite the minefield and it's an area of literature that I'm not overly familiar with. I own the odd poetry book that I've read some of but I've yet to really understand poetry and love it in a way that many people do.
This is a great book for newbies to poetry. Mixing story with lessons and the addition of actually meeting the dead poets in each chapter meant that it felt less like a lesson, and added some fun into the story. Each chapter deals with a new poet, mostly well-known names and some that I hadn't heard of. The poetry is dealt with in an easy to understand way, with extracts from poems and other writings weaved into the narrative. Maxwell kept the majority of the quotes in context which helps with the comprehension of the narrative.
Some chapters I found easier than others, Poe for example was my favourite chapter, but I have read some of Poe's works before and as such I have an understanding of his work. The chapters I struggled with were those of the poets I'm unfamiliar with, but by the end of chapter I had more of an understanding of what was happening.
If you've got an interest in poetry pick this up, even if you feel like you don't understand poetry all that well. This book will teach you more while entertaining you.
I have to admit, I find poetry quite the minefield and it's an area of literature that I'm not overly familiar with. I own the odd poetry book that I've read some of but I've yet to really understand poetry and love it in a way that many people do.
This is a great book for newbies to poetry. Mixing story with lessons and the addition of actually meeting the dead poets in each chapter meant that it felt less like a lesson, and added some fun into the story. Each chapter deals with a new poet, mostly well-known names and some that I hadn't heard of. The poetry is dealt with in an easy to understand way, with extracts from poems and other writings weaved into the narrative. Maxwell kept the majority of the quotes in context which helps with the comprehension of the narrative.
Some chapters I found easier than others, Poe for example was my favourite chapter, but I have read some of Poe's works before and as such I have an understanding of his work. The chapters I struggled with were those of the poets I'm unfamiliar with, but by the end of chapter I had more of an understanding of what was happening.
If you've got an interest in poetry pick this up, even if you feel like you don't understand poetry all that well. This book will teach you more while entertaining you.
February 24, 2019
I bloody loved this book. I can’t believe it took me 5 years to read something else by Maxwell (what was I thinking) because I distinctly remember absolutely loving ‘On Poetry’ and thinking thank god, Poetry without the Piffle. DWDP is one of those books, I suspect, if I’d have read it when I was 15, I may not have done Science A Levels and sleepwalked my way through University to a reliable pension. A wonderful mixture of Lit.Crit., Biog, Fantasy and Real Life (current and historical).
It made me laugh out loud, it made me cry, it made me want to re-read lots of poetry, read more poetry and a really good autobiography of poets I would not necessarily have been interested in before and against all odds I was actually on tenterhooks right to the end.
It made me laugh out loud, it made me cry, it made me want to re-read lots of poetry, read more poetry and a really good autobiography of poets I would not necessarily have been interested in before and against all odds I was actually on tenterhooks right to the end.
July 5, 2017
I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.
This book is about a professor by the name of Glyn Maxwell who finds himself in a dream where he must teach a course on poetry. His syllabus to teach: “Reading List for Elective Poetry Module” featuring a week on each one of these poets: Keats, Dickinson, Hopkins, Brontes, Coleridge. Poe, Clare, Yeats, Whitman, Browning, Byron. Each week is a different clip of the Poets work. Anywho if you like any these poets then this is the book for you.
This book is about a professor by the name of Glyn Maxwell who finds himself in a dream where he must teach a course on poetry. His syllabus to teach: “Reading List for Elective Poetry Module” featuring a week on each one of these poets: Keats, Dickinson, Hopkins, Brontes, Coleridge. Poe, Clare, Yeats, Whitman, Browning, Byron. Each week is a different clip of the Poets work. Anywho if you like any these poets then this is the book for you.
August 6, 2017
I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.
I liked this book. Poet Glyn Maxwell wakes up in a mysterious village one autumn day. He has no idea how he got there—is he dead? In a coma? Dreaming?—but he has a strange feeling there’s a class to teach.
Then he sees all these poets there, just walking around. A dream come true, all the poets he loves right there in front of him.
I liked this book. Poet Glyn Maxwell wakes up in a mysterious village one autumn day. He has no idea how he got there—is he dead? In a coma? Dreaming?—but he has a strange feeling there’s a class to teach.
Then he sees all these poets there, just walking around. A dream come true, all the poets he loves right there in front of him.
January 7, 2022
Well, that was a bit of a slog. I have to admit my hopes (based purely on the cover and blurb after discovering this tome in a bookshop) were dashed a short way into this book, and it was a not insignificant challenge to persevere and reach the end.
Whilst I agree with what other reviewers here have bemoaned (that the dead poets themselves are under-utilised, if not explicitly undervalued by the author), my main issue here is that very little happens at any point throughout the entire narrative. Also, the overly impressionistic style, which regularly forgoes punctuation, seems to lead the author on a merry chase at the slightest provocation, and reads more like the author showing off at all the (not particularly clever) word associations he can come up with mid-sentence. At times it seems like the abstract style exists merely because it would be too uncool to actually say anything of real substance. The most infuriating element of the book though has to the be the band of completely unlikeable students that populate the village. The author has drawn them as complete dimwits who, finding themselves face to face with some of the most famous poets in Western literature, ask questions such as ‘so, like, where do you, like, get your ideas, and shit, not that I care or anything, bro’? This isn’t a direct quote from the text (there are too many commas, for one thing) but you won’t have to search far to find an eerily similar example.
It’s not all doom and gloom (two stars, after all); there are some effective passages that reveal the author’s true ability as a prose writer, though they are too brief and too few in my opinion. Also, some of the poetry quoted is great!
I haven’t read the author’s previous work, ‘On Poetry’, to which I believe this book is a sort of sequel. Perhaps, had I read that, I might have been better able to appreciate this.
Whilst I agree with what other reviewers here have bemoaned (that the dead poets themselves are under-utilised, if not explicitly undervalued by the author), my main issue here is that very little happens at any point throughout the entire narrative. Also, the overly impressionistic style, which regularly forgoes punctuation, seems to lead the author on a merry chase at the slightest provocation, and reads more like the author showing off at all the (not particularly clever) word associations he can come up with mid-sentence. At times it seems like the abstract style exists merely because it would be too uncool to actually say anything of real substance. The most infuriating element of the book though has to the be the band of completely unlikeable students that populate the village. The author has drawn them as complete dimwits who, finding themselves face to face with some of the most famous poets in Western literature, ask questions such as ‘so, like, where do you, like, get your ideas, and shit, not that I care or anything, bro’? This isn’t a direct quote from the text (there are too many commas, for one thing) but you won’t have to search far to find an eerily similar example.
It’s not all doom and gloom (two stars, after all); there are some effective passages that reveal the author’s true ability as a prose writer, though they are too brief and too few in my opinion. Also, some of the poetry quoted is great!
I haven’t read the author’s previous work, ‘On Poetry’, to which I believe this book is a sort of sequel. Perhaps, had I read that, I might have been better able to appreciate this.
January 13, 2020
This is a really special one. There's just something about it. Maybe it's the train-of-thought writing (that truly feels surrealist), the amazingly written characters, or the mysterious circumstances that does it - but this truly feels like a dream, in both meanings of the word. Maxwell takes the self insert trope and spins it in a way that doesn't end in a horrific gringefest. The way he portrays himself as an awkward, star-struck guy in his interactions with other characters is both humble and endearing. Because this book is written like a dream, most people might be thrown off early on. It did take 1/3rd of the book before it got more interesting for me and the whole "am-I-dead-or-dreaming" dilemma was questioned. However, the characters I love - and their dialogue! Maxwell really knows how to write people like they're real. He probably introduces 15+ characters - besides the poets - over the course of the book, and I remember every single one. That really takes some good writing skills.
And then there's the blank space.
And then there's the blank space.
November 11, 2019
Drinks with Dead Poets is probably the most unique modern book I’ve read concept wise.
Our author wakes up to find himself in a sleepy village one autumn day with no recollection of how he got there. He ends ups teaching poetry reading classes to a group of fictional students. Famous poets such as Keats, Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson etc turn up each week for a reading and a Q&A session.
It’s a brilliant book which is basically a homage to the long departed, the lives of the students and a critical guide to poetry.
Our author wakes up to find himself in a sleepy village one autumn day with no recollection of how he got there. He ends ups teaching poetry reading classes to a group of fictional students. Famous poets such as Keats, Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson etc turn up each week for a reading and a Q&A session.
It’s a brilliant book which is basically a homage to the long departed, the lives of the students and a critical guide to poetry.
January 28, 2020
I thought this would be much more interesting than it was. I couldn't really follow what was happening in that the events seemed very repetitive and even the main character (who is also the author who finds himself in a strange reality) doesn't even know what's going on.
I liked the idea of the speech by all the featured dead poets were taken from things they actually said/wrote, but it actually put me off and didn't seem as natural as I think was intended. I only got as far as encountering Emily Dickinson before giving up.
A nice idea, just not for me.
I liked the idea of the speech by all the featured dead poets were taken from things they actually said/wrote, but it actually put me off and didn't seem as natural as I think was intended. I only got as far as encountering Emily Dickinson before giving up.
A nice idea, just not for me.
September 21, 2019
Very good while also frustrating. Fabulous idea to feature a dozen dead poets in their own words as visiting a weekly university class, lots of professional insights into reading and writing poems but ultimately the episodic nature of the novel form bursts through the skeleton of a continuous dream-narrative.
December 23, 2017
Interesting concept - dull execution.
February 8, 2020
I think I finished this book out of sheer stubbornness. I will admit to having learned a few things. It was at the expense of slogging through a lot of gimmicks. Way past my gimmick tolerance level.
February 27, 2022
Brilliant. Gives clarity to poetic form and human form to poets. Quite inspired to read some poetry as feel a bit uninformed. Again, brilliant.
May 17, 2022
Z tych 156 stron nie wynikło nic, żadnej puenty.
March 12, 2023
This is a witty, gorgeous, imaginative meditation on identity and place driven by language rather than plot. Exactly like reading poetry, but with a friend.
Read
October 12, 2023DNF at 20%
This is like a fever dream, not in a good way.
This is like a fever dream, not in a good way.
July 21, 2020
Right from the beginning, with his delectably poetic prose, Glyn Maxwell tells a beautiful and captivating story of this mysterious village, this Academy, and the interactions with the dead poets (creating his own version of a Dead Poets Society). Adding the story element definitely was a nice touch – giving it a new flavour in comparison to his essay On Poetry, for which this novel brilliantly acts as a quasi-sequel. It really makes you feel like you're in that world which Maxwell explores in preparation of meeting all the scheduled (dead) poets for their reading, and he expertly plays the readers for smart by trusting them to have read on all the poets prior to going on the adventures with them (as such would enable the derivation of the utmost understanding enjoyment from each chapter). Even a crowd hiding behind pseudonyms in one chapter could only be unmasked by prior knowledge of writing and poetry (yet for those who don't have that knowledge, there are clues he gives so you can look them up afterwards).
Though the story is captivating for the most part, it kind of peaks at Chapter 10, and then it feels like it's just writing for the sake of finishing the progammed story to the point where the two remaining jouneys don't feel like journeys (at least not like the previous chapters). But if you enjoyed On Poetry and want more insight to Maxwell's beliefs and teachings on the craft, this definitely delivers - and via the actual words of poets who had been writing long before the modern age. Definitely worth the read.
Though the story is captivating for the most part, it kind of peaks at Chapter 10, and then it feels like it's just writing for the sake of finishing the progammed story to the point where the two remaining jouneys don't feel like journeys (at least not like the previous chapters). But if you enjoyed On Poetry and want more insight to Maxwell's beliefs and teachings on the craft, this definitely delivers - and via the actual words of poets who had been writing long before the modern age. Definitely worth the read.
September 23, 2017
What if you were a poet who found yourself in an unnamed small English village, with no idea how you got there, teaching poetry to a motley collection of students, with long-dead poets made manifest and helping you do the teaching? Are you alive, or dead? And will you ever get home again?
In a nutshell, that is the plot of Drinks With Dead Poets: A Season of Poe, Whitman, Byron, and the Brontes, but the dry plot summary cannot convey the magical feel and poetic writing of this singular book. I loved it!
The author *is* a poet, and I am looking forward to reading his poetry. I do hope he will write another novel someday, though it's hard to know how he could best this one.
In a nutshell, that is the plot of Drinks With Dead Poets: A Season of Poe, Whitman, Byron, and the Brontes, but the dry plot summary cannot convey the magical feel and poetic writing of this singular book. I loved it!
The author *is* a poet, and I am looking forward to reading his poetry. I do hope he will write another novel someday, though it's hard to know how he could best this one.
November 21, 2017
I should mark this "mostly read," as I abandoned the book 3/4 of the way through. And I'd had such high hopes for it! I loved it at first--the concept alone, of composing a novel in part with the actual words of dead poets, thrilled me, and there were so many lovely quotes, both from the dead poets and the author. But about halfway through, the joke got old. I felt like I was reading Groundhog Day--it was the same thing, over and over. There wasn't enough plot to propel me through, and this from someone who generally could care less about plot. Sigh.
June 7, 2017
This was an ok read for me. I'm not the biggest poetry fan in the world but the premise of a professor meeting his idols was interesting. The professor, named after the author, Glyn Maxwell, meets Keats walking through the village and asks him to lecture to his class. This is the beginning. Professor Maxwell isn't sure how he came to be teaching in this setting but he seems happy. The author is a prolific writer and has several books of poetry.
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