Short & Sweet Treats discussion

"We will read poems
for our July book read.
Select one right here."

I hope you enjoyed my haiku to announce that our genre for July will be poetry!

How wonderful to read and discover beautiful poems for this beautiful time of year.

You may make a selection from our Poetry Shelf

I am sure we will have a lot of suggestions that aren't on the shelf. Let me know what you'd like to see on the shelf and what you officially nominate. I will do my best to keep up! :)

Another idea is that we nominate a particular poet for July and we can all read various selections from that poet.

Nominations end on the 11th at which point the poll goes up.

Share your thoughts!

I'd like to choose one poet, so everyone can read whichever selection they choose, and we can all get to know one poet more deeply. My nomination would be Walt Whitman.

I will decide my nomination a little later. For now, I'd just like to suggest some books to strengthen the Poetry Shelf. Forgive the number of suggestions - I really like reading poetry!

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation is a superb and award winning translation of the ancient epic poem by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, a top notch poet in his own right. Under 200 pages and very accessible plus an engaging story.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by the Romantic-era poet Coleridge is a bit difficult, but modern editions have a gloss; so it should be do-able. Fantastic classic poem, 77 pages, again with a story.

In Memoriam is a lovely Victorian-era extended poem written by Tennyson in response to his friend's death. This edition is a little over 250 pages, but 100 pages of that are essays about the poem which aren't necessary to read. Obviously not terribly uplifting, but beautiful.

Spoon River Anthology, a sequence of highly accessible poems written in 1915 by Edgar Lee Masters about a fictional small town.

The Yellow Heart and Fully Empowered are excellent translations of Pablo Neruda, the Nobel prize winning Chilean poet. I love these books.

A Shropshire Lad is a highly accessible book of poems by A.E. Housman that even people who don't read much poetry tend to like.

Dover Beach and Other Poems - not terribly uplifting but beautiful classic poems by the Victorian poet Matthew Arnold.

The Sonnets by Shakespeare - high difficulty level but the classic of classics

Evening Train: Poetry and The Jacob's Ladder are excellent books of poetry by the contemporary American poet, Denise Levertov

Geography III is the stunning last book of poems by Elizabeth Bishop, an American who has something of a reputation as being the poet's poet. Not terribly uplifting and perhaps not a good choice for those who are not already poetry lovers. But fantastic in craft!

that is a great idea Julia!

thank you for the suggestions Greg in building our shelf! I will get to them this week!

my nomination is Walt Witman

Greg, thanks so very much--Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, translated by Seamus Heaney, is wonderful. One of my top ten books is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, especially the edition with illustrations by Gustave Doré. I used class sets of The Doré Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy when we read Inferno in the AP course.

Your suggestions are excellent!

I'd like to add another, Laura: Robinson Jeffers: Selected Poems by my favorite poet Robinson Jeffers(114 pages). I made a pilgrimage to Carmel CA to see Tor House and Hawk Tower, which Jeffers built himself by using horses to haul stones up from the beach. http://www.torhouse.org/



He's a passionate writer who loved the wild Pacific coast--but didn't have much use for humanity. I've already posted several of his poems in our poetry sections, so please add him as well as Greg's excellent list.

Thanks Julia! I really enjoy having other poetry lovers on Short & Sweet! :)

I haven't read a lot of Jeffers, but what I have read, I very much liked. I started reading a book of his selected poems years ago, but about 1/8 of the way through, I lost the book. I used to be hopeless with losing things!

Big Sur/Carmel is a striking area - I can see why he loved it! I've been there a few times, but I never knew of Tor House. Next time I go, I'll definitely make a point of seeing it!

I thought of just a couple more stragglers to be considered for the poetry shelf. I promise this is it!

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a famous poem sequence by the medieval Persian poet, philosopher, and mathematician. Highly accessible, only 50 pages, and beautifully translated by the English poet Edward FitzGerald in the 1800's.

An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, written by the English poet Thomas Gray, my favorite poem if I had to pick just one, full of beauty and decency, a masterpiece

The Country Between Us, a book of poems by the American poet Carolyn Forche, a human rights advocate who worked closely with bishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador while it was under the rule of dictatorship. Her job was to locate "disappeared" people and report their whereabouts to Amnesty International so their families could find them. This lovely and disturbing book of poems came out of her direct experience in that work.

Things I Didn't Know I Loved: Selected Poems or anything else by the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. He spent much of his life as a political prisoner, but he had an irrepressible spirit and was always ready, despite everything, to encounter joy where he could find it.

--More choices for our bookshelves --
The Raven and Other Poems by Poe needs the poem tag.

Transformationsby Anne Sexton? - Fairy tale retellings

How about Sappho for those who want love poems
Or Nabokov's Selected Poems?
Billy Collins's Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems - for those who like funny poems.

I love good translations of Sappho, and Poe is always fun! Anne Sexton is great too! The other two I've heard of but never read - some new poetry for me to check out! Thanks Melanti!

I would like to nominate Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, the epic Anglo-Saxon poem translated from Old English by the award winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney. A great and classic story written over 1000 years ago about warriors, a dragon, and an ancient evil.

Melanti wrote: "--More choices for our bookshelves --
The Raven and Other Poems by Poe needs the poem tag.

Transformationsby Anne Sexton? - Fairy tale retellings

How about Sappho for ..."

Thank you again, Melanti!

the poll is up! I allowed for write in answers since we didn't have many nominations.

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/1...

13 posts and only 2 nominations? Wow. I hadn't noticed!

yep I had to look at the thread a few times! all good though. less chance of a tie! :)

Walt Whitman is Walt Winning!

looks like we will enjoy some Walt Whitman this summer!