Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

Hi all,

You can (and should!) add reviews for 2024 here. You do this by clicking on the sub-heading "2024 Review" and choosing "new topic."

We like reviews of books, chapbooks & anthologies. As ever, reviews don't have to be long or examine the poetry in depth. It's not a contest! You could look at a theme, or diction, subject matter, imagery, form, word choice, or emotional effect. Whatever you like. Or pick a poem you liked & talk about that.

If a collection didn't appeal to you, we'd be interested to hear about that, too. Try to be balanced. Just because you disliked it doesn't mean the collection is without value. I'm not big on Gerald Manley Hopkins, but no reflection on him. Aside from being fair, there's no need to dress up your reaction. You don't have to feel pressured to be insincere because so-and-so is the editor of MegaFamous Annual & you're hoping to have a piece accepted there. If you're uncomfortable, don't review!

And don't be shy about reviewing a book because someone else already has. Do it. It's so interesting to get someone else's perspective.

We especially love links to poem(s) from the book!

Happy reading.

Sky Full of Stars and Dreaming by Scott Owens

It’s a bit of a mystery to me how I can be the first Goodreads reviewer of this 2021 book by Scott Owens, when I’ve already given him three previous 5-star reviews, including one I read in 2023. That I keep reading him is no mystery. This is my fourth Owens book. Although there are similarities: his love for his wife and daughter, his pleasure in nature, and his shockingly hurtful childhood with an abusive father, each book is full of surprises. Such is the gift of a talented poet who simply must write. (He is also a champion of the poetry community, especially in North Carolina, as well as of the poets who discovered him as the Editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review .)

His resilience is seeing his glass nearly full. So many people rant about their hurtful pasts, while Owens saw the opportunity to leave it and remake himself. In “How I Got Here,” he shows how he could get here from a “seventeen year old boy thinking / he couldn’t live without a fourteen year old girl…. by belt buckles /lashed across legs, hands/ burned on electric stoves….I got here by riding the book mobile/…so I could read/ more books than I could check out./ I got here by asking for a job/ when I was eight and getting it/ and working every day of my life since then….”

You can be sure he has shared his dependability with his wife and his awe of life with his daughter. Even before reading the poem, I was delighted by the title, “I Teach My Daughter the Joy of Sound.” Yet, despite all these deeply moving poems, one of my favorites was “Who Hasn’t Contemplated Civil Disobedience Stuck Behind a Tractor Trailer Carrying Chickens to Dobson, NC.”