The Secret Life of Poems |
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Tom Paulin
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Pages: 320 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0571226345
Pub: Faber and Faber
Pub date: 2008-01-17
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 5928
Reader Reviews:
The definitive Poetry primer (5/5 people found this helpful)
If you are a student of English literature, or a reader looking to sharpen their appreciation of an art form that seems to instil a special sort of panic in the average person, this book is a must.
Paulin is a controversial and outspoken academic with a high media profile, a unique presence on late night review programmes. Over the last thirty years his prolific output of poetry, criticism and drama has been a consistent presence in the British literary scene. He is a champion of the urgent and politicised reading of poetry, and it is no accident that his literary heroes are users of powerful, rugged and vital language such as Frost, Rossetti, Hopkins and Heaney.
The reading here are controversial and sometimes sensational. The effect of reading them cover to cover is cumulative, rather like engaging in a sequence of hard working tutorials with a teacher of the first rank. You will not agree with all of the critical points raised in the book, but they will send you back to the original texts with your preconceptions challenged and lazy interpretations routed. A fine book that is a bold shout about the nature of poetry as vital and life-affirming art.
A necessary book (8/9 people found this helpful)
This may be the only such selection of which one can say, "This is a necessary book." Most good anthologies offer the twin pleasures of discovery and quarrel: "I never knew that poem" and "Why wasn't this poem included?" But this is an anthology which instructs as well as it delights. It makes one exclaim, "How I wish he was my teacher!" All poets should live in hope of writing a poem worthy of Tom Paulin's vital attention. Ben Sonnenberg
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Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Hardcover