poetry – Page 4 – aquapages

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver | Review

March 7, 2018March 7, 2018aquapages // eline6 Comments

Genre: poetry

A collection of contemporary poems, the first one I read by Mary Oliver. And it’s fantastic, bringing out the magic in everyday things and small moments.

I’ve seen reviews saying that they wish this was how they lived their life, noticing details and the world this way. But you can? Take this for a normally stressed, pessimistic (I call it realistic) person who, while reading the poem about the white heron, remembered the grey heron I was chasing down a danish river in a canoe the week before. Everytime I gave up, the damn heron flew out from the bushes and the chase was on again. It was probably not the intention of the poem, which probably has some hidden symbolism, but a nice coincidence.

I got a bit sidetracket – Anyway, I love the sea and the quietness of mornings. So I was bound to love this collection, even though some poems was a better fit for me than others.

Here’s “I go down to the shore” which I’ve memorized by now. Lastly, let me say I’m not an usual poetry reader, but the simplicity of some of the poems (some are longer and more intricate, and I adore them as well) makes it makes it easier for someone new to pick this up. It’s similiar to “milk and honey” in how easy it is to read, but so many levels better.

Upstream by Mary Oliver | Book Review

March 3, 2018March 2, 2018aquapages // eline4 Comments

Genre: essays, poetry

“I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someoone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.”

I’ve only recently fallen in love with Mary Oliver’s writing and poems. Upstream is a collection of eighteen lovely essays about how Oliver fell in love with poetry as a child, drawing inspiration from nature and simply seeing things throught her eyes. She talks about the poets she likes; Whitman, Emerson, Poe and Wordsworth, and how they’ve contributed to her understanding of the world and of poetry as an art. It’s all incredibly fascinating, I especially loved the bit about Poe.

It’s a book for someone who is interested in poetry (you don’t even have to know a lot, just look at me) or have read and liked any of Mary Oliver’s poetry. There’s a few good lessons in here, but also a lot of beautiful writing. I still prefer her poems, but I would definitely say these essays gives more insight into her thoughtprocess and person. The cozy, calm feeling I got when I looked at the cover was the same feeling I got when I read the texts inside.

Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems vol. 1 | Book Review

March 2, 2018aquapages // eline2 Comments

Genre: poetry

fire

It was my birthday a while ago and I wished to read poetry on my daily hour-long busride, even with only a couple hours sleep. So I read this collection from my current favourite poet. Might be the lack of sleep, but I’m pretty certain it’s was literally magical. Like the sun was out for the first time in months.

Short disclaimer: I haven’t read as much poetry as fantasy books, but still more than romance novels so here we go.

Mary Oliver’s poetry is nearly always connected with nature: animals, forest, bodies of water, plants. It creates this really lovely atmosphere as you read, and then you can go over again and try to catch the meaning and slowly dread sets in. Not really, it’s mostly light poems, soome with an darker or more serious undertone. Which fits me perfectly.

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The poems feels very tied to the author, and I can’t stop myself from trying to figure this person out. Mary Oliver is a bestselling poet and this collection contains poems from different times in her over eighty years of life. I liked to notice interests tied to specific periods as well as commonalities. It that threw me a bit off having read only her “recent” ones. She writes at one point that no one wants to hear about her childhood and I’m sitting there saying “NO IT’S WHAT I AM HERE FOR”. To be honest, I’m really here for the detailed descriptions of various flowers, but it’s a close second. I just needed stories about people who knows how horrible life can be, but still see beauty in it, just a little bit of hope. And this collection is that, along with weird descriptions of eating animals, but generally talks about how nice the sun is on her skin and various description of how the waves crashes against the shore.

If anyone has recommendations for poets who write a lot about nature/detailed descriptions of anything really or simply favourite poets, send them my way! I just need beautiful words in my life, and when they come with interesting, intelligent thoughts that’s a bonus.

Crush by Richard SIken

March 1, 2018February 25, 2018aquapages // elineLeave a comment

I don’t get it and I’m so confused.

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Synopsis

Richard Siken’s Crush, selected as the 2004 winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize, is a powerful collection of poems driven by obsession and love. Siken writes with ferocity, and his reader hurtles unstoppably with him. His poetry is confessional, gay, savage, and charged with violent eroticism. In the world of American poetry, Siken’s voice is striking. In her introduction to the book, competition judge Louise Glück hails the “cumulative, driving, apocalyptic power, [and] purgatorial recklessness” of Siken’s poems. She notes, “Books of this kind dream big. . . . They restore to poetry that sense of crucial moment and crucial utterance which may indeed be the great genius of the form.”

My thoughts

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Usually, when I don’t understand poetry or other fiction, I know there’s a deeper meaning and I’m simply missing some connection that I need to completely understand it. Not with this book. The great goodreads ratings (4.3 average) tilts towards me being the one left out in this scenario, but I’m not sure everyone else is not just playing along (jk).

I get that it’s good poetry, somehow. It has a nice flow, and some phrases that paints very endearing and engaging pictures. I even like and understand some poems. But suddenly I don’t get how one part of a poem connects to the next? Or what it’s about, always? heeelp. The poems are mostly about love and obsession, as the synopsis says, along with being gay and crushing on guys. There’s also a “burn it all or die” feeling to some, where the promised apocalyptic theme comes in.

So, besides the all over the place feeling, the rows of rewritten lines all saying the same thing, angsty images of everything ending in bodies, death and twisted love, besides all that it has some beautiful moments. And I have to say I enjoyed a bit of the angst and death as well, it just flowed too much together and was repetitive in a way I can’t say I prefer. Maybe I will like it better the third time I read through? Hmm. He’s undoubtedly a brilliant writer and I think I’ll rather check out other of his collections to see if they fit me better.

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My favourite poems of this collection: scheherazade, little beast, unfinished duet, wishbone and you are jeff. There’s something in all of them I don’t understand, in “wishbone” that part is almost everything.

the sun and her flowers by rupi kaur

February 15, 2018aquapages // elineLeave a comment

Genre: poetry

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There were so many pages I liked I ripped up a napkin and used it as bookmarks and now my family is laughing at me.

I think people who really dislike this collection and the previous “milk and honey” isn’t able to look past the “it’s not poetry!?!” opinion and realize it doesn’t really matter. I think it’s gotten so popular because it’s relatable fears, opinions and thoughts from a young woman, perfectly phrased and with powerful, simple drawings. What’s so bad about that? Sometimes I like poems where you have to decipher meanings and look up words no one would use in the real world, but I get why it’s not everyone’s preferance. Let people like what they want.

In this collection, I found that I especially liked the longer writings and those about family and, well, feelings. It’s something for most in here, another reason it’s so popular. It’s not the greatest writing I’ve read, but it’s precise, clear and simple. Some lines can help as short reminders, much better than the positive quotes everywhere, while others go more in depth. Would read again. It also helps that the book looks adorable. But that doesn’t mean I necessarily got very much from it.

graffiti by savannah brown

February 11, 2018April 16, 2019aquapages // eline3 Comments

My thoughts

A lovely and spooky collection of poems. That doesn’t seem to summarize it. Just read the thing, it’s worth it.

I was a bit concerned when I held up the (now redone I realize) cover of graffiti and saw the similarities in style with “milk and honey”. Both books have a simple, minimal look and drawings, but there the similarities also ends. The poems in here are all Savannah. All her dark thoughts, or romantic ones, surrounded by loneliness and creativity. They’re poems from a person figuring out this “growing up” thing and dealing with shit, the things I would rant about turned into poetry. Some of the poems felt a bit unfinished, but that seems natural with a writer who’s just starting to publish.

And the illustrations was a nice add-on. I adore the look of those little ghosts. One of the poems that spoke to me most was “haunted”. “i can measure how sad i am by how afraid i am of the dark” and how much I feel like throwing myself into the void, yep absoloutly.

I’m looking forward to read more of Savannah Brown as her debut novel is coming out sometime in the near future!