Friday, April 19, 2019

Book Beginnings & The Friday 56: Why Poetry


Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader. The weekly post goes up every Thursday and bloggers can add their links all week. My book this week is: 


An impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for poetry’s accessibility to all readers, by critically acclaimed poet Matthew Zapruder.

The beginning:
"I have a confession to make: I dont really understand poetry." For over twenty-five years, I have heard this said, over and over in slightly different ways, but friends, family, colleagues, strangers I met in bars and at dinner parties, on planes -- so many people, practically everyone who found out I was a poet. Clearly, there is something about poetry that rattles and mystifies people, that makes them feel as if there is something wrong. 

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice

And here is my Friday 56:

page 56: the author describing his early attempts at poetry:  

I carried around a rhyming dictionary, writing terrible sonnets, lousy sestinas, atrocious villanelles, abysmal pantoums. I felt like I was working, and was, which was good, but it was also painful and embarrassing. I didn't realize then that I was doing my own clumsy version of what art students do when they learn to paint. Now, whenever I go to the museum I usually see at least one of them with a sketchbook, copying the great paintings, and it makes sense to me. 

I really like the first few chapters. I will probably finish it and write a review next week. 

3 comments:

  1. I agree with that beginning wholeheartedly. Happy Easter weekend!

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  2. Interesting beginning. I often feel as if I'm not grasping the message that the poet intended to deliver. This is a book I would benefit from reading.
    My Friday post features excerpts from Buffalo Gal.

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  3. I have come to reading poetry late in my life and I often don't understand phrases, but if a line or two speak to me, I feel moved by it. My review and quotes for VOICES

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