book reviews
Reviews of the best poetry books, collections and anthologies; discover poems and up-and-coming poets across all cultures, genres and themes.
Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls
Chaucer was and still is one of the greatest influences in the literary world. Some see Chaucer as the father of literature possibly because of the way he wrote poetry not ordinarily but with words that were glossed over to make it even sound poetic. He was mostly known for the Canterbury Tales. “The Parliament of Fowls” starts off as Nature telling the birds to decide who to love because it is almost spring and the birds need to procreate and produce offspring before they all become extinct. Chaucer’s views on class are exposed in Parliament of Fowls by having Nature choosing to speak to the eagle first, the eagle can be expressed as a representation of noble society and the birds that are chosen last are the smaller and weaker species, which represents the lower classes. But, how does Chaucer’s use of language contribute to lines from 365 to 378 create meaning within the context as a whole?
By Adrianna M. Braun4 years ago in Poets
A Woman Scorned
Wrongly attributed to Shakespeare, the idiom "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned was adapted from the lines of a 1697 play by William Congreve, The Mourning Bride. The actual quote is, "Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,/ Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd" (Congreve 3.2). Gaspara Stampa is a scorned woman with a rocky relationship with her lover.
By Miss Ghoul4 years ago in Poets
Introducing, 'Bound to the Wings of a Butterfly'
Bound to the Wings of a Butterfly is a collection of poetry, written as an act of writing therapy. It is about healing, recovery, and self-acceptance. About the journey of discovery that comes with true internal healing, and about transforming our lives, towards positivity, beauty, and love.
By Zachary Phillips5 years ago in Poets
Patrizia Garofalo and Cinzia Demi, "Tra Livorno e Genova, il poeta delle due città"
There are literary essays that enlighten, enrich, make people say: “Here, this is exactly what I thought and felt”. There are others dripping academia, for example those read on university days, when you had to waste an hour, not to study the poet or novelist in question, but just to understand what the critic meant with his nebula jumble of words. We students ended up telephoning one another, asking: “But what did you get?” We tried to reconstruct the thread of the discourse, to “translate” the text into an understandable Italian, laboriously linking the subject and the predicate. Often, in the end, once paraphrased and vulgarized, the essay could be summed up in three or four key concepts. We felt, then, the need to move away from a world made up only of people talking to themselves, and immerse ourselves in real life, in concrete things.
By Patrizia Poli5 years ago in Poets
