PRAISE AUTHOR:
HE IS THE WINNER OF THE WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AWARD
"He writes in many shapes, moods, even styles. Yet everywhere one recognizes this reverevce for the power of language, words in their full-flight of syntax, what we-or our ancestors-used to call eloquence." --Hayden Carruth, Harper's
"His second book, Praise, has an architectural grandeur that even his nearly flawless first volume, Field Guide, did not aim at. Poem after poem sets limits fo itself as stern as gravity: white on white, block on block of stome, frames around pictures." -Peter Davison, The Atlantic Monthly
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
HE IS THE AUTHOR OF MANY POEM BOOKS: FIELD GUIDE (1973), PRAISE (1979), HUMAN WISHES (1989), SUN UNDER WOOD (1996), TIME AND MATERIALS POEMS 1997-2005 AND ALSO THE BOOK NOW AND THEN: THE POETS CHOICE COLUMNS 1997-2000. HE SERVED AS POET LAUREATE OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1995 THROUGH 1997. HE IS A TEACHER THAT TEACHES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. ALSO IN 1999 HE WAS FEATURED IN THE MOVIE WILDFLOWERS AS SIMPLY THE POET WHICH THROUGH OUT THE MOVIE HIS POEMS ARE READ. SABINE THE YOUNG GIRL IN THE MOVIE READS FROM HASS'S BOOKS AND HIS BOOKS CAN ALSO BE SEEN ON A BOOK SHELF IN THE BOOKSTORE.
MY REVIEW AND THOUGHTS:
I WOULD LIKE TO SAY ROBERT HASS IS A FANTASTIC CLASSICAL TYPE POETRY WRITER THAT STICKS WITH YOU LONG AFTER YOU READ HIS BOOKS. THIS ONE IS ALSO AN EXAMPLE OF A WONDERFUL QUICK READ; PAGES COUNTING IN AT 68. WHEN I SAY QUICK THAT IS NOT BAD THING, IT'S GREAT BECAUSE IT FLOWS WHERE YOU AS THE READER DON'T WANT TO PUT IT DOWN.
POEM SPOT LIGHT FROM THE BOOK:
THE ORIGIN OF CITIESS
he is first seen dancing which is a figure
not for art or prayer or the arousal of desire
but for action simply; her breast
band is copper,
her crown imitates the city walls.
Though she draws usto her, like a harbor or a river
mouth she sends us away.
A figure of the outward. So the old men grown lazy
in patrician ways lay out cash for adventures.
Imagining a rich return, they buy futures
and their slaves haunt the waterfront for news of ships.
The young come from the villages dreaming.
Pleasure and power draw them.
They are employed
to make inventories and grow very clever,
multiplying in their heads,
deft at the use of letters.
When they are bored,
they write down old songs from the villages,
and the cleverest make new songs in the old forms
describing the pleasures of the city,
their mistresses,
old shepherds and simpler times.
And the temple
where the farm grandfathers
of the great merchants worshipped,
the dim temple across from the marketplace
which was once a stone altar in a clearing in the forest,
where the night
watch pisses now against a column in the
moonlight,
is holy to them;
the wheat mother their goddess of sweaty sheets,
of what is left in the air when that glimpsed beauty
turns the corner, of love's punishment and the wracking
of desire. They make songs about that. They tell
stories of heroes and brilliant lust among the gods.
These are amusements. She dances, the ships go forth,
slaves and peasants labor in the fields, maimed soldiers
ape monkeys for coins outside the wine
shops,the craftsmen work in bronze and gold, accounts
are kept carefully, what goes out, what returns.
HE HAS AWAY OF WRITING HIS POEMS THAT LIKE TO EXPRESS IMAGES AND A WONDERFUL JOURNEY INSIDE EACH POEM FOR THE READER AT HAND. THIS BOOK IS A GREAT READ AND ALSO ONE THAT I ENJOY TALKING ABOUT. I WILL SAY THIS SOME PEOPLE MIGHT NOT GET THIS BOOK. IT IS VERY DEEP WITH WORDS IN TELLING A STORY IN EACH POEM. WHERE AS ALOT OF MODERN NEW POETS TEND TO WRITE IN SIMPLE TONES. WHAT I MEAN BY THAT IS THE POEMS LIKE: I LOVE YOU YOU LOVE ME, OR THE SIMPLE RHYME POEMS, THAT FLOW CHILD LIKE, IN THE SENSE THAT MOST PEOPLE CAN WRITE THOSE TYPE OF POEMS AND THEY SEEM TO HAVE NO ORIGINAL IDEA TO THEM.
I DON'T MEAN THAT TO SOUND TO BAD BECAUSE THERE ARE SOME GREAT WELL KNOWN AND NOT KNOWN POETS OUT THERE THAT DO RHYME. I LIKE TO FIND POETS THAT EXPRESS WORDS THAT AREN'T COMMAN OR YOU MIGHT NOT EXPECT THAT WORD TO FLOW LIKE THAT, THATS WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR SOMETHING NEW AND ORIGINAL. ROBERT HASS WRITES THAT WHY. HIS WORK IS ORIGINAL AND FLOWS WITH A GREAT TALENT FOR WORDS AND IMAGINATION AND NOT LIKE SOME POETS THAT WRITE LIKE THIS: "I SEE A CAKE, WATCH IT BAKE, I WANT TO TAKE, MMM I WISH I HAD A STEAK."
THIS BOOK I WANT TO SAY IF YOU LOVE ORIGINAL POETRY AND INTERESTING TAKES ON WORDS THAT FLOW AND MIX IN AWAY YOU THOUGHT COULD NOT THEN I SAY READ THIS BOOK, IT'S A MUST IF YOUR A TRUE POETRY BUFF LIKE I AM.
MY RATING:
4 OUT OF 5
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