If you like good poetry and even if you don't you just ...
936337
This is a must read.  If you like good poetry and even if you don't you just can't pass this by.  It's jam packed with well written, captivating, and inspiring poems from some very talented writers.
4825501
Okay, so I'm Laura Kate's Uncle.  Still, I was blown away by the first poem in the book (and I'm not even much of a fan of poetry).  She is a real wordsmith, though showing a level of maturity that surprised me.  If you are a poetry person, you should love this collection.
4312259
There is so much poetry on the market and like most things artistic, we all have certain styles and themes we like the most.  I love  Shane's poetry. It's the type of poetry where you are constantly in awe of the expression, the words, the rhymes, the style.  Don't take my word on it, buy it. Read it. Love it!
4298966
This book is a gem.  In it, you will find many favorite Billy Collins poems that have been published previously in multiple other volumes, plus a section of new poetry to enjoy.  Billy Collins writes accessible poetry, the kind you can appreciate on a first read, but that also contains layers and thought-provoking ideas that reveal themselves with re-readings.  I discovered Billy Collins when he was Poet Laureate and appeared on Prairie Home Companion.  During that appearance, he read The Lanyard, and I was hooked.  That poem, still one of my favorites, is included in this new volume.  Collins' poetry will make you laugh, will make you cry, and will make you reflect.  All in comprehensible language.  The poems in this book offer something for persons of all ages.  In this volume, his several poems about being alone, about solitude, and about dining solo really spoke to me.  If you are looking for inspiration to stop and ponder the simple gifts we share, and choices we make, this is your tome.  Read a randomly selected poem, or sit down and read the whole book in one sitting.  Either way, you will be glad you did.
3572054
If you're into poetry Walt Whitman is a must have when adding to your poetry library

Reviewed by James David
Author of The Coast Guard Oracle
4926983
You know its art when the words resonate and the writer invites you into her world and it becomes your world, too. When you read this book of poetry, youll experience new places, delectable foods, wild fantasies and colors that leap off the page. These poems are thoughtful and soulful. Decillis says in Looking for Stephen Dunn the personal is all that matters and she will keep on describing things to ensure that they really happened. Take the journey with Diane and youll see yourself (or someone you know) in every poem.
2315333
Might as well just buy the book now.  Even if you don't like poetry, years from now--when she's anthologized as one of our great contemporaries--Marvin's debut collection will be worth quite a penny.
If you do like poetry (for reasons other than that recommended by your financial advisor), then you're also in luck.  Within these pages are 40 crisp, little works of art.  Each one a microcosmic, exacting sculpture of words.  Tiny chocolate treats cooked by a mad chef.  (Quite mad).  Yes, underneath the formal plasticine wrapping is nothing less then pure, chaotic screaming.
The result is addiction.  Take for example, a golden nugget called "The Anniversary".
The poem begins with the Romantic-esque woe of "Disappointment with the lack of stars."  And like the Romantic sing-song of Prufrock's opening, "Let us go then, you and I/When the evening is spread out against the sky" that quickly hinges from sweet to 20th Century rationalism-gone-wrong with the following line "Like a patient etherised upon a table;" Marvin too hinges her tone from Romantic to a part Plathian/part Verunica Salt nature, as she demands "where's the moon when I call it?/Perhaps it's not up to being the color/I want tonight: bloody orange, peeling light."  That's only the beginning of a sharp poem filled with intense passion and lines like "I wear his eyes like rings/on my hands.  I sew years into a dress."
I won't write an entire thesis for an amazon.com review, but bear in mind, this is one of those rare books whose poems can be read alone, when in a foul mood; or together, sprinkling rose petals on a lover's body.  I look forward to a lifetime of reading her work.
4662865
This is a very late review since i was going to review it on December of 2017 and had  a email from the author Jessica (not sure if it was an automated email or original but still). Anyways here is my review. The poems here are a mixture of serious and a couple of funny ones. With some being a mix of both. Some of my favourites are already marked in the book so i can go back to them whenever i want to re-read them again or in a sense relate to it if so. Physically [the book & paper] the quality of the book is good. It does not feel cheap or too thin.

Overall i recommend this poetry book for anyone who wants something good to read yet a peek of an authors mind in its past tense.
1264068
I love Dean Young. I love Dean Young very much. There are many, many contemporary poets I love, but Young's poetry has, I don't know, more OOMPH (is that the correct spelling? I hope you know what I mean). But this OOMPH, this power is not lacking in the poetry of other contemporary poets, it is just more natural with Dean Young. My copy of Skid is worn to a point of obscenity. I feel so guilty that I have turned something so beautiful into a dog-eared mess, but isn't great art here for consumption?
Poetry readers of all levels (and even those readers with more nichey interests) will thoroughly enjoy Young. The poems in Skid are sometimes tragic in their humor that sometimes bordelines on the inappropriate (but in a good way!), and sometimes the poems are quite simple and engulfed by the heart and musings of a true twentieth-century poet.
Read Dean Young, and I am sure this nonsensical review will begin to make sense.
2318615
I always liked he's writings specifically poetry and how you can say if you dislike or do not simply we can understand or not, we could relate to it or not, we could get on the road with the author or choose not to we have a free choice to continue reading or grab a different book..but most importantly we do have a choice ..or maybe not ? as I'm not allowed to make a free choice trapped in between my reality and imagination of the world around us
4872641
This chapbook is a small collection of poems about love, and finding it after a time of darkness; self-love after a period of abuse. One line that summarizes this message is Sometimes/ We must fight/ The darkness/To understand/ The light (page 4, location 49).

I love modern poetry. Poetry is poetry, whether its a centuries-old sestina or free-verse from Tumblr. Jennings form is of the latter, while her command of the language is as poetic as the former. My favorite lines include:

My sadness is politics (page 12, location 115)
Do not love these gardens,/ If you despise the dirt (page 25, location 213)
Crystallising my storms (page 35, location 257)
Poetry tells me:/ There are different kinds of light (page 104, location 719)

However, my own taste for modern poetry is picky. While I love and support modern poetry, it needs to have that balance between raw emotion and new-ness  I am not a fan of clich&eacute;s or obvious statements. This chapbook only has one instance of the latter, when the poem on page 73 and location 469 states I am feeling a lot right now. Within the context of the poem, this line makes sense; on its own, the statement is the sole reason poets write poems  because poets feel a lot.

I felt like I could interact with her poems  in one instance, a poem (page 68, location 433) gave a question: 40 years ignoring yourself. How many minutes is that? I got curious and brought out my calculator and responded with 21,024,000. Twenty-one million and twenty-four thousand minutes. This exchange made me feel like I was part of the poem, piecing together a puzzle alongside the author.

Occasional poems contain the use of braces  those {squiggly brackets} which, when the words in the braces came together, created a poem within the poem. I absolutely loved this! One such example is: I cannot tell {if I am}/{Delirious} or drunk. I cannot tell if {you are}/ Medicine or {poison} (page 77, location 491).

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys poetry.

(Please note that my four-star rating is based on the Goodreads ranking, where four stars means "really liked it" instead of the Amazon four-star rating of "I like it.")
3016327
We no longer live in the golden age of poetry and that is unfortunate. Poems are able to express ideas in a manner words are not able to express in any other way.

I enjoy good poems, and downloaded the book with great expectation. I was not disappointed.  This is a book of Biblical poetry.

There are 12 poems upon well-known biblical themes and their titles are:

The Lord is my Shepherd
Questions and answers
Then she met Jesus
What if God took time off?
There's a lesson in everything Does
Does Jesus walk with you?
A prayer of consecration
Life, Love, Death
Am I my brother's keeper?
The stairs to God
I dare you
Life's journey

Each poem encourages the reader in a special way.

Recommendation:
*** Good poems for those who have a biblical background
*** Buy with confidence if you belong to the above-mentioned category
3373844
This book rocks. Everyone who thinks they may like poetry should check it out. I don't usually like poetry, but these essays were truly engaging. I couldn't put it down, even when my wife tried to pry me away with a lucious slice of chocolate cake.
2209853
I love poetry in all forms.  Haiku and senryu are no exceptions, especially when written well.  Some of Rick Tarquinio's work, emotionally affected me and I love it when that happens.....  the dirt road/yesterday's footprints/gone with the rain .....completely enjoyed from the beginning to the end...
2725705
This collection of poetry is really interesting and amazing because of the art incorporated in the book. On nearly every other page you'll find a blown-up image of something simultaneously disturbing and fantastical. Matthea Harvey manages to take everything childish, things that could be labeled as cute, and turn them into fierce political messages. Her feminist air exudes both from her poems and her artwork--though it is a little jarring to see and read about things like normally sexualized mermaids who are given a feminist stance.

I feel like this book of poetry is more approachable to most people because the poems mainly take the layout of prose. People may also be attracted because of the quirky images that fill the pages in full color. Yet it shouldn't be said that the book is gimmicky because of its appearance; Harvey uses her imagery and words carefully, cultivating themes that lie beneath the surface of the superficial pleasure people may get from glancing through this book.

This is a collection worth mulling over. Everything is very entertaining on the first read; on the second or the third, it takes on an entirely new and slightly twisted meaning. Anything you thought might be cute or normal has been taken by Harvey and used to show what's dark about the world. Nothing is romanticized.

I'd really recommend this collection, particularly to those who aren't often reaching for poetry to read. I think that it's a great way to branch into a different genre and you'll be glad that you gave Harvey a try.
4641152
These are not necessarily the best-loved poems, nor the most famous poems, nor the most memorized poems.  These are the best poems written in the English language, one each from the 100 best poets. So say the three editors - Harold Pinter, Geoffrey Godbert, and Anthony Astbury.
They apparently argued heatedly, but eventually arrived at a unanimous decision for each poet selected.  They may not change your mind, but their choices will stimulate and challenge the reader. And this anthology makes very good reading.
I was disappointed that Pinter, Godbert, and Astbury did not share their discussions and arguments. How did they select the 100 best poets? Who was 101? Where are John Milton, William Cullen Bryant, Longfellow, and Whittier? For those poets that were chosen, I was curious whether some of my favorite poems had even been discussed as they made their final selection of the 'best' poem. Did they have bias toward works less frequently included in popular anthologies? Were they intentionally provocative?
For example, they did not select Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, nor any of William Blake's poems from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, nor a poem from A. E. Housman's admired A Shropshire Lad, nor a familiar poem by Robert Frost, nor Dylan Thomas' well-known Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. I was also surprised by their choices for Kipling, Shelley, Pope, Donne, and to a lesser extent, Wordsworth.
Their selections for Shakespeare (I see many 'best' choices), Coleridge, Marvell, Keats (again, many 'best' poems), Burns, Carroll, Arnold, Poe, Stevens, and a few other poets were more in agreement with my preferences. I found that a bit reassuring.
I recommend this collection to anyone that enjoys poetry. Pinter, Godbert, and Astbury give us a selection that is less predictable than that found in most anthologies, and is thereby more provocative and stimulating. Have fun!
3730431
This is a cop out review. I still don't know enough about poetry to give it a decent review. To do that I would need to put it in some kind of context but I'm such a beginner when it comes to poetry I can't just yet. Maybe later. But I do love the poems in this short volume. I found it because one of my favourite artists, the wonder singer Iris DeMent, just did an album based on her poetry called The Trackless Woods. (It is a stunning album but many have trouble with DeMent's voice. I love her voice.) Only one or two of the songs she does can be found in this book but that's okay. A bit of an unorthodox way to discover a poet but what does it really matter?