Poetry Books - Page 4

The Dark Night of the Soul (Hodder Christian Classics)

St. John of The Cross

List Price: $11.95 By: Hodder Headline Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $3.97

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> General AAS
Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Authors, A-Z -> ( J ) -> John of the Cross

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

excellent 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I became familiar with this when I was in college and I had difficulty with mental illness.

I am very different from other people in the way I think. I have something like severe autism caused by brain injury combined with a high tendency to think about and want to please other people.

today I was thinking about some feedback I got and I realized that it is all going wrong b/c of my tendency to blame others, among other things.

I am very different from other people. I need to work out conversations via grammatical or other, mathematical, rules. this is like autism and it reflects that my injury started to show up in the 6th grade, when I was diagramming sentences.

and the thing is when you are different you want to be the same.

but this book, it doesn't really matter the specifics of the language b/c the concept, of dealing with something huge and coming out the other side, is very important to me.

I am almost 40 and facing this issue.

my tendency is to panic and blame people rather than take responsibility for being different. whatever that means. I don't know what that means.

it's OK, I have to trust that there will be another side for me when I come out of this whatever it is, this passage through acceptance.

Editorial Review:

A 16th-century mystic, St. John of The Cross was also a Carmelite monk who helped reform the Order. In this book, he addresses pride, avarice, envy, and other human imperfections. He also provides an extended explanation of Divine love, and describes methods of conversion through prayer, submission, and purification.

Tales from the Perilous Realm

J.R.R. Tolkien

Amazon Price: $18.48 List Price: $28.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Houghton Mifflin Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $14.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> Epic
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Fantasy -> Anthologies
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Fantasy -> Epic

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The definitive collection of Tolkien's classic "fairie" tales,
in the vein of The Hobbit, illustrated by Oscar winner Alan Lee

Never before published in a single volume, Tolkien's four novellas
(Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf by Niggle, Smith of Wootton Major, and
Roverandom) and one book of poems (The Adventures of Tom Bombadil)
are gathered together for the first time, in a fully illustrated volume. This
new, definitive collection of works -- which had appeared separately, in various
formats, between 1949 and 1998 -- comes with a brand-new foreword
and endmatter, and with a series of detailed pencil illustrations by Alan
Lee, in the style of his other award-winning Tolkien work, most recently in
The Children of Húrin.

The book is the perfect opportunity for fans of Middle-earth to enjoy
some of Tolkien's often overlooked yet most creative storytelling. With
dragons and sand sorcerers, sea monsters and hobbits, knights and
dwarves, this collection contains all the classic elements for Tolkien buffs
of all ages.

True lies

Philip Ross

List Price: $16.95 By: T. Doherty Associates Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> Single Authors -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> Poetry -> 20th Century
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> Poetry -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 217 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Gordon Street? Sid once benched with Arnold on Gordon Street, but that was a long time ago when Sid was a young man 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

True Lies has long been on the Sid the Elf back-burner. It was on the list of films that must be reviewed at some point, and kind of became an emergency B. It was like the Vinny Testaverde of B, weren't too excited to use it because of the apparent clumsiness involved, but if first and second options failed, you might be ok going with it. Well, we officially went into emergency B mode this week so we went with True Lies. It turns out that we were exactly right, there was a ton of clumsiness to endure, but in the end Sid came out ok. Really, you're never in bad hands with Arnold. If Amazon had his California tourism commercials on DVD, we'd not only review them, we'd give them 5 stars. The point is, we could get a laugh or a hundred out of Arnold saying anything at all. True lies was no exception.

In this film, Arnold plays super terrific secret agent Harry Tasker. Tasker's family believes he is a computer salesman, that he loves the computer business, and that he is an incredibly boring person. His mission is to track down nuclear warheads stolen by an arms smuggler from Kazakhstan. We were blown away when we learned that Borat's country was prominently involved in this film. So Arnold goes to a party at the arms dealer's house where he meets Cassandra from Wayne's World 2. She is an antique dealer who is using her business as a front to smuggle the warheads for Aziz the leader of a terrorist organization into U.S. and A, greatest country in the world. Once Arnold starts poking around the situation, Aziz decides to follow him. Arnold, of course, is much too smart for this. He leads Aziz into a mall where he procedes to catch him with the front and make Aziz blead inside his chest. Aziz manages to get away on a motorcycle, being chased by Arnold on a horse. A terribly B action sequence ensues and Aziz gets away. Just great B all-around, trust us.

Arnold then finds out that his wife, Laurie Strode, is having a kind of affair with a guy named Simon, who is a B version of Lester Diamond. This is the intentional comedy part of the film with Arnold using secret agent methods to track Simon and his wife. Simon pretends to be a spy to get chicks. Harry and his sidekick, Tom Arnold, kidnap Laurie and interigate her through a one-way mirror. They find out that Mrs. Tasker hasn't done anything with Simon Diamond, but that she is bored with Harry and craves adventure. So Harry gives her a fake assignment, which entails her going to a hotel room and getting ready to have a sexy time with a supposed stranger, even though it was really Arnold doing soundboard in the shadows. Anyway, the terrorists bust into the hotel room and take Harry and Helen prisioner. Some of the most ridiculous action sequences ever filmed ensue, including the famous Arnold iso-rowing Jamie Lee Curtis from the limo to the helicopter scene. So he just saved his wife from the terrorists, now they have kidnapped his daughter. Harry's daughter is played by a young Eliza Dushku. In case you were wondering, the ruling on the field is that it is ok to think she's hot here--moving on. She manages to get the arming key for the missles and has Aziz chase her onto the top of a skyscraper. Arnold flies to her in a marine jet and has her jump in. Ok. Aziz manages to jump onto the plane as well, but he is hanging from a missle. So Arnold fires the missle into a helicopter carrying the other terrorists and kills them all. That encapsulates why Sid believes Arnold should be the sole exception to the law stating the president must be born in the U.S. At the end of the film, we see that Arnold and Jamie Lee are now secret agent partners as they go off to a mission together.

This film was an action-comedy(both intentional and unintentional), by James Cameron. We liked it, but we also lost interest in the second half of the film. Maybe we just couldn't resist the lure of the Arnold soundboard after listening to him for a solid 45 minutes. Maybe it was only enjoyable after doing a unit in the bushes and making countless "Good. Now we are having fun" jokes and assesing the parallels of the film with Wayne's World 2 because of Charlton Heston and Tia Carrere. If you're an Arnold fan, it's certainly a must. You can always laugh at Arnold and as a bonus, you can make fun of Tom Arnold and his "I can't believe they gave me this part!" glow throughout the film. This film isn't the Governator's best work, but it did just fine in a B pinch. Without hesitation, Sid recomends.

Red Bird: Poems

Mary Oliver

Amazon Price: $15.64 List Price: $23.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Beacon Press Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $12.37

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( O ) -> Oliver, Mary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> Single Authors -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Red bird came all winter / firing up the landscape / as nothing else could." So begins Mary Oliver's twelfth book of poetry, and the image of that fiery bird stays with the reader, appearing in unexpected forms and guises until, in a postscript, he explains himself: "For truly the body needs / a song, a spirit, a soul. And no less, to make this work, / the soul has need of a body, / and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable / beauty of heaven / where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes, / and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart."

This collection of sixty-one new poems, the most ever in a single volume of Oliver's work, includes an entirely new direction in the poet's work: a cycle of eleven linked love poems—a dazzling achievement. As in all of Mary Oliver's work, the pages overflow with her keen observation of the natural world and her gratitude for its gifts, for the many people she has loved in her seventy years, as well as for her disobedient dog, Percy. But here, too, the poet's attention turns with ferocity to the degradation of the Earth and the denigration of the peoples of the world by those who love power. Red Bird is unquestionably Mary Oliver's most wide-ranging volume to date.

"Mary Oliver has done it again. She has assembled a collection of poems that is moving, intense and evocative in its engagement of the natural world. Yet this latest book by the Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winner is distinctive among her 17 volumes for the dark undercurrent that runs through the poems . . . the hard lesson that this earth is fallen and fragile, now more than ever, and unless we learn to cherish the world, we will destroy it . . . The song Mary Oliver sings in Red Bird is the song she has always sung, but now more urgent, more needful, more true."
—Angela O'Donnell, America magazine, April 28, 2008

"Last April, Book Sense's poetry bestseller list included two titles by Billy Collins. This year the Top 5 can be summed up in six words: Mary Oliver, Mary Oliver, Mary Oliver. Oliver's impressive feat reflects both an enduring popularity and an unparalleled ability to touch readers on a deep, almost primal level."
—Elizabeth Lund, The Christian Science Monitor, April 15, 2008

"Mary Oliver celebrates the creatures she observes on Cape Cod in "Red Bird" (Beacon), her 17th book of poetry. A longtime resident of Provincetown, Oliver, at 72, is among the nation's most popular poets . . . Oliver's grief ripples through the book, as does an unwavering sense of gratitude for the moment, the memories, and her trusty dog, Percy."
—Jan Gardner, Boston Globe, April 13, 2008

"Mary Oliver is 70 years old and still 'in love with life' and 'still full of beans' as she notes in 'Self-Portrait.' She savors the ocean, visits a graveyard, salutes a red bird in winter, heeds the invitation of a group of goldfinches to attend their performance, and finds lessons in teachings of an owl and a mockingbird. We depend on this poet for her hallowings in the animal kingdoms. We look to her for a reverence that lifts up and celebrates the little things in nature."
—Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & Practice, April 9, 2008

"In Red Bird, Oliver maintains the lyrical connection to the natural world that has made her work so popular. But in the new book she speaks even more loudly than usual against mankind's growing list of abuses of the planet, while celebrating such seemingly ordinary creatures as crows."
—Poets & Writers, March/April 2008

"One of few avidly read living poets, Oliver revels in the beauty of the living world, and takes to heart its lessons in patience and pleasure, cessation and renewal. As piercingly observant as ever in this substantial and forthright collection, Oliver is rhapsodic."
—Donna Seaman, Booklist, March 1, 2008

"Mary Oliver, who won the Pultizer Prize in poetry, is my choice for her joyous, accessible, intimate observations of the natural world . . . She teaches us the profound act of paying attention—a living wonder that makes it possible to appreciate all the others."
—Renee Loth, Boston Globe

"It has always seemed . . . that Mary Oliver might leave us any minute. Even a 1984 Pulitzer Prize couldn't pin her to the ground. She'd change quietly into a heron or a bear and fly or walk off forever."
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

"'My work is loving the world,' Oliver tells us . . . She has always done that work . . . in poems of considerable beauty. Now she rises, not above the world, but through it."
—Jay Parini, The Guardian

Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems

Edgar Allan Poe

List Price: $14.98 By: Book Sales Amazon Marketplace: 10 new & used starting at $25.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( P ) -> Poe, Edgar Allan
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> Poets, A-Z -> ( P ) -> Poe, Edgar Allan
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Best Poe Collection 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I've bought a few complete Poe collections over the years, and this one is my favorite. The font size is not squashed down to save pages at the expense of my eyes, and it does seem to be complete. It's also an attractively put together book.

Poe is essential reading for anyone interested in horror, and for any apsiring writer. He not only is a master of horror, but he's credited as being the inventor of the detective story.

"The Raven", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Black Cat", "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", and everything else you're looking for plus stories and poems you may never have heard of yet are all in here.

This is a great volume at a great price. I'd also recommend: The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, Cold Streak, It (Signet Books), Coraline, & Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.

Editorial Review:

This collection of 73 short stories and 48 poems includes such masterpieces as The Fall of the House of Usher, The Purloined Letter, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and Murders in the Rue Morgue.

Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics)

John Milton

Amazon Price: $9.60 List Price: $12.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Classics Amazon Marketplace: 71 new & used starting at $6.77

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( M ) -> Milton, John
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> Single Authors -> British & Irish

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Humbling Triumph of Emotion, Spirituality and Despair. 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

One of the many results of the increased literacy rate is the ability for every Tom, Dick or Harry to consider themselves literary experts and to opine on the supposed faults of great literature, presuming that it should serve merely their basest pleasures. The correct response to such vulgarity is to rebuke, letting them make their solitary way till one greater man restore them. Before the charge of arrogance is levelled against me, I must too opine that this attitude of literary snobbery should be applied to each one of us when we approach the genius of Milton and Paradise Lost, relenting to the sensation of humility as this epic poem enters our mind. Only by reading in such a frame of mind, can one truly appreciate and enjoy the poetry of Milton.

Paradise Lost is Milton's attempt to recount the debacle of Satan in Heaven, and his role in the Fall of Humanity. While Milton grandly presents his work as an attempt to `justify the ways of God to men' regarding His motivations for our expulson from Paradise, the focus of Paradise Lost is firmly upon Satan and his emotional turmoil at losing Heaven, only to see a creature of dirt replace him as God's focus. From a Catholic perspective, one of the faults of Milton is that his anthropomorphism of the devil is almost too convincing, making Satan appear as a tragic, almost pathetic figure, rather than the merciless deceiver that he is. That is not to say that Milton portrays the devil in a positive frame, but attempts to offer reasons of insecurity, envy and self-righteous hostility for Satan's path of destruction; all too human traits, as many readers will find disconcerting.

As some have noted, while one's grasp and love of the English language should improve at the behest of Milton's poetry, it is unlikely that one will find any theological inspiration from this work. Heresies abound in Paradise Lost; hardly surprising due to the unorthodox religious convictions of Milton. Without condoning such-in my conviction-wicked ideas, one should attempt to read Milton, not as a theological treatise or an attempt to historically describe the Fall, but as a courageous attempt to venture into the midst of the spiritual, the power of emotion and the capability of both unto despair.

A classic which all will do well to read.

Editorial Review:

Edited with an introduction and notes by John Leonard.

Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (Classic Seuss)

Dr. Seuss

List Price: $13.00 By: Random House Books for Young Readers Amazon Marketplace: 4 new & used starting at $44.87

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Ages 4-8 -> Picture Books
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Ages 4-8 -> General
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Ages 4-8 -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

lucky you 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

lucky me lucky you.. another little-known Seuss pick-me-upper ....
DID I EVER TELL YOU HOW LUCKY YOU ARE ?
i gave away both copies to friends who were down and put for the moment and they bounced back up all cheery... children of all ages can love and relate to his wacky situations ... our favorite this week is Harry Haddow who cannot make a shadow !!! give yourself and other this pleasure...Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (Classic Seuss)
b ackerman

Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky YouAre? 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I purchased this book for my daughter (a 33 year old 1st grade teacher) for her birthday. It was her favorite book as a child. She read it to her classroom and the kids loved it. No one in her class had heard of this book before. Even the school librarian had not heard of it. It is a great book and of course the illustrations were wonderful. I think the best part of the book is the true meaning of the book that no matter how bad you think you have it or how bad things are, there's always someone worse off than you are. It teaches positive thinking for all ages. My grandsons loved the book too so I know it will end up as worn out as the original book I purchased 30 years ago.

Editorial Review:

Illus. in full color. A special paperback edition of the book accompanies the cassette, which features spirited original music, humorous sound effects, and John Cleese's hilarious narration. Cassette running time: approx. 20 min.  

A Lesson Before Dying

Ernest J. Gaines, Keith Glover

List Price: $20.95 By: L.A. Theatre Works Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $8.45

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 496 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Tried, But Failed to Understand The Hype 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I picked up this book with great anticipation, as I knew it was selected for Oprah's Book Club and had won a couple of awards, including the National Book Award. Although I had never read any of the writer's previous works, his name is familiar and so, naturally, I assumed I would be in for a dramatic and stunning emotional rollercoaster. I wasn't.

This book is so poorly written I really hope that my suspicions are true and that all the pages of the original text were replaced by a 15 year old promising prankster. While the main premise of the book has the potential to be a real winner, Gaines fails to give it the depth it really needs. Instead, he treads above the surface throughout the entire book, using superficial emotions with superficial, and stereotypical, vocabulary. At the end, we get what everyone expects, the standard tearjerker in a Lifetime movie. The book was a chore to read, with Gaines' digressions making it nearly unbearable (must we know about every single person that attended the school play, and must we go through the play in its entirety?).

Nevertheless, Gaines does have an incredible way of making the story seem realistic. The main character, Grant Wiggins, is clearly not a writer yet when he telling the story it is as if he were simply talking to an old friend. Still, while Wiggins is not a writer, Ernest J. Gaines is, and an established one too. One would've hoped that a man with his clout would give us the mature literary quality one expects. Instead, we have this overwrought and sluggish lump of a book that has the potential to be refined into a literary masterpiece yet is nothing more than a bad extension to a Tyler Perry play.

Editorial Review:

In a small Louisiana community in the 1940s, a young black man is about to go to the electric chair for murder. As Grant Wiggins counsels the young man, he learns an important lesson about heroism. A Lesson Before Dying is a wrenching portrait of a southern town crippled by racism.

Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman

List Price: $1.50 By: Signet Classics Amazon Marketplace: 4 new & used starting at $2.25

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( W ) -> Whitman, Walt
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Poetry -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 69 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What book will you get when you order this? 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

There seems to be some confusion, both in the editorial reviews and the customer reviews, about what edition is being referred to in this listing. the first editorial review correctly discusses the first edition as shorter and "less bloated" than the deathbed edition. however, the rest of the reviews seem to discuss either edition indiscriminately.

the two are effectively different books. the cover shown is of the first edition including an illuminating essay by malcolm cowley--that's certainly the edition I prefer, and I hope thats what you would get if you ordered this.

Editorial Review:

Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, contained twelve long untitled poems, but Whitman continued to expand it throughout his life. Whitman's poetry was unprecedented in its unapologetic joy in the physical and its inextricable link to the spiritual. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to him: "I am very happy in reading [Leaves of Grass], as great power makes us happy ... I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be."