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Comments & Reviews "An
invaluable little book . . . Like any great teacher of anything,
Peacock believes that in giving us a way to understand her subject,
she is giving us a tool for living." "
I first fell in love with the word joy because it had a circle inside,
" poet Molly Peacock tells us in How to Read a Poem . . . and
Start a Poetry Circle (Riverhead), an exhilarating explication of
thirteen "talisman poems," from Gerald Manley Hopkins
to Margaret Atwood, that stresses the sheer linguistic excitement
of verse and the "guilty pleasure" of a poetry-reading
group. "Part
poetry explication and part memoir, Peacock's charming book includes
18 favorite poems that she has collected and cherished over the
years . . . Peacock is a popular and critically acclaimed poet;
she is also a founder of the "Poetry in Motion" program
that puts poetry in America's buses and subways. Peacock encourages
the shared enjoyment of poetry through reading groups and provides
practical advice for organizing a poetry circle." "In
a successful effort to demonstrate the value of her oft-neglected
medium, poet and memoirist Molly Peacock (Paradise, Piece by Piece,
1998, etc.) guides the reader through 13 of her favorite poems with
grace, humor, and warmth. Peacock, who has been responsible for
bringing poetry into the lives of millions of commuters via the
nationwide Poetry in Motion series, now sets herself to the task
of helping readers understand just what it is they are reading.
Starting at her own childhood delight in the appearance and construction
of words, and with a brief and painless stop to explain her basic
terminology, Peacock moves on to detailed readings of her talismans,
the poems that are emblematic of the various emotions or stages
of her life. She presents a selection of poets diverse in both style
and period. From the soothing repetition of the late Jane Kenyons
hym-like Let Evening Come, which she recommends as a spiritual tonic,
to the unadorned free verse of Yusef Komunyakaa's My Fathers
Loveletters, with which she examines her own family life, Peacock
rarely falters as she reveals the nuances of language and meaning
inherent in each writers work. Occasionally the authors own poetic
constructions obscure the clarity she is trying to elicit from the
poems; but her sheer delight in them is infectious even when her
point is unclear. The final chapter of the book is dedicated to
advocating that readers start poetry circles, and Peacock has fellow
poets suggest their own talisman poems for readers use. Poetry circles,
the author writes, make you know you have a soul, and that other
people do, too. A fervent claim, but one that Peacock has, with
this book, made valid. Essential for poetry novices yet thoroughly
enjoyable for initiates, this illuminating handbook is a joy." |
PROSE
> The Private I: Privacy in a
Public World | Paradise,
Piece by Piece | How To Read A Poem & Start A Poetry
Circle An excerpt from How To Read A Poem & Start A Poetry Circle "All my life, what I've hoped to create in my poems is a complex world, one that accommodates ambivalence, ambiguity, adulthood. For me, ambiguity is that shimmering verge, a phrase I have used throughout this book to describe the components of the complex emotional states we all experience that too often boil down to single words in single categories. Thus death is. . . . Supply the predictable adjective: serious. How can death be funny? Like the place where one color moves into the next category on a color wheel—is it blue? Or is it green? Is it mallard green? Or is it peacock blue? Each category of experience shimmers into its vergence with the next. Dying itself is a shimmering verge between life and death. For me poetry always takes place in the verge, and verges always shimmer because the light of the mind shines on both categories at once, trying to distinguish between them."
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© Molly Peacock - molly@mollypeacock.org