First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems that Capitivated and Inspired ThemWhen Carmela Ciuraru asked her favorite poets to write about the poems that first inspired them, she was astonished by the illuminating responses she received. In turn, readers will be delighted by the intimate reflections on life and poetry found in First Loves.Affording close-up views of today's best poets, the book also (re)introduces readers to the timeless poems they selected. Sherman Alexie writes about recognizing the constant threat of violence on his reservation when he read Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz". It was a poem by her father that taught Virginia Hamilton Adair about the joys of poetry and the hidden life of her parent. J. D. McClatchy tells of first reading Homer by candlelight while eating a bowl of applesauce. Featuring many Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners, the book includes essays by Seamus Heaney, Robert Pinsky, Jorie Graham, Yusef Komunyakaa, and many others.Just in time for National Poetry Month, First Loves is a testament to poetry's matchless abilityto restore faith, offer salvation and solidarity, and above all, alter the course of human life. |
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Page 88
THE LITTLE BLACK BOY My mother bore me in the southern wild , And I am black , but O ! my soul is white ; White as an angel is the English child , But I am black , as if bereav'd of light . My mother taught me underneath a tree ...
THE LITTLE BLACK BOY My mother bore me in the southern wild , And I am black , but O ! my soul is white ; White as an angel is the English child , But I am black , as if bereav'd of light . My mother taught me underneath a tree ...
Page 183
Soon after my arrival , one of the high school classes I was required to take was a course in English Literature which focused on the Romantic poets . I had no background in English literature , and my knowledge of the English language ...
Soon after my arrival , one of the high school classes I was required to take was a course in English Literature which focused on the Romantic poets . I had no background in English literature , and my knowledge of the English language ...
Page 224
W. D. SNODGRASS Nowadays my wife and I often perform , at this or that college , an hour - long program called The Murdered Muse , made up of the worst poems in the English language - examples we've culled from such anthologies as The ...
W. D. SNODGRASS Nowadays my wife and I often perform , at this or that college , an hour - long program called The Murdered Muse , made up of the worst poems in the English language - examples we've culled from such anthologies as The ...
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Contents
Acknowledgments | 11 |
Introduction by Carmela Ciuraru | 19 |
Virginia Hamilton Adair on Along the Road by Robert | 25 |
Copyright | |
19 other sections not shown
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First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems That Captivated and ... Carmela Ciuraru Limited preview - 2001 |
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American beauty become beginning blood Blow body books of poetry born called child City close Collected coming Copyright course dark dead death deep desire dream early English eyes face fall father feel felt Galway green hand head hear heard heart Hilda Doolittle human imagination kind knew language later learned leaves light lines listen lives look meaning memorized mind moon mother move nature never night once Oscar Hammerstein II Perhaps permission poem poet poetry published reader remember Reprinted rhymes Robert round seemed sense singing sleep song soul sound stand Stevens teaches tell things thou thought touch trees turn University verse voice wind write written young