First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems that Capitivated and Inspired ThemCarmela Ciuraru When 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. |
From inside the book
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Page 59
... early adulthood . In my childhood there was no Harlem Renaissance , no Black arts movement ; I did not encounter the poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar and James Weldon Johnson except at church socials and in the early 1960s , during Negro ...
... early adulthood . In my childhood there was no Harlem Renaissance , no Black arts movement ; I did not encounter the poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar and James Weldon Johnson except at church socials and in the early 1960s , during Negro ...
Page 87
... early on , a very strong sense that there was no point to speech if speech did not precisely articulate perception . To my mother , speech was the socially acceptable form of murmur : its function was to fill a room with ongoing ...
... early on , a very strong sense that there was no point to speech if speech did not precisely articulate perception . To my mother , speech was the socially acceptable form of murmur : its function was to fill a room with ongoing ...
Page 101
... early imagist poems , notably " Heat , ” which I found in a high school textbook edited by Louis Untermeyer , that enthralled me . I loved the density of sound and image ; my body could take it in . Sound , and the body's whole response ...
... early imagist poems , notably " Heat , ” which I found in a high school textbook edited by Louis Untermeyer , that enthralled me . I loved the density of sound and image ; my body could take it in . Sound , and the body's whole response ...
Contents
Robin Becker on Lines Composed a Few Miles above | 19 |
w w | 33 |
Sophie Cabot Black on 754 My Life had stood | 44 |
Copyright | |
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First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems That Captivated and ... Carmela Ciuraru Limited preview - 2001 |
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Academy of American Akhmatova Alice American Poets Andrew Marvell Anna Akhmatova Annabel Lee anthology beauty blood blow book of poems books of poetry born child childhood City Collected Poems coming Copyright dark dead death dream E. E. Cummings EAMON GRENNAN English eyes Federico García Lorca feel felt flea Frost green hear heart imagination Jabberwocky John Donne knew language later learned lines listen lives look Louise Glück lyric memorized moon moonlight never night passion poem's poetry include Pulitzer Prize recent book recite remember Reprinted by permission rhymes Richard Rodgers Robert seemed Selected Poems sense singing sleep soldiers song soul sound stanza strange sweet teaches tell thee things thou thought trees turn University verse voice W. H. Auden Wallace Stevens William wind words write Yeats Yehuda Amichai young