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 25
It had a Mother Goose simplicity to it — a perfect little lyric with personification , but with the double meaning that would reveal itself to me later . The poem was important to me because my rather mysterious father wrote it .
It had a Mother Goose simplicity to it — a perfect little lyric with personification , but with the double meaning that would reveal itself to me later . The poem was important to me because my rather mysterious father wrote it .
Page 148
Coleridge was in the book , and got really deep under my skin ; Macaulay's “ Lays of Ancient Rome ” were in it , too , and my brother and I can still recite antiphonally , sixty years later : : Lars Porsena of Clusium By the Nine Gods ...
Coleridge was in the book , and got really deep under my skin ; Macaulay's “ Lays of Ancient Rome ” were in it , too , and my brother and I can still recite antiphonally , sixty years later : : Lars Porsena of Clusium By the Nine Gods ...
Page 159
Needing a break from calculus , I decided to head over to the stacks at Powell Library and pick up Plath's Ariel , later settling in beside the pool at the Sunset Rec Center on a balmy midOctober afternoon .
Needing a break from calculus , I decided to head over to the stacks at Powell Library and pick up Plath's Ariel , later settling in beside the pool at the Sunset Rec Center on a balmy midOctober afternoon .
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Contents
Acknowledgments | 11 |
Introduction by Carmela Ciuraru | 19 |
Virginia Hamilton Adair on Along the Road by Robert | 25 |
Copyright | |
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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