Wednesday, July 11, 2007
 
Book Report: Listen to the Warm by Rod McKuen (1967)
This was the second collection of poetry from Rod McKuen. It's better than Suspension Bridge, too, but right now I am hard pressed to think of what wouldn't be.

The book comes in three parts; "Listen to the Warm" collects numerous poems relating to the fear of losing one's love and then the actual loss of one's love, so its narrative made the total fair enough even though many of the individual poems don't stand alone well. The second part lapses into what would later delegate McKuen to his low position in my esteem--that is, obscurity, reliance upon locations and "you had to be there" to make sense, and dedication to people I don't know. The third section, a collection of song lyrics, actually holds up very well, as McKuen demonstrates a sense of rhythm and some rhyming that elevate the simple images.

Still, he's no Carl Sandburg or Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:05 PM
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