Rating: 5/5
Review:
An excellent anthology
I think this is an excellent anthology. It is subtitled "Poems of Consolation in Time of Illness," which gives only a partial idea of is contents. There is great consolation to be found here, certainly, but also cries of agony and despair, contemplation of death and so on which go far beyond mere consolation.
The book has an excellent mixture of poems which are very familiar, ones which are rather less well-known and those which are very obscure and in a very few cases, included in a book for the first time. The book does what I think a good anthology should: it provides the text of some of well-loved poems, reminds me of poems and poets which may have slipped to the back of my mind, and introduced me to work I didn't know - some of which is excellent.
I am a little less happy about a couple of aspects of the presentation. Some poems are in italic type and some in Roman, apparently randomly, which I found a little distracting. Also, each double page carries a line-drawing of a flower, a bird, a shell or similar. They are rather nice drawings, but I prefer a poem to stand on its own with its form uncluttered and its words unadorned. These are personal preferences, though. The poems are what really matter and they are excellent.
All royalties from this book go to ME Research UK, which does make me inclined to be well-disposed toward it. Nonetheless, I genuinely think that this is a very well-chosen and well-constructed anthology and I recommend it very warmly to anyone with an interest in poetry as well as to those living with illness - either their own or that of someone they love.
No comments:
Post a Comment