This is not a deluxe edition of the poems though at nearly 1000 pages one that gave each poem its unique page would create a wrist sprainer or require two volumes. Nevertheless there are times when the poems feel crammed. Any time one starts reading a new poet understanding his/her handling of the language, their allusions and metaphors is a challenge. Any writer is a child of their own era. Auden is a master of poetic language, his lines read so naturally one can forget they are actually rhyming but the ideas expressed go far beyond prose expression. Since my reading is not for academic purposes but rather for pleasure I don’t feel obligated to comprehend every allusion. After reading Ginsberg the expression of romance and love here is not lascivious or crass and the points made far less brash and strident. Unlike a similar volume of WB Yeats I’ve assayed this one lacks any annotations so none of the allusions and dedications are explained. In the later poems he starts to use arcane and made-up words that have the reader reaching for a dictionary or going online to research the derivation of words no longer in common useage.
No comments:
Post a Comment