Rate this book

News Of The World (2009)

by Philip Levine(Favorite Author)

3.92 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0307272230 (ISBN13: 9780307272232)

languge

English

genre

Poetry

publisher

Knopf

review 1: “News of the world” by Philip Levine. Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc., New York N.Y. 2009. “News of the world” by Philip Levine is a collection of prose poetry that brings the happenings of the world to the reader’s fingertips. “News of the world” is a snapshot collection of poems that capture the essence of America and the world. Philip Levine gives contemporary poetry a fresh perspective by taking readers back into a time of war, a place of solitude, and desperation. His poems read like prose poetry, by telling the reader stories of events both glorious and traumatic in order to recapture the essence of those moments in time. For instance, the poem “Not worth the wait”, this poem reads like a story with no line breaks and no rhythm that... more would be found in poetic verse. It’s fluid, the presentation of the poem is like prose. It communicates meaning rather than draw attention to structure and meter. “Everything in Lisbon is remembered, everything is entered by hand in enormous ledgers that are presented forever.” “My heart sank: I imagined myself like some sad & aged clerk out of Dickens or Melville spending day after day scanning the pages of funeral books in order to catch a name.”(39) Here, Philip Levine uses figurative language to describe the city of Lisbon as a data entry database. This portrays Lisbon as a historic place that is full of culture and history. Lisbon is a place of authenticity, a place that cannot be forgotten. This is an example of Philip Levine’s method of using prose poetry to transport and recreate a moment trapped in time by the imagination. Philip Levine transports the reader to a distant place that they may have never been before by adding sentimental value and a conversational tone. Furthermore, Philip Levine also incorporates poetry with line breaks in “News of the world”. For example his poem “Burial Rites” Philip Levine uses enjambment to create a desired effect. The stanza in which he describes his mother’s burial incorporates enjambment. “Six years ago I buried my mother’s ashes beside a young lilac that’s now taller than I, and stuck the stub of a rosebush into her dirt where, like everything else not human, it thrives.” The use of enjambment conveys a somber mode. The reader is able to feel the immense strain and anguish that one feels when burying a loved one. There’s no need for a pause, no line breaks are needed. The enjambment portrays how one’s thoughts continue, and linger though it may be hard to comprehend all of one’s feelings at the moment of pain. Its opposite is an end stopped line which causes the reader to pause and catch a breath in order to go on to the next stanza. End stopped stanzas are fluid, while enjambment is choppy and edgy creating an effect of somberness. “News of the world” summarizes Philip Levine’s intentions of illustrating the vast demographics of the world.
review 2: News of the World is a volume of poems about work, about disappearing industrial activity, and the flourishing of rust. Levine writes about closed factories. This is celebration of the past and a world now gone. He stands in the junkyards of America's midwest remembering the vanished times of the metal lunchbox and lines of men filing under skies busy with stacks and smoke and through workshops filled with the clamor of industry and purpose. Mostly he's remembering a childhood growing up in settings such as these. The poems here are evocative, nostalgic, and sometimes sad. One called "Library Days" is a favorite because it reminded me of myself. He describes visiting the library as if entering a house of worship and recalls librarians who cast a suspicious eye on a kid who'd read so voraciously. Even this poem is about work. He considers heavy reading an endeavor, the idea of digging into literature a slow tidal movement toward ambition. I also admired a central section of prose poems. It's a favorite style of mine when it doesn't fly off into the surreal. Levine avoids that and writes with delicacy about Europe, the fifties, the closed diner, the closed factory, the door closed on childhood. less

Download links for: News of the World

Advertising