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La Sombra De Sirio (2013)

by W.S. Merwin(Favorite Author)

4.18 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

Poetry

publisher

Vaso Roto Ediciones

review 1: I feel I've really missed something completely, or perhaps it's the fact that I either didn't understand the poems, or I simply have a bad taste in poetry. Perhaps it's a combination of all of these factors.To put it shortly, I didn't see what was so magnificent or wonderful about his work, as others have written before. He's already the third, I believe, poet who has won several awards and upon reading the work it went over my head. Yes there were some good lines here and there, but overall it was a struggle to get through the poems. I usually enjoy reading poetry before bed, but I had no incentive to pick the book up and read even one poem. After a certain point I didn't even bother touching it and dropped about three quarters of the way through.Simply put, this was tota... morelly not for me.
review 2: Merwin's flowing and unpuctuated style is fitting for his subject matter; images and impressions arrive and vanish, flowing into one another seamlessly. His “style”, though unmistakable, isn't a gimmick or a schtick, it is an expression of an organic form. A set form is not imposed upon the poem, but arises organically as is needed by the content. Merwin's style may even be considered and absence of style, a stark, denuded language without much ornamentation. I was surprised to see that several of the poems are in pentameter, such as “Youth”: Through all of youth I was looking for you Without knowing what I was looking for or what to call you I think I did not even know I was looking how would I have known you when I saw you as I didYet the meter is not forced, but natural, each line giving the reader just enough information to want to move forward. There is almost a breathing rhythm to Merwin's lines. Rhythm seems to be important for Merwin and the poem “The Long and the Short of It” may be read as a testament to meter: “As long as we can believe anything / we believe in measure / we do it with the first breath we take / and the first sound we make.” Life consists of rhythms and measures, comings and goings, moments and memories. The chief end of language is to capture moments and to restore, as much as possible, memories, though it will always fall short; there will always be something that words do not tell us, as the opening lines of the poem “What The Bridges Hear”: “Even the right words if ever / we come to them tell of something / the words never knew.” less

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