The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time | Leslie Pockell

The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time | Leslie Pockell | Excellent book of poems!

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The 100 Best Love ...

	The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time Leslie Pockell Grand Central Publishing, 2003 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Here, in one compact volume, is a greatest hits collection of the 100 bets love poems ever written by 100 of the world's greatest poets. This essential anthology is ideal for the romantic-and will inspire any cynic. The poets included range throughout the history of world literature: from the Classics (Sappho, Catullus) and Renaissance (Shakespeare, Donne, Dante) to the Romantics (Shelly, Keats, Wordsworth) and 20th century giants (Frost, Lorca, Graves), right down to the present day (Viorst, Patchen, Neruda). Each poem features a brief introduction, which details the poet's life history as well as the poem's significance.

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Elegant and Classic

How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul?
How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote lost objects,
in some dark and silent place that doesn't resonate
when our depths resound. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Leslie Pockell has created a collection of 100 Love Poems in order to explore the many facets of love's expression. The poems range from passionate longings to realistic portrayals (Judith Viorst's True Love). There are images of love's transcendence and safety. Everything from ecstasy to grief is included. Classics like To Helen by Edgar Allan Poe are very familiar.

The River Merchant's Wife by Li Po brings elegant beauty and Strawberries by Edwin Morgan dips into memories of storms while eating strawberries in sugar, one of my all-time favorite poems because of the ending. Katherine Mansfield's poem about tea is warm and satisfying. The flow and rhythm in many of the poems is especially comforting.

The wide range of emotions within the poems also allows for a few moments of sarcasm (Love 20 Cents the First Quarter Mile by Kenneth Fearing) and even humor that is adorably funny. Your Catfish Friend by Richard Brautigan is witty and cute and looks at love from an especially creative perspective. This allows for poems with personality and lightens the heavier content and melancholy love often reveals.

Complete poems and extracts mingle effortlessly through the pages. Each poem is accompanied by an insightful explanation that also sheds light on historical facts and the life of the poet. In Love Song by Rainer Maria Rilke we learn of his lifelong melancholy and Leslie Pockell explains how he is conscious of the distance between lovers playing an "essential part in sustaining the mystery of love and life." Her ideas flow with the poems in a beautiful celebration of poetry. She gives only enough information to introduce the poem and does not provide extended commentary.

Poets featured in this collection include: Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Howard Moss, Christopher Marlowe, John Milton, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Burns, Robert Graves, Rumi, Sir John Suckling, E.E. Cummings, Frances Cornford, Sir Philip Sidney, Guillaume Apollinaire, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Walt Witman, Pablo Neruda, William Blake, Robert Frost, Catullus, Octavio Paz, Tzumi Shikibu, Sylvia Plath, Li Po, D.H. Lawrence, John Keats, Ted Hughes, Margaret Atwood and many more...

There are 100 poets featured in this book. Whether you are a hopeless romantic or enjoy thinking about the many aspects of love, this book has much to offer. I can almost guarantee you will find 5 poems to adore, 10 you want to read again and again and 20 new poets you are happy to have found.

~The Rebecca Review

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Excellent book of poems!

The title says it all. Great Poets with great love poems equates to a pleasurable read. If you like romance and love, then this book Love poems are for you.

Stunning Visuals!

This book paints a picture of love with the most beautiful word pictures, it decorates the soul with heartfelt visuals of passion.

100 Valentines

This is a lovely book with poems ranging from the classical to the quirky, though without disappointment.

Great variety

I like the variety of Love Poems in this book, from serious to ribald, from classic to modern. Also includes notes from the "author" which may offer some interpretive assitance.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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