Poetry Is Not a Luxury: Poems for All Seasons : Sunday Salon

 Poetry

There are times when fiction or nonfiction won't do, and only poems can fit the bill. In one of those moods, I searched for a new book of poems and found Poetry Is Not a Luxury, (May 6, 2025; NetGalley) an anthology grouped under the themes of Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring. A collection of mostly short poems, by writers such as Langston Hughes, Izumi Shikibu, Ilya Kaminsky, Jane Hirshfield, Nikki Giovanni, Ursula K. LeGuin, Timothy Liu, Ria Cortez, and Garous Abdomalekian. 

Over a year ago, I gave away a lot of books to used book stores, senior centers, library book sales, in order to turn my basement into a bedroom/den. Now, I look for books I no longer have, including books of poetry! 

Books of poems I miss having include those by Pablo Neruda, ee cummings, the illustrated I Ching, Mary Oliver, and more that I can't even recall at the moment, lol. 

I still have three poetry anthologies that escaped my great book purge: 

1. The Giant Book of Poetry, edited by William H. Roetzheim, 2006, Level 4 Press

Poems begin with Ishtar, (possibly 4,000 BC), translated by Lewis Spence, and end with Jane Flanders' (born 1984) poem titled The House That Fear Built: Warsaw, 1943.

From the first verse of Ishtar:

The unconsecrated foe entered my courts,

placed his unwashed hands upon me, 

and caused me to tremble.

Putting forth his hand

He smote me with fear. 

 

From the first verse of The House That Fear Built:

I am the boy with his hands raised over his head

in Warsaw.

I am the soldier whose rifle is trained 

on the boy with his hands raised over his head

in Warsaw. 

 It seems to me the poems show that war is always the same, no matter what period in time. 

2. Great Poetry of the English Language: Geoffrey Chaucer to Emily Dickinson, edited by Henry B. Weisberg, 1969, Grolier Incorporated is my second anthology of poems, a large print edition. I don't have a good picture of the cover and neither does the web.

The third anthology of poems is titled "Good Poems:American Places" and features  American poets such as William Carlos Williams, Emily Dickinson, Freya Manfred, Theodore Roethke. 

Poems online include a daily poem or any poet of your choice can be found at The Poetry Foundation. This could fill that urge to read a good poem at any time, day or night. (I must remember this at 2 a.m. in the morning when I can't sleep

 Books written in poetry

Becoming Ghost  by Cathy Linh Che,, May 13, 2025; Atria Books, NetGalley. Award-winning Vietnamese-American writer  on her experiences of familial estrangement, the Vietnam War, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Her parents were extras in the film while it was being made in the Phillippines. The film was released 1979.

I read Becoming Ghost, a collection of stories in poetry, in almost one sitting, mesmerized by her memories of her family and the war in Vietnam, by her times in the Phillippines where they were temporarily in a refugee camp, and in particular poems about her father, whose home movies played a large role in the family history.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday