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Reviews

Home
Reviews

The Singing Lines of Theresa Rodriguez: A Review of Sonnets

The Society
January 12, 2021
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
13 Comments
by Andrew Benson Brown Theresa Rodriguez, Sonnets. 2nd edition. Shanti Arts, 193 Hillside Road, Brunswick, ME, 04011, 2020. 75 pp. $12.95. In his literary criticism, William Empson showed a subtle...

A Review of Juvenalia by Reid McGrath

The Society
October 12, 2020
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
12 Comments
Juvenalia by Reid McGrath, Kelsay Books, 2019 by James Sale Regular readers of The Society of Classical Poets’ pages will be familiar with the name of Reid McGrath; he has been extensively published...

Ekphrastic Economy: A Review of Memoirs of a Witness Tree, by Randal A. Burd, Jr.

The Society
September 20, 2020
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
6 Comments
Memoirs of a Witness Tree, by Randal A. Burd, Jr. Kelsay Books, 2020 by Andrew Benson Brown Reading Aristotle’s Poetics is in some ways a curious experience for the practitioner of poetry. In this...

The Rebirth of Epic: A Review of James Sale’s HellWard

The Society
August 22, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Epic, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
31 Comments
by Andrew Benson Brown James Sale’s HellWard is the first volume of a planned trilogy entitled The English Cantos. If the quality of the current volume is any indication of the two forthcoming ones, then...

Review: ‘The Stargazers,’ A First Book of Poems by James McKee

The Society
April 9, 2020
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
by T.M. Moore James McKee, The Stargazers (Atmosphere Press, 2020), $17.99 James McKee’s inaugural foray into verse publishing offers a panoply of poetic forms, themes, images, and delights. The Stargazers...

Review: Poetry by Theresa Rodriguez

The Society
November 26, 2019
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
7 Comments
by James Sale Sonnets, 2nd edition. Shanti Arts, 2020 Jesus and Eros, Bardsinger Books, 2014 Theresa Rodriguez is a relatively new and exciting poet on the pages of The Society of Classical Poets. As a...

On Wendy Cope’s Wasteland Limericks (Essay)

The Society
May 15, 2019
Culture, Essays, Humor, Poetry, Reviews
5 Comments
by Lew Icarus Bede The way I dealt with T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland was to write a poem, equally desperate, in that same allusive style—with notes. That unpublished poem Cicadas' Voices, written in the...

Review: “Profane and Sacred Love” by William Ruleman

The Society
March 14, 2019
Beauty, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
2 Comments
William Ruleman: Profane and Sacred Love, Feather Books, 2002 and reprint 2014 by James Sale Having read some excellent poetry by William Ruleman on the pages of the SCP I determined to buy a collection so...

Review: In the Measuring, Carol Smallwood, Shanti Arts 2018

The Society
November 3, 2018
Beauty, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
12 Comments
by James Sale Carol Smallwood In the Measuring is a substantial new collection of 77 poems by Carol Smallwood. Carol is well-known to readers of The Society of Classical Poets, as her poems regularly...

Review: Selected Poems from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, Translated by Helen Palma

The Society
October 17, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
10 Comments
by Joseph Charles MacKenzie Read the Selected Poems from Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal online. Purchase the book here. Two arts are beautifully displayed in Helen Palma’s Selected Poems from...

Review: Two Poetry Books by James B. Nicola

The Society
September 24, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Humor, Poetry, Reviews
3 Comments
by James Sale Wind in the Cave, Finishing Line Press, 2017 Out of Nothing, Shanti Arts Publishing, 2018 Recently in a poetry review of another poet on these pages I commented that the poet had included 33...

Review: ‘Organ Harvest’ by Damian Robin

The Society
July 20, 2018
Culture, Essays, Human Rights in China, News of Note, Poetry, Reviews
5 Comments
Organ Harvest by Damian Robin, published by Fulton Verse, 2018. Read three sonnets from the work here.  by James Sale Damian Robin is well known to readers of the Society of Classical Poets web...

Review: Three Poetry Books by Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
June 20, 2018
Culture, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
33 Comments
by James Sale FORMAL COMPLAINTS by Joseph S. Salemi, Somer Rocks Press, 1997 MASQUERADE by Joseph S. Salemi, Somer Rocks Press, 2005 SKIRMISHES by Joseph S. Salemi, Pivot Press, 2010 I first encountered...

Rediscovering Percy Shelley’s Greatest Work: ‘Prometheus Unbound, with Other Poems’

The Society
January 25, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
7 Comments
By Brett Forester Writing but one fine, enduring poem is a remarkable achievement. Writing a book of great poems is an even rarer triumph. Yet in 1820, British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (born...

Review: What Is Shen Yun All About?

The Society
January 19, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Essays, Human Rights in China, Music, Performing Arts, Poetry, Reviews
38 Comments
By Evan Mantyk Advertising for it is everywhere. If you haven’t seen it, you just haven’t been paying attention. A brilliantly colored image depicts a Chinese woman striking an airborne pose. But what...

Book Review: Groans From Old Bones by William F.E. Morley (1920 – )

The Society
September 25, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
4 Comments
Click here to download the entire book as a pdf file. By Leonard Dabydeen In the fraternity of poetic minds we can luxuriate joyously on the richness of old age, or on becoming old but fresh as sunshine...

Review: Wolfe and Other Poems by Donald Mace Williams, Wundor Editions, 2017

The Society
September 2, 2017
Classical Literature, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
3 Comments
By James Sale Donald Mace Williams Wolfe and Other Poems is an extraordinarily good collection of poems, clearly written by a veteran writer. The underlying credo of the collection is very aptly summed...

Classical Book Review: The Icelandic Sagas: Tales of Kings and Heroes (Folio)

Joshua Philipp
August 16, 2017
Classical Literature, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
By Joshua Philipp Abbie Farwell Brown described the far north in his 1902 book, "In The Days of Giants," as "the land of the midnight sun, where summer is green and pleasant, but winter is a terrible time...

Essay: Leo Yankevich: un Coup d’œil (A Glance)

The Society
July 27, 2017
Deconstructing Communism, Essays, Reviews
48 Comments
This essay was written in 2007 and has remained unpublished until now. by Ludiew E. Sarceb Few of the contemporary poets with whom I am familiar have any profound sense of history (and, therefore, of our...

Classical Book Review: John Keats: Poetry of Quiet Longing and Natural Beauty (Folio)

Joshua Philipp
July 12, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
1 Comment
By Joshua Philipp The poetry of John Keats is known for its light and dreamy nature. Even in his time, in the early 1800s, he was considered old-fashioned, both in his topics and in his style of writing. He...

Classical Book Review: Dante’s Vita Nuova and Reflections on Divine Love (Folio)

Joshua Philipp
June 20, 2017
Classical Literature, Essays, Poetry, Reviews, Translation
4 Comments
By Joshua Philipp The Italian poet Dante Alighieri is best known for his journey into hell, purgatory, and heaven which he told of in his "Divine Comedy." But before he took that journey, he took a very...

Book Review: Hare Krishna by Mahathi, Prowess Publishing, 2017

The Society
June 14, 2017
Classical Literature, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
7 Comments
By Sandeep Kumar Mishra There are two things that came to my mind when I read the book Hare Krishna by Mahathi: First, in this modern era in which every person thinks himself a poet, the shape, size and...

Review: The Lyre Speaks True, James Sale, 2016

The Society
June 5, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
2 Comments
By Joseph Charles MacKenzie James Sale, whom I happen to consider England’s best on the subject, states: “To write poetry with any degree of power, and to create true beauty without which the effort is...

Classical Book Review: A Brief Look at ‘The Kojiki’ (Tuttle)

Joshua Philipp
May 18, 2017
Classical Literature, Essays, Poetry, Reviews, Translation
3 Comments
By Joshua Philipp The Japanese creation story begins in a time of primordial chaos, and from this the god Izanagi and the goddess Izanami emerge to create the Japanese islands. This is the first tale in The...

Review: In Hubble’s Shadow by Carol Smallwood, Shanti Arts Publishing, 2017

The Society
April 24, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
By Alex Phuong The night sky has served as the inspiration for many poets and writers, from Longfellow’s “The Light of Stars” to “Stars” by Robert Frost, and still does. Profoundly and...

Review: Apocalypse by Frederick Turner, Ilium Press, 2016

The Society
March 19, 2017
Epic, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
30 Comments
By James Sale There are nine Muses of poetry, daughters of Zeus or some say Apollo, and the Titaness, Mnenosyne, goddess of memory, past and future. And of these nine the most important is Kalliope, she of...

Book Review: Woodland Poems by Douglas Thornton

The Society
August 15, 2016
Essays, News of Note, Poetry, Reviews
1 Comment
By James Sale This is a curious collection from Douglas Thornton: ambitious, epic in its style, containing many great lines and ideas, but also strangely baffling, quirky, and—I have to say—awkward....

Poetry Book Review: James Manlow’s When We Were Slugs from Parkgate Press

The Society
February 17, 2016
Essays, News of Note, Reviews
By James Sale There are two things I don’t like about “When We Were Slugs”, the new poetry collection from James Manlow, the erstwhile Poet Laureate for Bournemouth, England (pictured above). The...

Review: The Parliament of Poets by Frederick Glaysher, Earthrise Press, 2012

The Society
January 25, 2016
Epic, Essays, News of Note, Reviews
9 Comments
By James Sale Frederick Glaysher claims to be an epic poet, and furthermore to have written an epic poem, The Parliament of Poets. This is a huge claim and an astonishing ambition. Is he? Has he? Before...

Book Review: ‘Poetry Is’ by Jose Garcia Villa

The Society
November 6, 2015
Essays, News of Note, Reviews
2 Comments
Review By James Sale This weekend two different things coincided. First, I finished reading ‘Poetry Is: Jose Garcia Villa’s Philosophy of Poetry’ edited by Robert L King (Ateneo University Press),...




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