Customer Reviews

Dog Music: Poetry About Dogs

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The editors have created an important, moving collection, miles above similar books. The sum of its parts creates a complex vision of the profound relationship we have with our dogs. I read poems like Gerald Stern's "The Dog," and Jim Simmerman's "Fetch" over and over. I read them to unsuspecting friends on the phone long distance. My gorgeous Wally, a Norfolk Terrier, died in December of 1998. These poems, in the way that all great poetry can express and trigger feelings that expand our experience of our own lives, have made even my sorrow richer.

I wanted to find some new ways to think about our dog, new ways to relate to him, and I wanted to read some good poems and maybe learn how to write a poem about a dog myself. The book has given me all that I asked and more. The poems are often very funny or very moving or both, and they are carefully observed accounts of dogs and dogs or dogs and people, and they are often tributes for a debt to a particular dog that is hard to tally and probably harder to pay back.

I have many books on dog poetry and this one was upsetting to me.
Most of the poems in this book are very depressing and many with
vile language. None seemed to celebrate the wonder of dogs--most talked of kicking, killing and harming them. It was such a let down. i just had to say something, as I have read many books on dogs and I have great love for them. What a sad book.