How to Make a Woman Out of Water [Paperback]

Charles Bennett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 6, 2008

The title poem of Bennett's collection is full of sensual magic and supple music. It is charged with power and grace, yet lightened by a wry sense of humor. It is lithe and strongly flowing as water itself, and gives a pure pulse of clarity and drive that runs like an undercurrent through the whole collection.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Charles Bennett was born in 1954 in the North West of England. He left school at 16 and worked in a variety of office jobs. In 1984 he attended London University and was awarded scholarship to study at the University of Massachussetts, where he was mentored by Joseph Brodsky and Amy Clampitt. He returned to the UK and continued his studies, culminating in a Doctorate on Seamus Heaney. He taught English and Drama for several years before working in Literature Development. He has been the virtual poet in residence for the National Library of the Blind and recently received a substantial award from the Arts Council. His first collection Wintergreen was published by Headland in 2002. Married, he lives and works in Herefordshire where, for a number of years, he was director of the Ledbury Poetry Festival before leaving to pursue a career as a creative writing tutor at various Universities in the region.

Product Details

• Paperback: 56 pages
• Publisher: Enitharmon Pr (February 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904634427
• ISBN-13: 978-1904634423
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,201,560 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Magical Book, March 16, 2009

By 

Patricia Fargnoli, NH Poet Laureate 12/2006-3... (NH, United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Make a Woman Out of Water (Paperback)

How to Make a Woman Out of Water

I don't know Charles Bennett, but after I read his beautiful poem "The Snow Hare" on Poetry Daily, I was so enchanted that I immediately ordered How to Make a Woman Out of Water. I was not only not disappointed, but I was entirely enchanted all over again. Not by a poem or two but by every single poem in this 56 page book.

Bennett's poems are magical; they read like fables or nursery rhymes or lullabies. There are poems of water, poems of animals (bat, mole, moth), love poems....all of them short, lyrical, clear. They are distinguished by the poet's absolute originality of voice and vision. They are as "deep-rooted" as the alder he writes of in "Half Moon Bay." Bennett sees things as they have never been seen before and makes you see them too. For instance, he describes a kite as "on string with down at the end." And a moon is seen "with his face/ on top of the dark." He can speak in the voice of the rain or of a pillow moth or snow, and get it so exactly right that you will believe the rain, moth and snow are speaking. He can break the world and remake it as, for instance, he does in "A Woman Made of Bees."

Only when I closely examined the poems to understand their spell on me, did I see that they are mostly formal, often trimeter, often slant-rhymed. But the meter is so perfectly in sync with the images and ideas and the slant-rhymes so brilliant (e.g. ask/wish; birch/touch; willow/told you so) that the effect isn't formal at all, but intimate and mesmerizing. You must read these poems aloud for the immense pleasure of the sound in your own body.

I cannot recommend this small book highly enough. Charles Bennett knows what we all know but sometimes deny: that "nothing we touch can be held for long."
Hold these poems in your hands, in your breath...they deserve a forever.