Customer Reviews

Love: Poems

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This book is hysterical. The poetry is so bad that it's pure humor. I was with friends reading these poems aloud the other evening and everyone was laughing so hard they were crying. If you are a fan of legitimate poetry, YOU CANNOT PASS THIS UP. You'll (hopefully) never get another opportunity to laugh so hard in all of your life.

Love is lovely love is loving lovely is taking love is giving - I made that last poem up by myself. I do not recommend this book unless you are a hardcore danielle steel fan and then of course I recommend every ot her book by her for your collection. I found the poems to be light and tright and not out of sight and not at all full of delight. IF you are searching for good amorous poetry might I suggest Elizabeth Barret Browning or perhaps Pablo Neruda. This is a book that one might want to access if one cannot find a hallmark card good enough for one's significant other. I don't want to be harsh...but lets not call this poetry.

This book is, quite possibly and with little exaggeration, the worst book of poetry ever published. If you are a fan of very bad poetry, I recommend this with all of my heart. You will chuckle until your sides ache at this insipid piece of barely rhymed fluff. It isn't that the subject matter is what is objected to, heck, Byron, Keates and Shelley all wrote pages and pages about love and romance and the warm fuzzy feelings you get when that special someone looks your way. But Danielle Steele wins the prize for writing a book of poetry without really knowing what a poem is (or how one is written). Even at the outer edges of the definition of "poem," you will not find any justification for what is perpetrated here. They wouldn't even print this junk in a Hallmark card it is so bad. Go dig up a love poem you wrote for some guy or girl you liked in the third grade--Read it--Note how horrible it is and how embarrassed you would be to have it read in public today--Then don't sweat it--Because it was probably no worse and possibly much better than any poem in Steel's "Love." Another favorite poetry book of mine, "Very Bad Poetry" edited by Kathryn and Ross Petras, purports to contain the worst poem ever written in the English language. And it does. An absolute stinker. But many of the poems in Danielle Steel's "Love" book come awfully, awfully close.

My boyfriend recommended I check out some of Steel's poetry because it was the most disheartening piece of work (attempting to pass as poetry) he had ever encountered. I agree vehemently. Her simplistic use of language does not resonate an earthly quality or a precision of objectivity. It seems to stem from a lazy and trite frame of mind. Poetry is different than prose because it requires a succinctness that prose cannot boast of, it forces the poet to write creatively and poignantly. However, Steel's flimsy use of rhyme seems almost childish, her themes may reach the multitudes, but are in essence thoroughly cliche, and her penchant for repetition seems to derive from an inability to think of new words or ways of expressing herself. I only hope that aspiring poets will not look to Ms.Steel as an example, and that they will not be too discouraged that such work receives an abundance of positive feedback. Because, quite frankly, she is hardly more than the average 13 year old girl writing the typical i-am-alone-my-heart-is-shattered-nobody-loves-me-whine-whine-whine-oh-i-am-in-love-oh-everything-is-perfect-la-la-la poem. This book should be banned from the literary world, this is not poetry, it is steelpoems-blow-etry.

I actually haven't read this, but on the Conan O'brien show Tina Fey took this book on and read an excerpt as part of her COMEDY! It's that bad.

After reading Jewel Kilcher's 'A Night Without Armor,' I thought that no poetry could ever be as bad, ever again. I thought that maybe we all would have learned a lesson. Oh, how I was wrong.

Steel's poetry isn't as bad as Jewel's; it's worse.

She wouldn't know meter if it came up to her, shook her hand, introduced itself, and took her to dinner and a movie. She has no concept of craft, artistry, or revision. She treats line breaks as if convention was purely arbitrary - almost every poem has the exact same structure. Everything about this collection is one hundred percent bad.

I am ashamed of Steel, I am ashamed of the publishers, and I am ashamed of the people who continue to buy this utter garbage instead of actual literature.

'Love' is worthless.

I bought 2 books. One had a diagonal fold on the top cover of the book 3/4 of an inch from the top, the other had a small tear along the top edge of the binding. Although the physical condition of the books seemed like they had been browsed at a bookstore, the book is a delight to read. It brings back old memories of being in love, whether it be passionate love, unrequited love, or breaking someone else's heart. The poems about love are somethings people can relate to. It will make you laugh even when you're all alone in a room and evoke past emotions and memories. I gave the other book as a gift to my friend and she immediately loved it!

This book makes me wish that Amazon had a "zero star" option.

Not only are the poems bad, but I hate that stupid zig-zaggy style she uses in printing her poetry.

There is something to be said for creatively ignoring the rules of poetry. But Steel's ignorance isn't creative ignorance, it's just ignorance. "Love : Poems" is a misleading title. Yes, Steel does claim to write about love, and the world "love" appears many, many times on these pages, but there isn't a single poem throughout this entire book. There's no meter anywhere, and the most creative rhyme is: "if you care/if you dare" This isn't a book of love poems, this is a first grader's spelling practice.

I bought this book as a gag for a friend's wedding. I think that's the only way to justify spending money on this drivel. Reading them out loud with friends is sure to get a good round of laughs though. Let me put it this way, the sound my dog makes just before he throws up is more poetic than this.