Customer Reviews

Once I Gazed at You in Wonder: Poems

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For those of us who have followed her poetry over the past two decades, this book is a long-awaited reason for celebration. Heller Levi is among the best of the NY poets of the 70's and 80's, gifted with both the highest level of poetic craft and a piercingly insightful perspective on how people love.

This book of amazing poems reads like a novel - the kind you can't put down. A thrilling, funny, sad, sexy, and incredibly moving collection. A poetry book that will convince and convert all of those people who think they can't read poetry. Already the recipient of the destinguished Walt Whitman award, "Once I Gazed at You In Wonder" will surely accumulate many more. A poetry book to read and reread.

I have re-read books before, but, never have I read the same book every week for 10 weeks running. You find more in Jan's words each time you read her book. She if gifted at expressing her feelings and experiences in life.I begin to shed tears just thinking of this book-[yes,men do cry! because we love more as we get older-see the book] I plan to buy many copies to share. I dropped the author a brief note congratulating her after my 8th re-read- I should have done it sooner. I am looking forward to breaking the cycle by moving on to her next work. Buy the book!

I love poetry. I read all types and kinds. But unfortunately Poetry has evolved from Ballads and love songs to a very introspective type of self-analytical intellectualism. Many of this genre seem to go out of their way to find words that no one understands or that are never used in everyday speech and include it in their poem ...somehow. Or they try to convince readers that they are intelligent by putting words in combination that are not translatable even in the host language. Occasionally, they may say something intelligent by accident but who would know.

This book is different. Many of her poems are stories, slices of real life, broken images, and real feelings and emotions. "My Father Calls me Every Sunday Morning" would be a good example. It is just a tidbit. Hardly worth the effort of a short story. Certainly not the material for a tragic novel. It is just one of those simple heart-felt things common to all of us. And much of poetry is just that ... stepping in a puddle, a bit of a phone call, a frustrating thought on our own vulnerability, an attempt to describe a tear. I love poetry ... The kind that says something. The kind that makes me feel something or think a thought I wouldn't normally think. There can be an intimacy in poetry. Jan Levi opens up and brings us in.

This is a nice book of poems. I enjoyed reading them.

Richard Noble - The Hobo Philosopher - Author of:

"A Little Something: Poetry and Prose

This is the kind of book Oprah should recommend, really

A thorough immersion in the madness, flight, carnality of romance; a celebration and transcendence of the ordinary in language and vision.

This is a competent book, but I have not had the kind of emotional response other reviewers have had to this.

I do have the impression that this poet would be witty and pleasant over coffee, which is a compliment to any book.