Customer Reviews

Love Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)

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This is one of my favorite collections of poetry. Along with the companion volume on the physical side of love, "Erotic Poems," this covers a broad enough range of topics to resonate with nearly anyone's experience of love at any stage of love. The editor has apparently and courageously selected these pearls of love poetry not based solely on the reputation of the poet or how well known the piece, but on how well the words stand on their own merit. Many of these poems are quite obscure, but very powerful. If I were to only have a single book of poems about love, this would be my choice

This is probably the finest collection of love poems that I have ever seen. Peter Washington, the editor, picked some of the most beautiful poems that I have heard. I was happy to see that many of my favorites like "To His Mistress Going to Bed" by Donne,"Tonight I Can Write" by Neruda, and "She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep" by Graves made it into this book. This collection had all of those poems that just have to be any any love collection. The great thing about this collection, though, is the many poems included that are not so well known. There are quite a few poems translated into English for this anthology which are gorgeous. Some of my favorites that I did not know before this collection are "Love is Not" by Marcus Argentarius, "The Lord is Not Merciful" by Anna Akhmatova, and Pushkin's "I Loved You." No poems outside of this collection capture love any better. Any lover of good poetry should buy this wonderful collection. It is the definative anthology of love poetry.

I love this little book. It's chock full of poetic gems, yet each one is so different. The differences in variety are surprising...there are different moods, cadences, emphases.

The poems are arranged in broad categories and follow a rather natural progression from the joys of meeting to the pleasures and pains of being "in love," to an absence of one's beloved and past loves.

Some poets are represented more extensively than are others. These include John Donne, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova and Christina Rossetti, among others. I don't think anyone who loves good poetry will complain about his disproportionate representation, however. The poets named above are so good, and their ideas so universal, that not repeating them would have been the mistake.

Although all of these poems concentrate on a universally recognized aspect of love, the perspectives vary sharply. There are poems from ancient India, classical Greece, medieval Japan, renaissance England, 19th century France and modern-day America.

The one quality all of these poems share is first-rate writing. You will no doubt find some poems you prefer over others, but you won't find poems that are "better" than others. They are all of the highest quality.

Another thing I like about this series of books is their size. They're small enough to carry in a purse or even a laptop case. I read mine on the train, on the bus, while waiting for the bus, anywhere, really. I couldn't think of a way to improve them.

This book is a wonderful collection of love poems. I couldn't imagine anyone being displeased with it. It has been one of my most favorite collections of poems ever.

But true Love is a durable fire
In the mind ever burning;
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning. ~Walter Ralegh

I am naturally drawn to tiny books and this book was no exception. I saw it and instantly fell in love with the red library binding and gold embossing on the fabric cover. This is one of those books you want to carry around with you in your pocket to read on a sunny day while sitting on a park bench.

While most of the poems were new to me, I did find lines to make any poet drown in the pure beauty of words. "In My Sky at Twilight" is a paraphrase of the 30th poem in Raindranath Tagore's The Gardener. The images are lush and mingle emotion with nature. "In Former Days" by Bhartrhari (5th Century) is witty and beautiful in its simplicity. Two lovers are so in love they forget their separateness and then drift back to being "you" and "me." The poem is a mere four lines and yet it provides a intimate look at how lovers feel when in love and when they drift apart. I loved a few lines in "The Palanquin" where a butterfly lands on delicate skin and transfers colors onto the lover's skin.

The poems are divided into 7 sections:

Definitions and Persuasions
Love and Poetry
Praising the Loved One
Pleasures and Pains
Fidelity and Inconstancy
Absence, Estrangement and Parting
Love Past

You may recognize poems by Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman and Dorothy Parker. I was pleasantly surprised by poems by Leconte De Lisle, Pablo Neruda and Dioskorides.

You will find a wide range of love poems. This book contains selections from ancient China to modern America. These poems present the universal experience of the human heart.

~The Rebecca Review

This is a small collection of just exquisite love poems divided into seven sections: Definitions and Persuasions; Love and Poetry; Praising the Loved One: Pleasures and Pain; Fidelity and INconstancy; Abscence, Estrangment, and Parting; and Love Past. Each piece is first rate and contributes to our understanding of love and love poetry. Some of the excellent pieces you'll find inside are: Michael Drayton, Christina Rossetti, Catullus, C.P. Cavafy, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Valery, Bhatrhari, Swinburne, Whitman, Marlowe, Roethke,Thomas Wyatt, Pushkin, Apollinaire, Dorothy Parker, Robert Frost, Arthur Gorges, Byron, Robert Graves, Pierre de Ronsard, Poe, Shakespeare, Neruda,Zenodotos, Andrew Marvell, Donne, Herrick, and selecections from the Song of Solomon. All in all, a beautiful collection.

Most of the poems here are beautiful. Some convey the feeling of love gained and others tell the story of love lost or the perils of love.

I really like the poem "Thyrsis and Amaranta" by Jean De La Fontaine hilariously true!! It tells the story of a young man who is in love with a girl who doesn't even know he longs for her. He hints and clues his feelings to her and in the end-- well, if you've ever fallen in love and found out someone has already beaten you to the person you want to be with, you'll instantly get this poem.

There are other poems here that have haunting truths like "They That Have Power" by William Shakespeare. A must read for anyone who knows someone who uses their looks for the disadvantage of others.

This book is a must have for anyone who is interested in poetry. Anyone who is interested in love. And anyone who wants to laugh here and there at a general truth of people who are in love. A real good buy.

This is both an excellent and beautiful collection of
love poetry collected from many different poets, male
and female, and from many different eras, and from
many different lands...but the focus is Love...and the
responses to Love...
The poems are grouped in sections. The titles of
the sections are: Definitions and Persuasions; Love
and Poetry; Praising the Loved One; Pleasures and
Pains; Fidelity and Inconstancy; Absence, Estrangement,
and Parting; Love Past.
The "selecter" and editor, Peter Washington, says
the best words about the nature, scope, and purpose
of this book in his "Foreword": "My selection of poems
for the anthology which follows has been guided by
simple principles. Each piece had to be first-rate
in its own way, and each had to contribute something
distinctive to our understanding of love. Where there
is similarity of mood, there is difference of emphasis;
where there is repetition of an idea, there is variety
in music. The juxtaposition of apparently comparable
lyrics brings out their differences, and although the
poems are arranged in broad categories which follow
an obvious sequence, it is the echoes they set up in
one another which enrich them all."
-- Peter Washington.
There are so many fine poems that it is very difficult
to pick a sample--but this is very fine indeed:
* * * * * * * * *
In the moonlit chamber, always she thinks of him
Soft wisps of silken willows, languor in the air
of spring.
Verdant were the grasses beyond the gates;
At their parting, she heard the horses neigh.

Draperies patterned of gold kingfishers;
Within, fragrant candle melts in tears.
Falling petals, the morning plaint of the cuckoo,
Green-gauze windows -- fragments of an illusive
dream.

-- Wen T'ing-Yun (?813-870)
[Trans. William R. Schultz]

Though this book was filled with a grand assortment of poems, it did not strike my fancy as I thought it would. When I first ran across the book, I was enthusiastic about reading it for the very reason that love poems are appealing to me, as I am a high school girl.

Before I began to scroll through the pages of poems, I had high expectations for this book. I envisioned myself basking in the sun in a hammock, reading endless love poems, all of which were appealing to my romantic nature. However, I found that the majority of these poems were dull and repetitive. They did not remind me of the romantic fantasy that can be found in fairy tales, or the type of romantic poem that lovers write to one another.

This book consisted of a variety of different authors as well, many who were either from a different origin or not well known. Not only were many of their poems repetitive, but also difficult to understand and envision in one's own mind.

While the majority of this book was not appealing to me, there were some poems in this book that I found I enjoyed. An example is, "When You Are Old," by WB Yeats. I enjoyed this poem because I was able to envision myself, years down the road, with the love of my life. I connected with this poem because I consistently imagine myself growing old with someone and loving him unconditionally, just as the poem insinuated.