Customer Reviews

New and Selected Poems 1974-2004 (Poets, Penguin)

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Carl Dennis is a fine poet whose work is as refined as a painting by Vermeer. The elegance, the simlicity is from a master poet who writes and rewrites constantly. He is a born poet as David Smiith was a born sculptor.
I had the honor to be a grad student of Dr Dennis in '77 and '78
at the University of Buffalo, and he demanded perfection. Every great teacher demands perfection, they are the teachers we learn from, not those who chose the easy path as second-rate instructors.
Dr Dennis, whose respect once earned, is a friend forever, yet you
earn that respect with hours upon hours of writing and rewriting.
He does not put up with grad student nonsense, nor does he allow his own work to be inferior. His poems seem as cut diamonds,with an elegance of rare gems, and literary gems they are; living on their own, within the pages of poetic perfection.

I read a good deal of modern and contemporary poetry, and have pretty good familiarity with many contemporary poets, but I had never heard of Carl Dennis before picking up this book. Once I picked it up, however, and began to read these poems, I was hooked, and could not put it down. Each poem was a wonderful treasure, and I looked forward to slowly and carefully reading each one. I was totally amazed by these works.

The poems are thoughtful, philosophical, lyrical, filled with evocative imagery, and at the same time displaying the rich variety of enigmas hidden in life and the passage of time. Some of these poems have brought tears to my eyes, others have left me shaking my head, surprised that someone could write so well. Images from some of the poems will not go away, and they have stayed with me many months later. Each poem is its own separate world, and each one brings you in, charms you, and leaves you changed somehow, seeing the world in a different, more wonderful way. In short, this is a collection not to be missed.

The only criticism to be made about Dennis' style is that there is occasionally a tendency for him to be too preoccupied with appealing to a popular audience by introducing elements of humor. Some of us do not care for humor in poetry; it seems to trivialize it so. We also do not care for the poet presenting himself or herself as just another Joe or Jane. The poet who sees his/her world in a self-deprecating, humorous way has traded depth of vision for entertainment value. Dennis has avoided this fault in most of his poems, but the temptation appears to linger on the sidelines in just a few.

Carl Dennis is a major poet of our times. These poems show why. Inconspicuously meditative and philosophical, they ripple with the day-to-day idiom of American English, striving for the clarity they have apparently earned with ease as well as seeking for the wisdom that they yield to diligent readers.