My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems [Hardcover]

Robert Bly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2005

Readers have found Robert Bly's ghazals startling and new; they merge wildness with a beautiful formality.

My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy is Robert Bly's second book of ghazals. The poems have become more intricate and personal than they were in The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, and the leaps even bolder. This book includes the already famous poem against the Iraq War, "Call and Answer": "Tell me why it is we don't lift our voices these days / And cry over what is happening."

The poems are intimate and yet reach out toward the world: the paintings of Robert Motherwell, the intensity of flamenco singers, the sadness of the gnostics, the delight of high spirits and wit. Robert Bly is writing the best poems of his life, and this book reestablishes his position as one of the greatest poets of our era.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bly's first book of verse since last year's The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations is also his second collection of what he calls ghazals: unrhymed, intensely wrought 18-line pentameter poems based on the Urdu form of that name. Bly's ghazals let him leap from topic to topic, showcasing exclamations and single images: "We are the sparrow that flies through the warrior's/ Hall and back out into the falling snow," he announces in "Brahms," one of many poems that aim "to praise all the great musicians." (Haydn, Rameau and the virtuosi of sitar and tabla get tributes, as do biblical characters.) Many stanzas pivot on Bly's speech to himself ("Robert, you're close to joy but not quite there"); always Bly strives for passionate wisdom. The results, when pushed through Bly's more Iron John–like persona, sometimes end up self-helpy: "A pain that we have earned gives more nourishment/ Than the joy we won at the lottery last night." Some readers may find individual lines impressive, but the book as a whole ends up being less than the sum of its joyous parts. Readers who miss the direct, daring Bly of the '60s, though, may rejoice to find that he's back, in force. (June)
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From Booklist

As in his last collection, The Night Abraham Called to the Stars (2001), Bly explores the dynamics of the ghazal, a form established by Islamic poets and which he crafts in tercets. His newest ghazals are ecstatic and gorgeously associative lyrics that draw on the myths and sacred texts of many cultures, various works of art ranging from a Rembrandt drawing to a painting by Robert Motherwell, and striking personal reminiscences. Bly, as he always does, is seeking the universal even as he embraces the particulars of a practice, a place, a painting, or a musical tradition. He calls out to sitar and tabla players. He writes of Adam and angels, Plato and Andrew Marvell. These are prayers, koans, warnings, assurances, and revelations. But for all the art, philosophy, and literature Bly pays homage to, it is nature that holds the key, nature that is holy. Sweet and full of longing, these are enrapturing poems about death and rebirth, humankind's small place in the cosmos, and the great wheel of life. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1ST edition (May 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060757183
• ISBN-13: 978-0060757182
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,021,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The graceful/less aging of Robert Bly, October 24, 2007

By 

Bill Huggins "Bill" (Aiken, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems (Paperback)

I doubt Robert Bly cares what the critics think of him any more, if he ever concerned himself with such things. The monolithic left excoriated him long ago.. I didn't say "dismissed him", because if that had been the case, they would never have bothered to respond to his call for a new order of men, if you will. His position as unchallenged guru of the men's movement, if not it's founder, remains secure all these years later. All the while, his poetry retains a gentleness and grace that many feminists might think inconsistent with the cartoon figure they love to hate. I don't think they understand that Bly loves women, or is that the biggest problem of all? In any event, the poems of this latest book seem to spin a mystical, almost dreamlike thread, even as they bless mother earth. Bly is secure in his own 80 year old skin... secure in that quiet, Gary Cooper sort of way. He never looked like the hero of High Noon, but he always tried to show men (and all humans) how they might better appreciate their lives and relationships, how they too might become heros....

Bill Huggins
Aiken, SC

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hmmm, May 6, 2007

By 

dandelion "dandelion" (Minnesota, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems (Paperback)

I was excited for Bly's new book. Bly is wonderful. If you have never seen him read, and you love poetry, you must must must find a way to hear & see him. He has written many wonderful books. His last three books (prior to this one) were ten stars. This one... four. I was disappointed. Still, if you are a fan, get it. For the rest of you, I would recommend Morning Poems or his collected.

5.0 out of 5 stars Poems of Longing, December 21, 2011

By 

David Drum (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems (Paperback)

Robert Bly's My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy is his second book of poetry utilizing the ancient Arabic ghazal form, and many of the works here are lovely and thought-provoking. A few of the poems seemed unfocused on first reading, but I liked them much more the second time.

The poem "Call and Answer," written in opposition to the Iraq War, is the best-known poem in the book. Like the others it is filled with the mystical Islamic spirit of the ghazal, in which the poet is an unrequited lover, addressing an illicit or unattainable love. In "Call and Answer," Bly addresses the citizens of the United States who are "silent as sparrows in the little bushes" as the nation marches off to war. One of my personal favorites is "Hiding in a Drop of Water," like many a poem of mystical longing and an acknowledgement of approaching death.

Bly's strength as a poet, as in other collections such as the magnificent Light Around the Body, which won the National Book Award years ago, is not strictly musical but more in crafting startling images that resonate in the mind. Bly is a Midwestern guy, and we some of that in the flat, direct speech and images of wren's nests, water holes and runaway horses although we also get Samson, Plato, Cezanne, Brahms and Bach. Although he is best known for his Iron John book, and the men's awareness movement that resulted, Bly has always been a poet and this is affirmed again. At more than 80 years of age Bly feels the breath of approaching death on his neck in these poems, and that awareness gives the works great poignance and power.