Customer Reviews

Strange Wood (Winthrop University Poetry Series)

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

 

 

A strange and marvelous book. When Prufer is good, he's really good. In "For the Dead," "Nocturnal," and the title poem, he creates, with vivid, unusual, carefully rhythmic language, a disconcerting sense of the oddness that underlies (or undercuts?) the everyday, a thrilling take on the suburban. A few poems fail-notably "Into the Canyon" and "1979," because of their slave-ish narrative structures. Nevertheless, I sense in Prufer a powerful, exciting new voice in the all-too-barren world of contemporary American poetry.

This is a fine, readable collection of poetry. I enjoyed every poem, particularly those dealing with archaeology. A good book to order.

I heard Prufer read recently. The guy is really funny. The book, on the other hand, is creepy. In a good way. Lots of dying cats, adolescent boys, confused old people wandering around in these poems. Lots of bad weather. The whole package is terrific . . . best to read from the beginning, then all the way through. The poems build on you.

This is a fantastic new book of poetry. Each poem is lyrical and sharp, many centering on archaeology and other sciences. Worth ordering.

I loved this book. I think it represents a vast range of poetic ideas.
Also I think that it is a book digestable for all, scholars and idiots like myself. Reading this book gave me hope for the world of literature. Not that its the greatest book I ever read, but I believe reading this book has made me a better person and would do the same for others in all walks of life.

This anthology has caused a lot of hullaballoo recently. It seems everyone wants to have a say about who the "new young American poets" are. No one is going to like every poet in this anthology, but it is, overall, truly excellent--and, yes, democratic. That is, it's as democratic as a single editor can make it while still selecting based on his own tastes.

The poets represented come from many walks of life, write with various styles, are of many ethnicities, are from all parts of the country, etc. And, yes, they are well published, most of them -- probably because most of them are also quite good. But I'm a big reader of new poetry and many of these names were brand new to me, too

I use this book as an example of the MFA creating narrative poems of minor insight from suburban white kids who seem to think that by concentrating on the "darker moments," they are doing something, as if American Beauty has entered the academic halls,. But by this time these moves have become common. this was a disappointing tome from a fine editor--but being a good editor doesn't necesarrily make one a fine poet.