Winter Has Lasted Too Long [Paperback]

James J. Kavanaugh (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

After The Divorce
An Angry Old Man
Big Sky Heat
Communication's In
Compromising Man
David At Auschwitz
Death! I Despise You!
Drinking Free With Muhammad Ali
Each Day Comes Like The One Before
The Earthquake Cottage
Eddie Potts
Fastidious Ladies
He Is Older Now, Yet Not Peaceful
Hilda
How Much Love I Wasted
I Am Strong, You Know
I Am Your Frightened Lover
I Have Only Dusty Love
I Haven't Seen The Sky For Days
I Met Death Today In Sunlight
I Saw Your Dreams Die
I Started My Own Business
I Took The Train To Work
I Want To Die A Careless Man
I Will Hold You Softly Tonight
Indian Maiden
Is There No End To Childhood?
It Hurt
It Is In The Mornings
Jack Kildaire Died Last Night
Life Has Its Beginnings
The Lion Grows Slowly Captive
Little Boy, Afraid Of School
Love But A Part Of It All
Making Too Much Of Life
Maybe Planets Make The Difference
My Happily Married Friend
The Night Was Once My Friend
Of Young And Old
Once I Smiled
One Day I Saw A Lonely Mountain
One More Hill
A Phantom Of A Man
Raised Poor
The Revolution Has Arrived
Searching For Some Idyllic Peace
The Secret Love Affair
Soft Touching
Some Voice Is Calling Again
Some Walk Through Life
Someone Lied
A Song To A Little Boy
Suburban Marriages
There Are No Perfect People
There Is A Love
There Is Some Disease
There Must Be An Easier Way
To Patty Hearst
To Save The City
To Say Good-bye
Tonight I Am A Lonely Tree
Tonight My Loneliness
Twelve Thousand Miles
Wandering Man
Where Has Passion Gone?
Why Do I Sit Lingering Here?
Winter Has Lasted Too Long
The Writer
You Close In On Me
You Grow On Me
You Have Joined The Gray Rocks
The Young Grow Younger
Your Face
The Zebra Murders: Black Man-white Man
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Steven J Nash Pub (December 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878995030
• ISBN-13: 978-1878995032
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,919,238 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars One of the worst books I have read this year., May 23, 2011

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Winter Has Lasted Too Long (Hardcover)

James Kavanaugh, <strong>Winter Has Lasted Too Long</strong> (Dutton, 1977)

I can't remember where I picked up <em>Winter Has Lasted Too Long</em>, my first (and, if there is any justice in the world, my last) encounter with James Kavanaugh, but if I ever do remember I will be sure to avoid that place in the future. Most of this is poetry of that earnest-but-amateur formal verse that normally (and rightly) gets termed "doggerel", but every once in a while Kavanaugh goes really off the rails and attempts free verse. While I've only read this one book, I'm pretty certain about it when I say that there's a parallel here: it's when he goes off into free verse that message rolls over medium with all the force of a bulldozer.

"There is an integrity deep within some few persons
That will seldom be noticed or clearly acknowledged,
An honesty more demanding than any ethic
Enacted by lawgivers or preached by prophets,
Touching the very reaches of one's own being
Without regard for education or station in life..."

A page plus of this, then he ends the poem with

"The search continues, for it has been decided
That only such can save the city."
(--"To Save the City")

What city? Where? We are told absolutely nothing about it. I've seen (and reviewed) many, many examples of message poetry, but I don't think I've ever seen one quite this incompetent. It's all kind of endearing, really, or it would be if there were any humor to be found in this book at all; instead, it's tiresome and plodding, one hundred plus pages of this sort of silliness, though most of it at least rhymes.

Absolutely horrendous. I can only suggest it as a cure for either insomnia or constipation, though you run the risk of having both cured at the same time, and that would be as much a disaster as this awful book. (zero)