romanticism's review
4.0
i’m going to buy a copy of my own because this one is borrowed and then I’M GOING TO ANNOTATE ALL OF IT
imdillionen's review
4.0
Some really grand things like Limestone, but some explanatory notes would really make many of these poems more accessible and memorable.
neni's review
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
I'm not someone who's read a lot of poetry in the past and I often worry, when starting "serious, classical" works, that I won't be smart enough or "educated" enough to really understand and enjoy them. However, I had no issues with this book. I enjoyed Auden's poetry a lot more than I was expecting. I liked the variety of the writing styles but the solidity and coherence of the themes (mostly War and Nature).
I even got emotional over a couple of poems, mostly the ones themed around war, because they felt (sadly) still so relevant and aplicable to the current situation in Ukraine. I got serious chills reading "There will be no peace", "Refugee Blues" and "The Lesson". Other poems were interesting by the way he structured them or used different perpectives to tell a story: "Oh What is That Sound", "In praise of Limestone", "The Aliens". I really liked this collection, and I feel like I learned a lot from it.
It's always hard to rate collections of works, because it's nearly impossible to love every single poem. I did enjoy most of these though, and loved quite a few I'm giving it a 4.5!
I even got emotional over a couple of poems, mostly the ones themed around war, because they felt (sadly) still so relevant and aplicable to the current situation in Ukraine. I got serious chills reading "There will be no peace", "Refugee Blues" and "The Lesson". Other poems were interesting by the way he structured them or used different perpectives to tell a story: "Oh What is That Sound", "In praise of Limestone", "The Aliens". I really liked this collection, and I feel like I learned a lot from it.
It's always hard to rate collections of works, because it's nearly impossible to love every single poem. I did enjoy most of these though, and loved quite a few I'm giving it a 4.5!
Content Warnings
Minor: War and Death
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