micromys's review against another edition
4.0
I wasn't sure at first; as the initial chapters slipped by I was unsure if this was some form of ghoulish travel writing masquerading as an exploration of what drives some of us to write poetry. But as the final days of pairs of dead poets were presented interwoven, so some notion of what a poet is, and what drives the poetic instinct came to the fore. There is poignancy here, a degree of social commentary and the touching insight into lives that were so often full of the ordinary, domestic and routine.
fiendfull's review against another edition
4.0
In Deaths of the Poets, Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts travel through the deaths of poets to consider the image of the poet as a dangerous vocation, where mortality seems to be the price paid for creation. They literally travel, indeed, around the death places of many major poets from Chatterton in the late eighteenth century to some who have died in the twenty-first, making the book part-travelogue, part literary history, and part-musing on being a poet.
It is a morbid whistle-stop tour in many ways, with the chapters organised by theme (and ‘theme’ is mostly related to their deaths) and thus jumping across time and place, particularly across the Atlantic. They concentrate on famous British and American poets writing in English, so their travelling features more than its fair share of New York (and a strange trip to my hometown thanks to John Clare). The book is, almost as a side effect, a useful way of gaining some knowledge of a lot of famous poets from the past two hundred years in a concise way.
More than that, the authors are trying to examine the image of the dying poet, the post-Chatterton post-Romantic of a poet going out in an often troubled, possibly drunken blaze. They cover poets who famously died young—John Keats being high on the list, also war poets and others—and those who actually lived out a fairly long life. The answer to the question ‘is it a myth?’ is inconclusive by the end, but it was never really a scientific endeavour.
As with many books that cover a lot of different bits of literary history, this one works well as a primer on the stories of a lot of big name poets, with the opportunity for those who know more about a writer to get frustrated at elements of their presentation. It is a reminder of our fascination with the lives of these notable few and the almost mythical position they can hold in cultural consciousness, without consideration of greater depth. However, maybe it needs to demythologise the figure of the poet a little more. As it points out, they’re just people who lived and died like anyone else.
It is a morbid whistle-stop tour in many ways, with the chapters organised by theme (and ‘theme’ is mostly related to their deaths) and thus jumping across time and place, particularly across the Atlantic. They concentrate on famous British and American poets writing in English, so their travelling features more than its fair share of New York (and a strange trip to my hometown thanks to John Clare). The book is, almost as a side effect, a useful way of gaining some knowledge of a lot of famous poets from the past two hundred years in a concise way.
More than that, the authors are trying to examine the image of the dying poet, the post-Chatterton post-Romantic of a poet going out in an often troubled, possibly drunken blaze. They cover poets who famously died young—John Keats being high on the list, also war poets and others—and those who actually lived out a fairly long life. The answer to the question ‘is it a myth?’ is inconclusive by the end, but it was never really a scientific endeavour.
As with many books that cover a lot of different bits of literary history, this one works well as a primer on the stories of a lot of big name poets, with the opportunity for those who know more about a writer to get frustrated at elements of their presentation. It is a reminder of our fascination with the lives of these notable few and the almost mythical position they can hold in cultural consciousness, without consideration of greater depth. However, maybe it needs to demythologise the figure of the poet a little more. As it points out, they’re just people who lived and died like anyone else.
lnatal's review
3.0
FRom BBC Radio 4 - Book of the week:
What is the cost of poetry? Must poets be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive? Or is this just a myth? In our new Book of the Week, Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley - both award winning poets themselves - explore that very question through a series of journeys across Britain, America and Europe.
From Sylvia Plath's desperate suicide in the gas oven of her Primrose Hill kitchen to John Berryman's leap from a bridge onto the frozen Mississippi, the deaths of poets have often cast a backward shadow on their work.
The post-Romantic myth of the dissolute drunken poet has fatally skewed the image of poets in our culture. Novelists can be stable, savvy, politically adept and in control, but poets should be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive. Is this just a myth, or is there some essential truth behind it: that great poems only come when a poet's life is pushed right to an emotional knife-edge of acceptability, safety, security?
Today the poets explore the lives - and tragic deaths - of Thomas Chatterton and Dylan Thomas.
Written and read by the authors
Abridged for radio by Lauris Morgan Griffiths
Produced by Simon Richardson.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08dn2gj
What is the cost of poetry? Must poets be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive? Or is this just a myth? In our new Book of the Week, Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley - both award winning poets themselves - explore that very question through a series of journeys across Britain, America and Europe.
From Sylvia Plath's desperate suicide in the gas oven of her Primrose Hill kitchen to John Berryman's leap from a bridge onto the frozen Mississippi, the deaths of poets have often cast a backward shadow on their work.
The post-Romantic myth of the dissolute drunken poet has fatally skewed the image of poets in our culture. Novelists can be stable, savvy, politically adept and in control, but poets should be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive. Is this just a myth, or is there some essential truth behind it: that great poems only come when a poet's life is pushed right to an emotional knife-edge of acceptability, safety, security?
Today the poets explore the lives - and tragic deaths - of Thomas Chatterton and Dylan Thomas.
Written and read by the authors
Abridged for radio by Lauris Morgan Griffiths
Produced by Simon Richardson.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08dn2gj
vunderdrug's review
4.0
actual: 3.5
i read this on holiday and overall liked it a lot!! the subject matter is really interesting and the writers are good at picking quotes and anecdotes to highlight their points while also not completely undoing the poet’s legacy - so i really appreciated that! and ofc there were a couple lines that made me laugh-exhale so kudos to them
BUT heres the stuff that bothered me:
- midway through i felt like they kinda just..lost steam? there wasn’t a lot of direction to it
- they started to jump poets in each chapter without actually going in-depth/giving any kind of background so if you dont know anything about some of these poets you will feel a little lost
overall though good read i enjoyed it given that it was my first literary non-fiction and maybe i’ll pick up more stuff in this genre?
i read this on holiday and overall liked it a lot!! the subject matter is really interesting and the writers are good at picking quotes and anecdotes to highlight their points while also not completely undoing the poet’s legacy - so i really appreciated that! and ofc there were a couple lines that made me laugh-exhale so kudos to them
BUT heres the stuff that bothered me:
- midway through i felt like they kinda just..lost steam? there wasn’t a lot of direction to it
- they started to jump poets in each chapter without actually going in-depth/giving any kind of background so if you dont know anything about some of these poets you will feel a little lost
overall though good read i enjoyed it given that it was my first literary non-fiction and maybe i’ll pick up more stuff in this genre?
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