Experimental feature: Order My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems from the UK, Canada, Germany or France by clicking an appropriate flag below.

               

Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 811
EAN: 9780060757199
ISBN: 0060757191
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 112
Publication Date: 2006-05-01
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Product Release Date: 2006-05-02
Studio: Harper Perennial

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.

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The graceful/less aging of Robert Bly
Review: 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

---

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Hmmm
Review: 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.

---

---