- Paperback
- Publisher: Vintage (2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0375705414
- ISBN-13: 978-0375705410
- Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 0.6 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 113 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and evocative,
By Gina (Silicon Valley) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Handwriting: Poems (Paperback)
Beautiful, sensuous, with an occasional bite of acid. Like eating a mango on a hot summer day.I don't like much contemporary poetry because I find it's more about provoking than evoking, more about shock value than beauty. I LOVED this volume. It is full of slow images and scents, sensual but not explicit. Ondaatje weaves Sanskrit and Tamil words and forms into the poems in such a way that you don't even care that you don't know exactly what he's talking about. "The brush of sandalwood along the collarbone/ Green dark silk/ A shoe left on the cadju tree terrace.." "The pepper vine shaken and shaken/like someone in love/Leaf patterns/saffron and panic seed/on the lower pillows/where their breath met..." What's a cadju tree? What's a panic seed? I don't know. I don't care- I see them anyway and am captured by the image, and this is what good poetry should do. I can't wait to read the next book.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
He's past his prime,
By A Customer
This review is from: Handwriting (Paperback)
I might be impressed by this book if I understood a single thing he wrote. Most of it is deliberately obscure and private with lots of 12 syllable Sri Lankan place names thrown in to ensure that it's impossible for anyone to read aloud. Nothing really stood out or inspired much interest. If you're still curious then get it from a library, don't shell out hard-earned cash for it, it's not worth it.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as impressive as it sounds...,
By
This review is from: Handwriting: Poems (Paperback)
This book of poetry, though written with a distinct flair, tends to leave the reader hanging, looking for a meaning (or emotion) that just does not come through. Where four lines will flow with sparkling imagery, the rest of the poem will wither, without direction, without emotion. The purported "steam" is only vaguely erotic, and never builds to offer anything more than a dry and somewhat repressed read. For something with a bit more bite... try Dorothy Parker.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Canadian > Poetry
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Anthologies
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Canadian
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Single Authors > United States
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > United States
- Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Poetry
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
