Customer Reviews

The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940-2001

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

from the womb of Jamaica into the tomb of Wheeler Hall but he kept on writing, and thinking in writing, and deforming the narrative poem into a wry little lyric full of pithy sense and twisted ironice morals. I have loved his work a along time, and the man is part of the whole thing, what Wallace Stevens praised as "The Whole Man" composed of his time and climate and place, and nation-language which by now is not the Caribbean but Bush II America. I would honor him with a Pulitizer Prize if I could,this lyric machine still writing at 80, still the same imagistic wit and focus. The Hawaii poems are pretty interestingk even when they are remote, sarcastic, and tourist-sardonic like some haole moon peaking out over Kaimana Beach. But yes I agree that "Particularly now, when experimental schools such as the Language group command critical attention, his poetry can seem old-fashioned. It might best be considered as a model of academic poetry today" as Ivan Arguelles put it in 1988 for the Univ. of California at Berkeley Library. Yes, it is godawfully "old fashioned," and brilliant and animating by turns, twisted like Thomas Hardy and Noel Coward in one: Maybe, "By 50, he understood the Way of Heaven" as Confucius said long ago and far away. Praise him...he keeps writing in his own way & time.

Louis Simpson is an American treasure. His poetry is honest, yet
mysterious - plain-spoken, yet artful. This collection offers not only those poems which have long garnered him our highest accolades, but also new poems which reveal an owner of the house who is very much at home. What a rare invitation this collection is - an open door to an open heart! A large heart.
An expansive mind. A rare talent.

This work contains many themes about life, pogroms, immigrants,
the homeless and occasionally theology. Here are some samples.

"To the north (Mauka)
a mass of rosy clouds
two slopes of a mountain
sprinkled with garden lights. (Kaimana Beach)

or

"Beside a Church we dug our holes,
By tombstone and by cross
They were too shallow for our souls
When the ground began to toss. "

The readings make for an entertaining session. This poetry
is light-hearted but it is not elegant in the style of
an Evangeline or Edgar Allen Poe work.