I feel unequipped to read much less review poetry. But why should that stop me? My take is poets are a fearless lot: fully expecting a life of being mI feel unequipped to read much less review poetry. But why should that stop me? My take is poets are a fearless lot: fully expecting a life of being misunderstood, shunning by family and 'why don't you get a real job?' types, and redundantly being broke. For what? For the joy of finding the right word? These poems do what poems at their best do for me: put words together that I've never heard together before, yet not randomly as a million monkeys with typewriters might do, other poets might do that (see: John Ashberry in Wakefulness) but phrases, metaphors that come from sleepless weekends at the point of insanity, hungry, cold, drunk? Graves was successful here. He came up with the goods. I have faith in him enough to read more of his stuff. I think one key to this volume was I always knew all the poems were on the same subject. He delved deeply on the love of his life (in my opinion) a woman he was crazy about and their mutual, e-freaking-ternal love the world is eating its heart out about. Some of the poems were basically: 'God, how they envy our thing'. I imagined I was on a Mediterranean island living in the same artist colony with them watching him live and describe that love affair. While maybe I couldn't see myself making the same pick I repected his choice. Monkey update: while I've enjoyed the image of a million monkeys in a room with type writers given an unlimited amount of time coming out with Shakespeare's oeuvre, I heard recently a college in England actually tried this and they had to cancel the experiment because the monkeys ended up befouling the typewriters with poop to where the keys wouldn't move. Sorry, Robert, but I'll be reading more of your stuff....more
I watched a lot of Spencer's videos on YouTube and his writing style is like his presentations: clear, factual, and level-headed. He lets his facts taI watched a lot of Spencer's videos on YouTube and his writing style is like his presentations: clear, factual, and level-headed. He lets his facts talk for him and never comes to a boil. With good books like this one, the flaws stand out more. The book promised to 'unveil' or expose Islam, and not to make suggestions to solve anything, yet that is what I found myself asking. He does make a prediction, but even this is mild compared to the vast info of Islam's ugly history. I felt the book wasn't disorganized, but at times meandered, though it did seem to cover all the bases. Spencer did an excellent job of citing the Koran, Hadith, and respected Muslim scholars throughout history with shocking confessions and even contradictions. It straightens out whether it is possible to be a moderate Muslim or not. It's a reread for me since I consider it a reference book. I plan to go through next time and mark up key sections. There are many places where he defines key concepts concisely. I especially liked learning what kind of a Muslim Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein were. I plan on reading more of his works which is the best sign for me that a writer is good....more
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