Just not my cup of tea but upped from 2.5* because I did enjoy some of the poems.

Poetry isn’t really for me, but every so often I venture for some, trying to refine my reading diet to be as inclusive and varied as possible. Since I don’t know much about modern poetry or poets, the books are usually chosen by random factors. With this one, it was the title. And wouldn’t you know it, this ended up being one of my most impressive selections. I actually enjoyed these poems. Not all of them, but most. There was a rhythm to them, there was a beauty to them and, best of all, there...

Rita Dove is an artist who paints a rich canvas with words. She crafts the English language into thoughts and ideas in a deep and meaningful way. The messages she sends in her poems are strong, but it's the rhythm and her unique description of ideas that intrigued me the most.You will be missing out if you don't read at least of few of the poems from this collection!

"There are spaces for livingand spaces for forgetting.Sometimes they're the same."--VoiceoverOther favorites:-Scarf-Sarra's Answer-Your Tired, Your Poor . . . ("Who comforts you now that the wheel has broken // the bodies of its makers?")-Shakespeare Doesn't Care ("pens a sonnet while building / a playlist for the apocalypse")-SoupAnd a section of "Blues, Straight":"The cup of plenty runneth over, ruins my hands-- I've scrubbed them, but they won't come clean. Strange, I know, to wishfor nothing...

Superb allusions to politics, history, and contemporary issues-- yet just not a style I particularly enjoy overall. The notes at the end help clarify some overarching themes and specific poems. Would eventually like to reread in light of such contexts. Gems:1. Your Tired, Your Poor...2. Voiceover3. Postlude4. Trayvon, Redux5. Sketch for Terezín

I found the scope of this collection vast and expansive, which helped me consider that I guess I like to read poetry that is more focused around a theme. This isn't a critique of the collection - I just don't think I could keep up to appreciate it. Some of the individual poems blasted me away, and I enjoyed reading some of it while walking, to better appreciate the pacing.

“if all I am(Am I all?)Is Woe isme?”-Mirror

Took me about half way through before I found connection to the work(s). Once we hit the Decade Testimonies, I was into it. With poetry, I often feel like I'm missing something crucial that would let me understand what is being imparted (or elided) by the poem. Is that something experiential or cultural and something I don't share with the author? Or is it a failure to understand the literary styling of the piece on my part? Or is the poet just not good?

A nice small book of poetry. Especially enjoyed under the soaking sun…..

I’m sorry but this volume just didn’t do it for me. This was not my first experience with Ms. Dove. I have enjoyed others. But, in all honesty, most of the time I had no idea what we were talking about. This must that genre of poetry that I’ve written about before- the poet, and maybe their closest family and friends know what they’re writing about- but for the rest of us? It’s in some secret “poet code” or something and without the code book or special decoder ring it’s like trying to communica...

“If I am to become a heavenly body I would like to be a comet a streak of spitfire consumingitself before a child’s upturned wonder…”A welcomed and welcoming return for this poet, and she has lived through the times we have just lived through, with the added fear and burden of MS, and it seeps into the poems, but refuses to only be about pain, and only about history, but also about the future, and what we can be, threaded through with music and nature. Some of her references may not stand the te...

Fierce authenticity has a voice. This collection is a little uneven, but when it soars, it soars.

‘Who wouldn’t want to believe / in legends again…’A new collection from former Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove is always a cause for celebration and after 12 years of waiting she more than lives up to the expectations of her long and fabulous career in Playlist for the Apocalypse. The title perfectly captures the tone of this collection with the way she takes a long hard gaze into history and all its sorrows and injustices yet overall the collection still feels playful despite

each word caught right is a pawned memory, humbly reclaimed.My ear finds some voices effortlessly. It struggles with many. I mean this both literally and in terms of literature. I tend to mention that I mumble. And forget things -- did I note that previously? I find myself rather receptive to the verse of Ms. Dove. I lack a ready explanation. I did find some poems flat. I was often moved. Verse before dawn. A sleepy town before ablutions, before the shame and deceit. Ms. Dove worked wonders unde...

I love the diversity of poems in "Playlist For The Apocalypse". My favorite poem is "Ode To My Left Knee". This poem resonates with me because my left knee is not as strong as it used to be. I love the poem "Aubade East". I learned that an aubade is a poem that that is about the dawn of a new day or early in the morning. "Aubade East" is a poem about enjoying a jog through Harlem in the morning "Green Koan" is a poem about how the human mind can be reliable or faulty. I looked up the definition

Shakespeare Doesn't CareShakespeare's taking no prisonershe's purloined the latest gossipto plump up his latest comedy, pens a sonnet while buildinga playlist for the apocalypse....p84A kindness runs through this collection of otherwise somewhat bleak, occasionally triumphant poetry of Rita Dove. Fierce determination shines through tough circumstances as random joy and utter appreciation for life in it's unpredictable gifts.Tell yourself it's only a sliver of sunburning into your chest.from the

I was reading along, enjoying the consummate skill and art of Rita Dove, and then near the end I got to her poems about being diagnosed with, and living with, multiple sclerosis. First I sniffled. Then I got a little teary. Then I cried. They hit very close to home. The entire book is fantastic. Highly recommend it.

I don’t read much poetry because I’m often unable to find a way of understanding it. This collection was thankfully, mostly, within my reach. I love the way this poet surprises me with sudden twists and turns and humor that sears the heart. There has been no other poet that made me exclaim the same way as those exquisite moments in jazz where the threads come together just so.

What do you do when you pick up a poetry collection and the first piece absolutely floors you but the rest hovers somewhere between okay and nice and fair? I mean nothing in here is truly bad, was completely over my head or just absolutely not my taste in poetry. It's what I would call solid and depending from where you stand that is not exactly praise but it is also not the opposite. Solid is a good thing. That first poem though, "Bellringer" I loved that, what it said and how it said it. And I...

Goodreads offers an excellent description of Rita Dove’s collection, but it’s more than a poetry book. The collection functions as a lens for viewing the past and learning a history often sugar coated. “Bell ringer,” for example, critiques the historical framing of MLK while offering a scathing analysis of the ways classroom environments erase people of color. “I listen i. in lectures whenever I can, / holding still until I disappear beyond third person—“ These are poems both deeply personal and...