Love Poetry Out Loud edited by Robert Alden Rubin (Algonquin Books, $14.95 paperback, 9781565124592/1565124596, February 2, 2007)
If you've ever been tempted to read poetry to the object of your
affection, this collection is perfect for the hesitant beginner, the
articulate lover and anyone in between. It opens with the marvelous
"Litany," by Billy Collins--whimsical and touching--then juxtaposes
"She's All My Fancy Painted Him" by Lewis Carroll with A. D. Hope's
"The Lingam and the Yoni." In a sidebar, editor Rubin explains the zero
sum in Carroll's poem and contrasts it with Hope's tantric formula, "a
mathematical equation that [Carroll] would recognize, but that might
make him blush." Rubin's notes on the poems in his collection are
informative and witty--he even gives you advice on reading a rap poem
by Common, "The Light."
Not all of the poems are "come kiss me sweet and twenty," however. In a chapter about missing lovers, Raymond Carver says, "I'll sleep where I damn well feel like it/ where I sleep best when you're away/ and I can't hold you the way I do./ On the broken sofa in my study." And DJ Renegade, in "48 Hours After You Left," laments:
I've begun bottling my tears,
to serve as holy water,
and all the vowels
of my vocabulary
are now lookouts
on my windowsill, waiting to trumpet
your return.
Robert Rubin combines the usual suspects--Shakespeare, Keats, Donne, Whitman--with lesser-anthologized poets like Jean Toomer, Connie Voisine, Dean Young and Alan Dugan. The poetry is carnal, sad, amusing, delicate, holy--an anthology that covers all the bases. You may be inspired to proclaim your love aloud, although perhaps not in a crowded restaurant.
---
They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books edited by David Rose (Scribner, $16 hardcover, 9781416540298/1416540296, November 2006)
Occasional lust monkeys, gay anorexic flamenco dancers, classics
lecturers and pensive farmers--all are seeking connection of one sort
or another in the London Review of Books. On the off chance that
someone has not yet heard about Naughty Lola, I can't resist mentioning
one of the most hilarious books in years. Perfect for a Valentine's Day
display, it has a great cover and an even better attitude for those who
look askance at hearts and flowers in February.
The LRB hoped, when the personal ads column began in 1998, it would be a sort of 84 Charing Cross Road thing, but no; instead, the personal advertisers pitched themselves with peculiar abandon and imagination. David Rose says in the introduction, "Monday mornings are a regular harvest time for personal ads . . . they follow the lonely heart's week-end of solitary wine-drinking . . . in full melancholic tilt and hanging heavy in the adjectives . . . By mid-week the ads are less gin-soaked in tone." The ads are "little statements of absurdity--flashes of silliness that brilliantly, if briefly, illuminate the human condition and all its attendant quirks and nonsenses." For instance:
Ladies: naturally apologetic man, 42, predisposed to accepting the blame. Whatever it was, it was my fault. Sorry. Sound like heaven?
67-year-old disaffiliated flaneur picking my toothless way through the urban sprawl, self-destructive, sliding towards pathos, jacked up on Viagra and on the lookout for a contortionist who plays the trumpet.
I like my women the way I like my kebab. Found by surprise after a drunken night out and covered in too much tahini. Before long I'll have discarded you on the pavement of life, but until then you're the perfect complement to a perfect evening. Man, 32. Rarely produces winning metaphors.
Know your thermocouple accuracy table, then love me like the fool you are. Geo-sex daddy of the rhodium-defining world (M, 62) seeks practically anyone. Anyone at all. I mean it. Please. Anyone.
Slut in the kitchen, chef in the bedroom. Woman with mixed priorities (37) seeks man who can toss a good salad.
From the lisper who writes "I'm just a girl who can't say 'no' (or 'anaesthetist')" to the 83-year-old man whose animal passions would satisfy any woman, but for "the chafing of these infernal hospital sheets," there is something to amuse and confound on every page. You will laugh out loud, and for some, this is better than love poetry. Or perhaps is love poetry.--Marilyn Dahl
If you've ever been tempted to read poetry to the object of your
affection, this collection is perfect for the hesitant beginner, the
articulate lover and anyone in between. It opens with the marvelous
"Litany," by Billy Collins--whimsical and touching--then juxtaposes
"She's All My Fancy Painted Him" by Lewis Carroll with A. D. Hope's
"The Lingam and the Yoni." In a sidebar, editor Rubin explains the zero
sum in Carroll's poem and contrasts it with Hope's tantric formula, "a
mathematical equation that [Carroll] would recognize, but that might
make him blush." Rubin's notes on the poems in his collection are
informative and witty--he even gives you advice on reading a rap poem
by Common, "The Light."Not all of the poems are "come kiss me sweet and twenty," however. In a chapter about missing lovers, Raymond Carver says, "I'll sleep where I damn well feel like it/ where I sleep best when you're away/ and I can't hold you the way I do./ On the broken sofa in my study." And DJ Renegade, in "48 Hours After You Left," laments:
I've begun bottling my tears,
to serve as holy water,
and all the vowels
of my vocabulary
are now lookouts
on my windowsill, waiting to trumpet
your return.
Robert Rubin combines the usual suspects--Shakespeare, Keats, Donne, Whitman--with lesser-anthologized poets like Jean Toomer, Connie Voisine, Dean Young and Alan Dugan. The poetry is carnal, sad, amusing, delicate, holy--an anthology that covers all the bases. You may be inspired to proclaim your love aloud, although perhaps not in a crowded restaurant.
---
They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books edited by David Rose (Scribner, $16 hardcover, 9781416540298/1416540296, November 2006)
Occasional lust monkeys, gay anorexic flamenco dancers, classics
lecturers and pensive farmers--all are seeking connection of one sort
or another in the London Review of Books. On the off chance that
someone has not yet heard about Naughty Lola, I can't resist mentioning
one of the most hilarious books in years. Perfect for a Valentine's Day
display, it has a great cover and an even better attitude for those who
look askance at hearts and flowers in February.The LRB hoped, when the personal ads column began in 1998, it would be a sort of 84 Charing Cross Road thing, but no; instead, the personal advertisers pitched themselves with peculiar abandon and imagination. David Rose says in the introduction, "Monday mornings are a regular harvest time for personal ads . . . they follow the lonely heart's week-end of solitary wine-drinking . . . in full melancholic tilt and hanging heavy in the adjectives . . . By mid-week the ads are less gin-soaked in tone." The ads are "little statements of absurdity--flashes of silliness that brilliantly, if briefly, illuminate the human condition and all its attendant quirks and nonsenses." For instance:
Ladies: naturally apologetic man, 42, predisposed to accepting the blame. Whatever it was, it was my fault. Sorry. Sound like heaven?
67-year-old disaffiliated flaneur picking my toothless way through the urban sprawl, self-destructive, sliding towards pathos, jacked up on Viagra and on the lookout for a contortionist who plays the trumpet.
I like my women the way I like my kebab. Found by surprise after a drunken night out and covered in too much tahini. Before long I'll have discarded you on the pavement of life, but until then you're the perfect complement to a perfect evening. Man, 32. Rarely produces winning metaphors.
Know your thermocouple accuracy table, then love me like the fool you are. Geo-sex daddy of the rhodium-defining world (M, 62) seeks practically anyone. Anyone at all. I mean it. Please. Anyone.
Slut in the kitchen, chef in the bedroom. Woman with mixed priorities (37) seeks man who can toss a good salad.
From the lisper who writes "I'm just a girl who can't say 'no' (or 'anaesthetist')" to the 83-year-old man whose animal passions would satisfy any woman, but for "the chafing of these infernal hospital sheets," there is something to amuse and confound on every page. You will laugh out loud, and for some, this is better than love poetry. Or perhaps is love poetry.--Marilyn Dahl