Easy: Poems
by Marie Ponsot
List Price:
Our Price: $0.01
You Save: $25.99 (100%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Marie PonsotEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-10-20
ISBN: 0307272184
Number of pages: 96
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of Easy: Poems
Book Review: Easy
Summary: 5 Stars
Marie Ponsot entitled her latest collection of poems aptly. Her obvious skill at her craft makes her poems appear effortless and easy. Her poems require closer examination to appreciate her deft use of rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and line length. This aspect alone makes reading //Easy// a pleasure. Structure, however, is only the beginning. Ponsot shows us her world through refreshingly perceptive eyes. In "For Denis at Ten," we see the countryside through a city boy for whom "Nothing reminds him of something./ He sees what is there to see." In "Late Spring as Usual," we follow a vine coming out of dormancy, moving "too slow to be/ visible but it is racing[.]" In "We Own the Alternative," Ponsot surprised this reader with the idea that "we are free not be young,/ not bound to evaluate everything" in old age, and she made me laugh at her defiant refusal to take the back roads in "Drive Like a Lady Blues." Ponsot reveals her belief in the exquisite potency of language through a child's first words in "Language Acquisition." These are just a few examples of Ponsot's vision. For both its form and content, //Easy// is a delight for the reader.
Reviewed by Annie Peters
Summary of Easy: Poems
Leave it to the graceful Marie Ponsot, now in her late eighties, to view her life in poetry as easeful. As she tells us, pondering what stones can hear, ?Between silence and sound / we are balancing darkness, / making light of it.? In this celebratory collection, Ponsot makes light, in both senses, of all she touches, and her pleasure in offering these late poems is infectious. After more than a half century at her craft, she describes her poetic preferences unpretentiously thus: ?no fruity phrases, just unspun / words trued right toward a nice / idea, for chaser. True?s a risk. / Take it I say. Do true for fun.?Ponsot is accepting of what has come, whether it?s a joyous memory of her second-grade teacher in a New York public school or the feeling of being ?Orphaned Old,? less lucky in life since her parents died. She holds herself to the highest standard: to see clearly, to think, to deal openhandedly and openheartedly with the world, to ?Go to a wedding / as to a funeral: / bury the loss? and also to ?Go to a funeral / as to a wedding: / marry the loss.? She confides that she meets works of great art ?expectant and thirsty.?
Indeed, Ponsot?s thirst for life and its best expression, for the sprightly phrase and the deeper understanding running beneath, makes this book a transformative experience. The wisdom and music of Easy, like all of Ponsot?s poetry, will remain with her readers for decades to come.
Poetry Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Poetry Books
FOUR QUARTETS.by T. S. Eliot
Faber & Faber; Published: 1944; Hardcover; Book
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyamby Omar Khayyam
St. Martin's Press; Published: 1983-08-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.75
Price in other shops:
The Priapus Poems: EROTIC EPIGRAMS FROM ANCIENT ROMEUniversity of Illinois Press; Published: 1999-05-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $180.00
Beowulfby Seamus Heaney
Penguin Books; Published: 2000-09-28; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $14.92
Void of Course (Poets, Penguin)by Jim Carroll
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1998-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.94
Price in other shops:
Speaking of Siva (Penguin Classics)by Anonymous
Penguin Classics; Published: 1973-08-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.67
Price in other shops:
A Night Without Armor : Poemsby Jewel
It Books; Published: 1999-08-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.84
Price in other shops:
Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poemsby Jane Hirshfield
Harper Perennial; Published: 2002-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.46
Price in other shops:
Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963by Sylvia Plath
Harper Perennial; Published: 1992-04-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.67
Price in other shops:
Yeats Folklore and Occultismby Frank Kinahan
Unwin Hyman; Published: 1988-10; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Best of It: New and Selected Poemsby Kay Ryan
Grove Press; Published: 2010-03-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops:
Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentariesby Helen Vendler
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Published: 2010-09-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.00
Price in other shops:
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photographyby Roland Barthes
Hill and Wang; Published: 2010-10-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.75
Price in other shops:
The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poemsby Robert Hass
Ecco; Published: 2010-03-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Human Chain: Poemsby Seamus Heaney
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2010-09-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.87
Price in other shops:
Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimakoby Tada Chimako
University of California Press; Published: 2010-08-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.65
Price in other shops:
The Bird Catcherby Marie Ponsot
Knopf; Published: 1999-12-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
Noxby Anne Carson
New Directions; Published: 2010-04-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $22.48
Price in other shops:
Beat Not the Poor Deskby Marie Ponsot, Rosemary Deen
Boynton/Cook; Published: 1982; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.47
Price in other shops:
Springing: New and Selected Poemsby Marie Ponsot
Knopf; Published: 2003-10-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.47
Price in other shops: