My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems
By Robert Bly
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Readers have found Robert Bly’s ghazals startling and new; they merge wildness with a beautiful formality. The ghazal form is well-known in Islamic culture, but only now finding its way into the literary culture of the West.
Each stanza of three lines amounts to a finished poem. “God crouches at night over a single pistachio. / The vastness of the Wind River Range in Wyoming / Has no more grandeur than the waist of a child.”
The ghazal’s compacted energy is astounding. In a period when much American poetry is retreating into prosaic recordings of daily events, these poems do the opposite. My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy is Robert Bly’s second book of ghazals. The poems have become more intricate and personal than they were in The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, and the leaps even more bold. This book includes the already famous poem against the Iraq War, “Call and Answer”: “Tell me why it is we don¹t lift our voices these days / And cry over what is happening.” The poems are intimate and yet reach out toward the world: the paintings of Robert Motherwell, the intensity of Flamenco singers, the sadness of the gnostics, the delight of high spirits and wit.
This book reestablishes Bly's position as one of the greatest poets of our era. After many years of free verse in American poetry, years which have been very fertile, the inventive ghazal helps the imagination to luxuriate in a form once more. We are seeing a poetry emerge that is recovering many of the great intensities that modern art and poetry has aimed at and achieved in earlier generations.
Robert Bly
ROBERT W. BLY is the Director of the Center for Technical Communication, a consulting firm that specializes in business communication and marketing. He has been a copywriter and consultant for more than twenty years, and is the author of more than forty-five books.
Read more from Robert Bly
A Little Book on the Human Shadow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More Than True: The Wisdom of Fairy Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Webster's New World Letter Writing Handbook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Silence in the Snowy Fields: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door: Thirty Poems of Hafez Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Silence in the Snowy Fields: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture, and Psyche Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy
Related ebooks
The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Steal Away: Selected and New Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sea Grapes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ground: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door: Thirty Poems of Hafez Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Silence in the Snowy Fields: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jim Harrison: Collected Ghazals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Logan Notebooks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Encounter in April: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frolic and Detour: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Selected Poems of Hafiz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Essays After Eighty Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath of a Naturalist: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holy the Firm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Selected Poems of Donald Hall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conversations with W. S. Merwin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoems from the Divan of Hafiz: Premium Ebook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blackbird, Bye Bye Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Haw Lantern: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And the Stars Were Shining: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of Endings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Owl of Minerva: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Soul Food: Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Litany of Flights: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJames Wright: A Life in Poetry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Jane Hirshfield's "Three Times My Life Has Opened" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters to a Young Poet (Rediscovered Books): With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of John Keats (with an Introduction by Robert Bridges) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Weary Blues Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy
6 ratings0 reviews