Compiled by John Lithgow with Commentary: 304 Pages, Unabridged Audio version
Read by John Lithgow and Very Special Friends; Eileen Atkins, Kathy Bates, Glen Close, Billy Connolly, Jodie Foster, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Lynne Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, Gary Sinise, and Sam Waterson.
Note: Once again, I have my mother to thank for this selection..... when she was in the hospital in the final months of her life, one of her oldest friends sent her a couple of books on CD (as a result of a fall, Mom had become a virtual quadriplegic...... she could no longer hold the books that she loved so much...so she became a fan of audio books and read alouds ) She loved poetry intensely (a love passed down to her from her mother... both of them grew up among the generations of school-children who memorized poetry as a vital part of their education..... and for both of them, this fueled a life-long passion for poetry) I don't know too many adults who routinely read books of poetry... my grandmother and mother were two of them...
Ahhh poetry.......Lithgow rightly states in the beginning of this compilation that whether we acknowledge it or not... we have all grown up with poetry as part of our lives... from nursery rhymes to playground chants, to stage plays and musicals, to rap, and hip-hop...... it's all poetry, and with this compilation Lithgow invites us into his world of favorite poets.
I found the order of this book to be a bit jarring at first.... as Lithgow chose to list the poets in alphabetical order... so there's quite a bit of jumping from century to century... how does the leap from Edmund Spencer to Gertrude Stein sound? And then there's the culture shock.... imagine reading a William S. Gilbert "ditty" (from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta) and then moving right to the work of "Beat Poet", Alan Ginsberg - not to mention odd side-by-sides like Lord Byron and Lewis Carroll, Dorothy Parker and Edgar Allen Poe, Edward Lear and Edna St. Vincent Milay. But after listening for awhile I got into a rhythm (rather appropriate for a book of poetry) and grew to rather enjoy the ebb and flow of the recitations.
Lithgow starts the whole parade of poets by sharing a memory of he and his "sibs" sitting at the feet of his beloved "Gram" who had committed stanza upon stanza of poetry to memory and could burst forth with lively recitations at the bequest of her grandchildren. To illustrate the power of poetry he recounts the time he read aloud some poems by autistic children and adults at a Autism fundraiser and brought the entire room, including himself, to tears.
He begins each poet with a brief bio... then a guest reader recites the featured poem. Following the poem, Lithgow launches into an interpretation featuring a lot of personal color comments .... all enjoyable. Then he himself reads another poem of the poet aloud and ends with a list of the most well-known poems of the poet plus a quote by the poet.
I am convinced that hearing this book and its poems read aloud is the way one should "read" this book. The readers do a beautiful job and Lithgow's commentary is entertaining, moving, and at times thought-provoking. I heard poems that I know well and love by long-time favorite poets Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson as well as poems that I had no familiarity with at all - for instance, a mesmerizing poem by Gertrude Stein about Pablo Picasso, and an incredibly infectious ode "To a Mouse" by Robert Burns.
All this reminded me of a couple of the first poems I ever remember committing to memory and I think I'll end this review with both of them... they're short and sweet and never fail to bring a smile to my face:
"I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on my knife."
And finally (and this poem was read aloud by Lithgow in his book),
"I never saw a Purple cow,
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you anyhow,
I'd rather see then be one."
YES! Two wonderful little bits of poetry that, although neither is by him, immediately put me in mind of one of my own mother's favorites: Ogden Nash. Like your mother, Susan, mine was one of those school-children made to memorize much poetry throughout her education. From a VERY young age, I have memories of her reciting them, still lodged in her memory so many years later.... Longfellow ("Evangeline" --"This is the forest primeval, The murmering pines and the hemlocks Bearded in moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight..."), and Wordsworth ("I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills..."), and more. (And, as you can see, they are still stuck in MINE) She taught me to read by reading me poetry, from the time I was old enough to sit upright. I went to kindergarten and told the teacher that I could read just fine, thank you; I stood with the book open in front of me and recited from memory Edward Lear, "The Owl and the Pussycat," from start to finish. The kindergarten teacher was so amused that she sent me to all the other classrooms in the building (it housed grades K to 3) to "read." Mom wrote her own poetry; but one of her favorite things was to write parodies of others' more famous works. Some day I will show you her version of Longfellow's "The Children's Hour," which details a day in HER life.
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