John Kelly (22) (1942–)

A great selection of poems, mostly concerned with love, death, and/or the beauty of nature. There are a handful that are autobiographical or concerned with historical events (though I think half of those events would've been contemporary at the time the poems were written).

My favorite was "The Realists":

HOPE that you may understand!
What can books of men that wive
In a dragon-guarded land,
Paintings of the dolphin-drawn
Sea-nymphs in their pearly waggons
Do, but awake a hope to live
That had gone
With the dragons?

… (más)

I actually knew Sweet Fanny Adams about Yeats before going into this book. His works are some of the saddest I've ever read, especially "Politics", written a year before his death. As the poems in this volume are arranged in chronological order, you can see his movement from a young, impassioned poet, obsessed with Irish myth and legend and seeking to tie it into the Revolution, to an old man who is simply tired of war. I would sincerely suggest taking a snowy or rainy day and sitting down and reading this little paperback in its entirety.… (más)