I Hate Poetry! on Atlasphere

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I Hate Poetry!

This is a wonderful review by Barbara of Touched By Its Rays by Walter Donway. I have not yet bought this book, but from what everyone is saying, I know I will.

Barbara's review is much more than a review. It is a small essay on poetic values and quite inspiring as a read in itself.

If you have any problem accessing her article, I suggest you sign up to the Atlasphere. It is free, although there is a paid upgrade if you want it for the dating part and some other benefits. However, the ads for this are discreet and they never spam you. Then you will be able to read all the articles on that excellent Objectivist site.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

After reading Barbara's essay I'll buy the book though I'm not much of a poetry person. I do like some Kipling and such. I think he's the last poet to make serious money writing poetry as opposed to writing lyrics.

Probably with some errors:

When you're lying half dead on Afghanistan's plains

And the women come out to cut up the remains

Roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

And go to your God like a soldier!

Years ago I did The Cremation of Sam McGee for a Phillp J. Smith acting class. Pure fun and doggerel.

--Brant

Edited June 5, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Chris Grieb]

Brant; My father recited the Kipling poem when I was five or six and I have never forgotten it.

[Roger Bissell]

I just read Barbara's excellent review article on Atlasphere and noted this little blurb at the bottom:

Barbara Branden was a close personal friend of Ayn Rand for nineteen years and authored the bestselling biography The Passion of Ayn Rand. Presently she is working on turning her lectures on efficient thinking, originally given in the 1960s at the Nathaniel Branden Institute, into a book — the working title of which is "Think As If Your Life Depended on It (Because It Does!)."

Nice title, Barbara.

reb

[Barbara Branden]

Roger: "Nice title, Barbara."

Glad you like it, Roger. It just came to me suddenly, by sheer inspiration.

Barbara

[Brant Gaede]

Roger: "Nice title, Barbara."

Glad you like it, Roger. It just came to me suddenly, by sheer inspiration.

Barbara

Grumph. Pass the ketchup, please. Roger, get the tip.

--Brant

[Alfonso Jones]

Roger: "Nice title, Barbara."

Glad you like it, Roger. It just came to me suddenly, by sheer inspiration.

Barbara

Grumph. Pass the ketchup, please. Roger, get the tip.

--Brant

LOL.

Bill P (Alfonso)

[syrakusos]

Below is my review from RebirthofReason. (I have some philosophical problems with "reviews" per se, but that is another topic for another time.)

I bought the book and I am impressed with the works. I recommend it highly.

I have never been one for poetry. I try it every now and then: Byron, Shelley, Keats, Yeats, T. S. Eliot, ee cummings, Leonard Cohen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti... Shakespeare, of course... years ago in a romantic rip, I bought a book of the 100 greatest and read some of them to my wife, on the banks of the Red Cedar River... It's all nice, you know, with words and all, but mostly, no, I don't get it.

Donway, I get.

The subjects are interesting, the images are clear, the turns of phrase are little ballerinas.

For fifteen bucks, you can't go wrong.