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Loading... Hard Words, and Other Poemsby Ursula K. Le Guin
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Short poems by the successful science-fiction writer deal with Cornwall, New York City, and Oregon, and portray the wisdom of other cultures and beliefs. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The second section "The Dancing at Tillai" is named after the last of its poems, and gravitates around themes drawn from East Indian myths and cults. A couple of these, "Carmagnole of the Thirtieth of June" and "A Semi-Centenary Celebration" put me in mind of some of Ishmael Reed's incantatory Hoodoo verse.
The pivotal group "Line Drawings" include a lot of dedications of individual poems, and all the poems of this section seem to be rooted in Le Guin's personal history, to the extent that their sense sometimes seems a little opaque to this reader. But some of them, construed as observation of a natural scene or event, seem almost too bare.
"Walking in Cornwall" is a set of three poems about archaeological excursions in the English landscape. These are some of the longer poems of the book, and taken together they read like a set of dreamy journal entries from the author's travels.
The last section "Simple Hill" uses brevity, singsong patterns, and borderline paradoxes to set up a sense of wonder and profundity. All of its poems are short, except for the triptych "The Well of Baln," which still shares the mood of the others, although fleshing it out from contemplative nursery rhyme to fairy tale.
All told, there is a lot of variety here. The poetry is not avant-gardist; it uses natural images, rhyme and meter, and other very conventional elements. But the use of these conventions here gives evidence of an active and original mind that delights in language--while knowing of its dangers.