Friday, November 30, 2007

Meditation at Lagunitas

Robert Hass’s Meditation at Lagunitas is a poem I never get bored of reading, and Pimone Triplett’s reading of it at the link has just got me reading it again (the poem is printed in full beneath her commentary).

The first thing I read by Hass was his brilliant collection of essays on poetry, Twentieth Century Pleasures (yes, the anonymous Amazon review there is mine). Along with Michael Hamburger’s The Truth of Poetry, it’s probably the best book about poetry I’ve ever read.

I’m going to drop subtle hints to my wife that his latest collection, Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005, would make an excellent Christmas present.

2 comments:

Colin Will said...

I've just bought Twentieth Century Pleasures second-hand, and I'm reading the Lowell essay tonight. For the Union Dead, and Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket, are poems I first read in the 1960s. They impressed me then and now.

Rob said...

Quaker Graveyard is one of my favourite poems of all time.

Hope you enjoy the Hass book.