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History of Forgetting (09) by Raab, Lawrence [Paperback (2009)]
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 27, 2024
“[…] people would yearn / for whatever they’d lost, and so to survive / they’d need to forget.” —“The History of Forgetting,” page 18
actually 4.5 stars!
what an honor to read the poet that made emma’s brain scrambled eggs truly. anyway, raab has such a clear and sparse command of his writing that it just hits you in the face with its emotional heart. you just have to sit there afterwards you know?
actually 4.5 stars!
what an honor to read the poet that made emma’s brain scrambled eggs truly. anyway, raab has such a clear and sparse command of his writing that it just hits you in the face with its emotional heart. you just have to sit there afterwards you know?
February 7, 2017
SUPERNATURAL FORCES
"The absence of God,” wrote George Bataille,
“is greater, and more divine, than God.”
Which is an idea God might have come up with
if he’d been French and worried
about how to make it through
the twentieth century. Do you want this?
If I take it away, will you want it more?
Or will you forget? That’s the problem
with absence, it leave itself open
to so much. Supernatural forces,
for example. Glowing lights,
out of which aliens appear
like anorexic children. Let us help you,
they say, although of course they never speak.
Once they just wanted to take over the planet.
Now they feel sorry for us,
the way God must have felt when he chose
to retire into his silence.
No more threats. No more angels, either.
Only these lost children, come back
to startle us, and vanish.
"The absence of God,” wrote George Bataille,
“is greater, and more divine, than God.”
Which is an idea God might have come up with
if he’d been French and worried
about how to make it through
the twentieth century. Do you want this?
If I take it away, will you want it more?
Or will you forget? That’s the problem
with absence, it leave itself open
to so much. Supernatural forces,
for example. Glowing lights,
out of which aliens appear
like anorexic children. Let us help you,
they say, although of course they never speak.
Once they just wanted to take over the planet.
Now they feel sorry for us,
the way God must have felt when he chose
to retire into his silence.
No more threats. No more angels, either.
Only these lost children, come back
to startle us, and vanish.
April 17, 2018
Just brilliant. I will be reading this again very soon.
July 28, 2018
A nice collection of poetry.
June 3, 2010
I don't usually read poetry collections of single authors but I'm glad I made an exception for this book of poems by Lawrence Raab. Some of them fell flat on my ears, but there were many that really struck a chord with me. At first I personally did not like the poems which were just continuations of quotes, but then I saw that said poems couldn't work without the quotes and actually grew beyond the choice lines at the beginning of each one. I'm looking forward to reading more of Raab's works - just not right away.
July 24, 2009
I didn't dislike this collection of poems, but none of them really spoke to me. The author is clearly talented even if he didn't write anything that captured my heart.
January 24, 2011
I liked Invisible Music, Regret, Driving with Music, and Blurred Snapshots.
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July 29, 2011Wow. A must read for poetry lovers.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews