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snowmaiden's review
5.0
This book came out several years ago and doesn’t seem to have had much traction, at least not here on Goodreads, but it is still in print and therefore not too late. I took forever to get through it because almost every poem was one I wanted to savor, so I only seemed to be able to read a few at one sitting. In most of these narrative poems, Hoerth takes a gently sardonic tone. “Life is crazy,” she seems to say, “but let’s have fun with it anyway.” It’s obvious that she loves Texas, her adopted state, but is often exasperated by the foibles of its citizens as well.
The most amazing thing about these poems? Most of them are rendered in blank verse— you know, that unrhyming iambic pentameter that Shakespeare favored. It took me a while to even catch on to this, since they seem very natural and not forced or stilted, but once I got the rhythm in me, it followed me around everywhere. Here’s an example of one that I found online: http://versewisconsin.org/Issue112/poems/hoerth.html. If I hadn’t pointed out the meter to you ahead of time, you probably wouldn’t have noticed, but it’s there nonetheless, driving the poem forward.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It’s excited me about poetry in a way nothing else has for a long time. Give it a try!
The most amazing thing about these poems? Most of them are rendered in blank verse— you know, that unrhyming iambic pentameter that Shakespeare favored. It took me a while to even catch on to this, since they seem very natural and not forced or stilted, but once I got the rhythm in me, it followed me around everywhere. Here’s an example of one that I found online: http://versewisconsin.org/Issue112/poems/hoerth.html. If I hadn’t pointed out the meter to you ahead of time, you probably wouldn’t have noticed, but it’s there nonetheless, driving the poem forward.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It’s excited me about poetry in a way nothing else has for a long time. Give it a try!
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