[Susan McLean]

David,
I too have been trying to post a review of your book, but keep getting the message that the service is unavailable at this time. I will keep trying, but meanwhile I have posted it below. People who know your work already will probably feel that they don't need this information, but I was aiming the review at those who don't.

Susan


Fashions exist in poetry, as in most things, and David Anthony is not afraid to be unfashionable--both in using traditional forms such as sonnets, villanelles, and triolets and in revealing emotions such as affection, sympathy, and nostalgia, which can get writers labeled sentimental. But there is a subversive character to his use of forms: he uses the triolet, usually a lightweight form, to tackle serious themes, as in "A Winter Funeral," and can poke fun at the conventions of sonnet-writing in the course of writing a sonnet, as in "Stuffing It In." He has some amusing versifications of well-known jokes (my favorite is "Cushioning the Blow") and takes a wide-ranging interest in the world around him, in poems about his native Wales, England, America, and Japan, showing a fondness for Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Harry Potter, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Always accessible, he can be conversational, but most often is notable for the lilting, lyrical quality of his lines.

[David Anthony]

Thanks, Susan.

You're on the nail there: I do believe poems should be written with feeling.

The borderline between sentiment and sentimentality's a fine one, I think, and no two people would draw the line in the same place.

By the way, my book's also on Amazon.com (though it doesn't sell half as well there), so if you and Tim wouldn't mind posting your reviews there too I'd be grateful.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097...42522?n=283155


Best wishes,
David

[Tim Murphy]

Susan's comments and mine now appear at UK and US Amazon, David. I've also just posted a very brief comment on Tim's book beneath a capacious, generous essay by Bruce McBirney.

[Robin-Kemp]

Beg pardon, but Doña Rhina no es mexicana:

Chicana=Mexicana
Latina=todas las otras

La Gringa



[This message has been edited by Robin-Kemp (edited June 21, 2006).]

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

Mil gracias, Robin!

As for Amazon in the UK, I always have trouble getting to it, and posting on it, the one time I did so. Don't let the negative stuff get to you, David: all it does is build sound teeth and healthy bones--and good, tough skin.

[Jennifer Reeser]

Ha! I kid you not -- one evening in town, I was "invited" to show my proof of age by a concerned West Chester bartender unconvinced I was old enough for ale, so Katy, even if Jennifer DOES know where the party is, they may not let you in with her

Jenn



[This message has been edited by Jennifer Reeser (edited June 22, 2006).]

[Robin-Kemp]

Jennifer,

Would that have been the 16-year-old bartender?

Anybody what don't like David's book, I kick they ass!

Robin

[This message has been edited by Robin-Kemp (edited June 22, 2006).]

[R. S. Gwynn]

Ale!?

[Katy Evans-Bush]

Jennifer, tell me about it! A few years ago they tried to card me in some pizza place outside Logan airport - they were like, well, my manager says I have to card anyone who looks like they might be under 30. I'm like, 30?!? My sister's going AWWWWW! That's so SWEET! They think you're under 30! I'm going, LOOK. I've got three kids, an ex-husband, a mortgage, I've been through this that and the other and now you're telling me I don't look old enough to have a goddamn BEER! My passport's in the car. I've been travelling for 15 hours. Do you REALLY want me to go and get it? My sister's glaring at me. The waitress goes, nooooo, that'll be okay.......

Just keep me with you. We'll be in.

KEB

[David Anthony]

Jenn, Katy, I know the feeling; it happens to me all the time.
David