The Language of Life: Amazon.co.uk: Bill Moyers: Books

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry alive & breathing, 6 Aug 1999

By A Customer

The companion book to Moyers' PBS series "The Power of the Word" and "The Language of Life," which brought to a national audience the vigorous living poetry of a number of contemporary poets from the U.S. and abroad. Poetry is not the dead old thing critics like Harold Bloom and Helen Vendler would have us believe it is: this series, and this book, puts it into the ears and mouths of the people, to our betterment.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Poetry for Dummies, 22 Jun 1999

By A Customer

A worthy read, if you are looking for a general intro into modern poetry. Probably better off just buying a good poetry anthology, though. Few things can be as tiresome as poets yammering on about poetry. Does a terrible job highlighting the works of truly experimental and avant garde writers. Clearly the poets were chosen as much on their accessibility as they were their talent. Gods forefend if one might actually have to think their way through a poem, or - gasp! - not understand it!

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2.0 out of 5 stars dull, maudlin romanticism, 1 Oct 1998

By A Customer

Bill Moyers is an admirable thinker, so one must be careful to distinguish that the low quality and worth of the ideas in this book are attributable to the poets, not to Moyers himself. Almost all of the poets express themselves in the usual vague and cliched generalities of what they conceive poetry to be -- "Life," "Soul," "Eternity," "Love," "Beauty," etc. Of all the poets interviewed here, only Adrienne Rich (a poet with whom I have many aesthetic differences) sounds as if she has a head on her shoulders. It's no coincidence that the poets represented here also write terrible poetry, again with the exception of Rich.