The Angel of History

Rating:
Summary: What's the fuss?
Review: Bombastic, pretentious, and overblown. Also irrelevent.

Rating:
Summary: What's the fuss?
Review: In the interstices of the times we are living in. A book of poetry like this demanded to be born, and Carolyn Forche was elected parent. Like all great art: political, personal. The epitome of intimacy provides the koan of the distance of being human. This may be the defining poetic book of the nineties, and the end of the century. It is certainly one of those books, and by a poet who doesn't cease to fulfill her "vocation" as poet with great humanity and dignity.

Rating:
Summary: The Angel of History Repeating
Review: On first reading I hated this book so much because I didn't understand Forché's departure from the narrative structure of her earlier books. But further rereadings show how necessary it is to break the narrative in a "restoration piece" as this book. The voice(s) fragmented as it/they may seem is/are what holds the book together. These utterances show how that the personal is always political without being partisan. Best of all, I love this book for the expansiveness of meaning and sense whenever it is reread. Forché may not be a prolific poet, but each book is a delicate project, and The Angel of History is probably her best and most delicate work.

Rating:
Summary: The Angel of History Repeating
Review: On first reading I hated this book so much because I didn't understand Forché's departure from the narrative structure of her earlier books. But further rereadings show how necessary it is to break the narrative in a "restoration piece" as this book. The voice(s) fragmented as it/they may seem is/are what holds the book together. These utterances show how that the personal is always political without being partisan. Best of all, I love this book for the expansiveness of meaning and sense whenever it is reread. Forché may not be a prolific poet, but each book is a delicate project, and The Angel of History is probably her best and most delicate work.

Rating:
Summary: a genius
Review: This book demands all the mental stamina, literacy, and spiritual powers of endurance, that a reader can offer. The images and fragmented narratives resonate immediately, but there is enough to keep you re-reading, finding new connections, for years. The century's worst atrocities: Hiroshima, the Holocaust, World Wars, are right next to the century's highest intellectual achievements: Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Walter Benjamin. If you get the references, if you understand the history--or even if you don't (Forche is that good)--The Angel of History will be transformative reading.

Rating:
Summary: almost cruelly intelligent modern poetry
Review: This book is just so brilliant. The poems are all terseness, & their lyric integrity & elliptical masonry demand very close attention of the reader. This is avant-garde poetry written by the fists of genius.

Rating:
Summary: almost cruelly intelligent modern poetry
Review: This book is just so brilliant. The poems are all terseness, & their lyric integrity & elliptical masonry demand very close attention of the reader. This is avant-garde poetry written by the fists of genius.