Listen to the Warm
by Rod McKuen

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Book Reviews of Listen to the Warm

Book Review: Are you people crazy? This is the worst drivel available!
Summary: 1 Stars

But let's keep Rod's memory alive tongue-in-cheek, the only way possible.

Rod: get help! (From his website I understand he's now on Prozac. Thank God.) I've seen high schoolers' "I'm different" poetry that was better written. My all-time favorite is "Sloopy," an overblown dirge about a cat that leaves. Yes, Rod, your neighbors did think you were crazy prancing around in the snow calling her name. But they were also impressed at how much money you were making selling this garbage straight into the mainstream.

Next: Rod, "warm" is an adjective. "Warmth" is a noun. You cannot just mix up parts of speech and call it poetry -- especially in every other poem. And the Sloopy line about walking dogs in the snow so often "they left little pink tracks." I've never seen this: if anything, people are reluctant to walk their dogs in the snow, and certainly not on a forced march.

If we take this "poet" seriously, we do damage to the whole field of poetry, and the thousands of poets who CAN'T sell their work, and aren't millionaires mining the vein of "loner."

On an aside: there's one song somewhere in which Rod McKuen teams up with Herb Alpert. I tried to picture the scene: Herb shows up in the Tijuana Taxi, and Rod painfully tells him to leave the mariachi bass (guitaron) in the trunk.

Geez, folks, get out there and learn your poetry and live your lives. Rod is the king of cheese, not to be taken internally! I think the complete lack of mixed reviews listed here shows how seriously he is taken by real readers of books.

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