Listen to the Warm by Rod McKuen Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Listen to the Warm
Book Review: Listen to the Warm
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the most increcible collection of poetry. I first read it in the early 70's and can never forget how it moved me as a teenager. The poems have continued to inspire feelings and deep emotions. Truly an asset.... would make a lovely gift for a special person in your life.Book Review: Listen to the smell
Summary: 1 Stars
During a night on the town, while seeing the midnight cowboys and getting more and more bent (that means old) my friends and I shared a few laughs over the poem "A Cat Named Sloopy." Someone in the back seat brought up the subject of bad poetry and a couple of us instantly thought of Rod McKuen. My girlfriend kept an old copy of "Sloopy" stashed in the glove box. I almost crashed her sedan as she read aloud the first lines of "Sloopy". McKuen's writing style, a strange combination of self love and bombast, mixed with bad grammar and awkward metaphors, will ever serve young poets as an example of how not to write free verse. I always chuckle when I hear the line "my arms full of canned liver and love." You say potato, and I'll say poetaster. Let's call the whole thing off.
Book Review: Outstanding in its simplicity
Summary: 5 Stars
Rod McKuen is a phenomenal modern poet. His words evoke emotions in their rawest form--sorrow, joy, anger, loneliness, etc. I cannot imagine someone reading his poetry and remaining untouched by it.According to one of the other reviewers, his poetry is "drivel." First of all, it sounds to me like someone (the author of the review) is having some trouble publishing their own poetry and is a bit jealous of McKuen. Secondly, the author's struggles with depression and his willingness to share that with us are nothing to be made light of. Finally, nothing they said in their review convinces anyone that McKuen's poetry is not worth reading. If anything, please go out and buy or borrow this book and read it yourself, to prove this reviewer wrong.
Rod McKuen is a brilliant writer with poetry that is truly beautiful in its simplicity. No, he is not a pretentious writer. Poetry doesn't have to be masked by a thousand layers of metaphor (Dylan Thomas?) in order to make it valid. McKuen's poetry in fact proves otherwise--that often the direct is the most effective (and braver) way to reach the reader. Perhaps McKuen knew what others have as well--John Lennon, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, and Leslie Marmon Silko, to name a few--that the ordinary and simple can be extraordinary and beautiful.
Book Review: Simple words dealing with life experiences and sorrows
Summary: 4 Stars
One of McKuen's strong points has always been his ability to express in simple words what all of us have probably encounted at one time or another; love and sorrow. He has the ability to say what all of have wanted to say, express in human terms the emotions all of us have experienced. He may not use the heady prose of the great writers, but there is hardly a person alive who can read this book and not say, "Been there, felt that".Book Review: Softly spoken, warmly felt, not alone.
Summary: 4 Stars
"Listen to the Warm" leaves you feeling warm and safe and understood, and wanting to feel the noise and see the cold, too. Rod is a loner. So, if you are a loner or having one of those days where you wished you were alone on a deserted island, this would be the book to read. He uses lots of rhyme which keeps your attention but then sometimes not. He is in New York City with a cat on one page and then in France somewhere with someone.
Rod McKuen is criticised for not being a heady prose writer like the great poets of our time. But, if you want to read the softly spoken words of a worldly man, an author and composer of classical music, who can express his feelings about every inch of his life,
"Listen to the Warm" is a must read. Keep it by your bed, next to your favorite chair, on the fireplace mantle.
Linda Langan Powell, author, "The Old Cypress Tree"