Reddit reviews Say Uncle: Poems

I LOVE POETRY. And I sort of taught my girlfriend how to read it. Honestly, it's kind of like wine. There are things that are true and not true for sure, but your emotional interpretation of poetry is most accurate when unfiltered. Try not to judge your interpretation of the poetry (I know, easier said).

This is my favorite poetry book. The poems are grouped by theme, but cover a very broad range of time periods and are from all over the world. I just think it's so cool to see what about the human experience hasn't really changed in hundreds of years.

I taught my girlfriend to love poetry with Kay Ryan's poems. They're short, so you can read one in bed together and then sit and think about it and discuss what it could mean or how you're interpreting it. :)

Great stuff! It's always hard to tackle subjects with so much material to choose from, it feels so overwhelming. I also really like Kay Ryan's "Say Uncle" for its pithy rhyme-play and drastic revelations in such tiny, tight packages; Denise Duhamel is tremendous as well, all of her collections, though the one that caught me and still holds a special place in my heart is her "Star Spangled Banner" for its witty Americana and unapologetic persona; Kim Addonizio's "Tell Me" is also great, raw and unapologetic; and while slim, I very much am taken by the smart voice of Jynne Dilling Martin's collection "We Mammals in Hospitable Times"; Patty Seyburn's newest book Hilarity is great, but I really really like her collection "Diasporadic" with a clever voice and vivid descriptions; and one more I guess, haha, Brigit Pegeen Kelly's collection of dense and strange prose poems "The Orchard" is definitely well worth wading through a few times.

I guess I just like clever/smart/witty poetry haha.