This book is, in short, a gift - luminous and elegant and joyful. Buy a copy for yourself and you will give one to someone you love...and you will have forever a place inside of you to return that only great art can create. Lovers of poems and thoughtful, soulful prose that gives of itself in a nearly endless fashion will cherish this book, I believe. And so the 'Circle' becomes larger where everything that is true of human experience is welcome in the most well-wrought form. Molly Peacock is the finest kind of teacher.

Do you know Robert Pinsky's talisman poem? How about the favorite poem of Robt. Bly, W.S. Merwin, Joy Harjo, Mary Oliver, Jane Kenyon, Naomi Shahib Nye, or Donald Hall? Molly Peacock does and she presents the list of talisman poems from 60 contemporary poets in the back matter of her book. This list provides a great springboard for further reading! Peacock begins How to Read a Poem--And Start a Poetry Circle by discussing her JOY of language and poetry and then goes on to present 13 of her favorite poems. She explains how these poems have enriched her journey. This book does exactly what the title promises. Peacock discusses the rich qualities of her favorite poems and then tells the reader how to find the same enjoyment in starting a poetry circle of their own. If you love poetry, you'll love this book. Like a good poem, you'll come back to it again and again.

The only other book that hovers in the "shimmering verge" between essay and lyric poem the way this book does is Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet. Peacock's book is written in a style that never talks down to seasoned poets, yet clarifies even the most complex poetics for those new to this art. When all is said and done, that is precisely what this book is: a thrillingly beautiful work of art. I am enriched by it.

It's a lovely and beautiful song. Shall I speak to you? Mind It's a secret! Next time......

Original Love contains 91 pages of intensely personal and universal poems. The author divides these poems into three sections; First Love, Mother Love and Other Love. In 'So What If I'm In Love', a poem in the first section, I felt as if I were the one who accidently left "... the penguin sweatshirt ... smelled both of him and time ..." on the subway. I felt the pain of loss along with her as the subway doors closed and his scent went with it. Poems dealing with her mother's life and death comrpise the second section. In 'Raptor', Peacock accepts her mother's death on its own terms while imagining how her own death will happen. "Foolishly I'd imagined for you your mother's death, not your own ... who knows what death I'll get exactly, being daughterless, the line begetting neutralized, in hands beyond love". In the final section, poems like 'Simple' address her spiritual side; "When the wafer dissolves on my tongue I wonder what part of the Lord I have eaten," while 'Forgiveness' verbalizes finding peace with her past ..."the felt lightness of existence self-created, forgiveness". Something in each of these poems spoke to me as I were their narrator. I wish I had written them. I recommend this collection to anyone who wishes to dig into the heart and mind of a woman.

This is a wonderful book. I have been reading the poems for years on the Subway and this book is one that combines and collects many of the poems, 100 of them, in one place. One can read this book on the bus or subway and be filled with the words of these great and not so well known wordsmyths. A must have for poetry lovers, especially those who need to have some idea of a cross section of poetry from Audre Lorde to Edna St. Vincent Millay, from T.S. Elliot to an Anonymous entry of the 16th century. There is also a cross culture. There are poems from hispanic poets and poets of Japan. This treasure is well worth buying in hardcover, for surely the soft cover will not last very long. This book requires lots of handling and reading and rereading for the shear joy of the chosen poems. There is a definite dose of New York City throughout and why not? This book is as varied and beautiful as the city whose poems represented here still delight many regular subway riders, tourists, business persons and panhandlers alike!

Prize-winning novelist Deena Linetts' collection of poems "Rare Earths" has made me fall in love with poetry all over again. Deliberate and delicate, Linnet's ambitious work weaves a precise and unique spell on even the casual poetry reader by creating a mysterious universe haunted by the ghosts of women and . and The result is a book of poetry that can be read as a novel or as a collection of icy verse gems that sends shafts of light into the deep morass of the soul.

"Rare Earths" is structured in two distinct but interrelated parts: The St. Kilda Manuscripts and I Live Past You. In the first section, we are presented with delicate narrative and lyric poems in which Linnet considers the ravages that temporality and space place on the mind. Set up as a fragmented verse story, these poems are actually the "found" documents of Mairi MacIntyre, an architect who traveled to the frigid and barren island of St. Kilda in the North Atlantic off the coast of Scotland on an archeological excavation. Haunted by the ghosts of the women that had lived on the island when it was inhabited,. Mairi examines her life and her desires in journal entries and correspondences to her family.

The second part of the collection focuses on poems written by a traveling companion of Mairi who was present on the archeological dig on St. Kilda's. She, too, is haunted by the lives of the St. Kilda women but even more so by the death of Mairi. "Her" poems are gorgeous meditations on Mairi's obsession with the women of the now-uninhabited island and on the themes of loss and time that Mairi wrote about in her journal and letters to her husband and mother.

Together, these two parts help establish "Rare Earths" as a collection of post-modern poetic puzzles that require the active reader to reconstruct not only the life of Mairi MacIntyre but also decipher a complex time continuum that traces the impact that St. Kilda had on the women who lived there and those wrote about them.

"Rare Earths" was a semifinalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry in 2002. In a world of slam poetry and lazy words masquerading as verse, Linett's work (call it a collection of poem, a fragmented novel or a hybrid of both) rewards the demanding reader by haunting them like the ghosts of the desolate island of St Kilda.

Last word: read this immediately!

A memoir themed around deciding not to have children, opening with the statement "When I was three, I decided not to have children." An incredibly bad father, a mother who needed a life (and mothering), a sister who became an alcoholic -- you get the picture. When she tells the story, the book is fascinating; when she natters on with her thoughts on children, love and life, it is tiresome.

Encountering an uncorrected proof of this book at a local Friends of the Library book sale, the selling point for me was the author's statement that she began writing this book because she wanted to tell the story of why she decided not to have children.

Being a member of what feels like a definite minority -- men and women who have chosen to remain childfree -- I welcome the viewpoint of anyone who affirms this choice as a valid one. Too often, society inflicts a completely different viewpoint upon me.

People who don't know about the decision my husband and I have made, assume unthinkingly that we will have children at some point in our lives.

When people do find out about our choice, many of them tell us our lives are incomplete, that we are being selfish, that we don't really mean it. One woman, apparantly believing that our stated decision was a cover-up for inability, asked me if I am able to have children. A male gynecologist, not content to merely warn me that if I change my mind, I should have children before I turn 35, waxed poetic for several minutes about how choosing to have a child is an "affirmation of life."

Again and again, our choice is reacted to with extreme negativity and so, a book like Ms. Peacock's is a much-needed antidote.

Of course, her book is much more than a first-hand account of the decision to remain childfree. It is a poetic account of her life, of her development as a poet and as a woman.

This intimate and moving memoir is an outstanding work of literature. Yes, it holds special meaning for me because I am a kindred spirit -- another woman who has chosen to remain childfree -- but the book can also be enjoyed on other levels by people who have made a different decision. Ms. Peacock's story of her life is a tapestry with many threads, each of which has the potential to resonate with someone who has been there.

Although I know she wouldn't remember me, I knew Molly indirectly at SUNY Binghamton. I bought the tape of this book out of curiosity so that I could pass the time driving up to Maine from New York. The story turned out to be spell-binding. Such an honest, touching, funny history of a woman's journey through an authentic life. Bravo Molly!!!

Unlike other 'love' poetry, these are understandable. Most enjoyable when shared between two, cuddled up, taking turns reading aloud. A nice way to end (or start) the night.

Half-sleeping,
my body pulls toward yours-
desire a long oar dipping
again and again
in this night's dark rain.
~jane hirshfield

The poems in "Passionate Hearts" are based on mutual caring and respect. They are about heart-connected sex and evoke vivid images of warm loving relationships. This truly is a celebration of the moments of beauty in the sexual experience.

I love the way Natasha Josefowitz describes herself as a violin and how Robert Wrigley talks about painting his lovers skin with invisible roses. There are beautiful metaphors mixed in with bolder expressions of the real-life experience.

I started reading the poems and within a few hours I had read the entire book. Each poem was filled with such mystery and beauty. I noticed they were arranged from the excitement of new love to the experience of finding time for sex when you have a family and then the book ends with poems about the autumn of love.

If you are inspired by the universal experience of poetry and enjoy the mysteries of sexual love, these poems provide a healthy look at sexual intimacy...

I have to admit to being very picky. I went looking for a book that was explicit yet tasteful. I wanted something that was definitely erotic but not vulgar. This book more than lives up to my expectations.

Not all poems are sexually exciting but there are enough that are an exquisite turn on, that I wouldn't think of getting rid of this one.

What's best is that my wife, who also has no taste for the profane, has found this book a true pleasure.

If you are looking for graphic details of wild sexual fantasies, this book is not for you. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a classic, honest, heartfelt celebration of sexual love, you will enjoy this one.