February is the month for love, with Valentine’s day taking a starring role. And love means poetry, and poetry means awful soppy love poems doesn’t it?!
I happen to think not.
I happen to think that some of our greatest poets are often masquerading as song-writers. People like Jewel and Bono, who put a phrase together in such a way that a whole new image is formed. Yes, these people are definitely musicians, but they also have an amazing way of creating emotion with word placement.
So for my February book choices I have gone for two poets. As I said in January I want to choose one fiction and one non-fiction a month, but I have stretched that definition this month and I have one book of poems and one autobiography.
So my first choice is one of these modern-day poets, Jewel, and her autobiography never broken: songs are only half the story . I have always loved Jewel and I have a number of her albums, but the clincher is that subtitle “only half the story”. I just had to have it!
My other choice for this month is The Ordering of Love: The new and collected poems of Madeleine L’Engle . I was an avid reader of L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time series as a child, and I am enjoying reading poetry again for pleasure not study. So I ordered this new collection.
So that’s the choices for this month, and for those of you who are wondering how last month went. Well, I did finish Anne of Green Gables, by L M Montgomery. It was a perfect read for the lazy school holiday days, but not too deep to annoy me when I was (inevitably) interrupted by children! I found it interesting how much more sympathetic Marilla is, now I am a mother. Honestly, she has the patience of a saint.
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, however, is definitely not a school holiday read. I got through the first 24 pages and was very inspired. But the tasks involved really require peace and solitude, so I am continuing with that through the year.
So there you go, February is for poems and poets.
Join me for the journey,
Jodie