Winter Harvest
white drops, drear
tear my eyes, fear
wears me down,
dizzy, from all the sound
red drops, anger
close my eyes, danger
like a vague reminder
my blind past
blue for the holidays
cold for the holidays
pulled from arms too soon
returned to the soil alone
god forsaked them
in that land
another harvest gone bad
returned to the soil in bags
I'm surrounded by the reality of war this week it seems. After reading 'Birdsong' this is very poignant.
ReplyDeleteI've not read 'Birdsong' .... A novel I presume. Author? Worth a read? Thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteAh, I think I found it. Sebsastian Faulks, about Britain/France in the Great War. Is that the one?
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/32r7mw
That's it. The grim reality of WW1trench warfare. Worth a read purely because we have absolutely no concept of the nightmare that those men endured. It puts our comfortable spoilt little lives into necessary perspective.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I've since read your blog post about it (and comments) and I've read a couple books about life in the trenches of WWI as well as countless documentaries... not the type of environment I'd like to die in, or even be stationed in for long - I'd go stark raving mad. Even more, I mean. Thanks for the heads up about the book, I'll check it out when I get time. I noticed he's got lots of other books. British author? Have you read others by him? Good as well? Thanks kiddo.
ReplyDeleteGroannnn... just back from another stretch of being forcefed by D's mother. Soup and salad for the next week I think.
ReplyDeleteI vaguely remember reading Charlotte Gray, which is also a film, but I didn't particularly like it. I'm not keen on books that look like they might be veering towards the ubiquitous woman's novel. If you know what I mean? He just about got away with it in Birdsong because the subject matter was so powerful. I'm not sure what to read next. Any bright ideas?
I saw Charlotte Gray, the one with Cate Blanchett set in WW2? Good movie, didn't read the book though. I'll think up some reads for you. You're a tough one because you're a woman and you're smart in a different way than I am. I'll do my best though.
ReplyDeleteFountainhead - Ayn Rand
ReplyDeleteAhab's Wife - Sena Jeter Naslund
The Pillars of the Earth - Follett
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood (feminist author - smart lady)
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Sacajawea - Anna Waldo (Lewis and Clark expedition)
For fun - One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
The Forest Lover - Vreeland (about Canadian Artist/rebel Emily Carr - early 1900s)
Ah, thanks! Help when you least expect it!
ReplyDeleteI heard The Lovely Bones was good too. If I remember more I'll let you know, but I tend to read 19th century English Lit., fantasy, old folktale and fairy tales and epics, nonfiction about all kinds of things, some sci-fi though only by a couple authors, and some "children's" books. I have very specific and eclectic tastes and almost never read the NY Times Bestseller types.
Except Life of Pi - that was fantastic.
Oh, and I've read every book by Crichton, though he's getting more and more presposterous with age. I still like him, but he's gotten into a formula and as good as some of his set-ups are, his resolutions are almost universally terrible and laughable. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteAlso "The Historian" is very interesting, if a bit overlong. But if you like history and geography, in this case Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and if you like mysteries, you might like it. At the beginning I was really excited because of what it's "about".
ReplyDeleteIt didn't turn out to be FANTASTIC but it was well worth the read.
And I dunno if you veer into gothic horror at all, but there's always Anne Rice, Stephen King, HP Lovecraft, Poe. And for adventure Rudyard Kipling and Jules Verne, two of my favorites.
Ah but we're but into that 19th century literature again.
The lovely Bones is good - wasn't sure if I could read the subject matter, but it was done well.
ReplyDeleteIRELAND by Delaney was very good.
I know what I like, just hard to know what someone else would like. If the writing is good, the subject interesting, the book pulls me in right away, I'll give it a go.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm crummy at recommending fiction because then I feel responsible for whether that person likes the book or hates it. But this is a pretty good list we have going, I'm sure Mags will find something she hasn't read yet. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteJ.
Oh and I don't know if you like intelligent fantasy (not swords & sorcery stuff, but more trippy like other worlds like our own...), hard to beat the Philip Pullman "His Dark Materials" series if you haven't read that yet.
ReplyDeleteByteDoc and I both read them and Empath is reading now. Don't see the movie The Golden Compass though, it's average at best when it could have been really great.
The series reminds me of the Wrinkle In Time series by Madeleine L'Engel, which I enjoyed (and was somewhat frightened by) as a child. Same adult-tale-in-a-children's-book-guise trickery going on.