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Article: Star gazers.(80 Great Poems from Chaucer to Now)(Studying Poetry)(Book review)
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- April 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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80 Great Poems from Chaucer to Now, by Geoff Page; UNSW Press, 2006, $34.95.
Studying Poetry, by Barry Spurr; Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, $50.
JORGE LUIS BORGES once described how whenever he dipped into books of aesthetics" or commentaries on poetry, he felt as though he were "reading the works of astronomers who never looked at stars. I mean that they were writing about poetry as if poetry were a task, and not what it really is: a passion and a joy." Borges simply and beautifully identifies the problem with many critical studies, commentaries and textbooks: that they do not do their job of pointing beyond themselves to the stars whose lights they are ...