date started: 2.8.2014
date completed: 2.10.2014
i've been on a bit of a poetry bender as of late. it's the stress. i've been super stressed at work (too much to do, too little time...you all know the way it goes), and when i'm stressed i tend to come back to home base, which, for me, is poetry.
i have a few poets in my back pocket who always serve me well, but this year i'm trying to read more new-to-me stuff. enter elizabeth barrett browning.
while i've read and taught browning before, i haven't read her completely or in this way. my book is her sonnets from the portuguese illuminated with letters between EBB and robert browning during their courtship.
i absolutely adore their peculiar, not-likely-to-make-it affair, so i thought this might be a nice read.
it was just that. nice. sweet. disgusting. all the things you expect from love poetry. seriously though, i am about as romantic as a wooden spoon, so i'm certain many of these beautiful verses were completely lost on me.
i did, however, find her mastery of the form quite wonderful and appreciated a sonnet cycle from a female voice (which is SUPER rare--trust me, i have degrees in this stuff).
EBB is a wonderful poet in her own right, and i wish that she was more widely read and in more depth.
probable next read: red rising by pierce brown; back to my delightfully non-romantic post-apoc/dystopian genre
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