Happy New Year Everyone! I hope 2013 will be a great year for our book club and for us all.
Help us select what the MR Literary Club will read for January 2013!
The nominations will run for three days until January 4. Then, a separate voting poll will begin where the month's selection will be decided.
Note - We have one slight change for 2013. We will no longer aim for a certain number of fully nominated works; rather, we will now only aim for a certain length of time for nominations (three days).
The category for this month is:
Poetry
In order for a work to be included in the poll it needs four nominations - the original nomination plus three supporting.
Each participant has four nominations to use. You can nominate a new work for consideration or you can support (second, third or fourth) a work that has already been nominated by another person.
To nominate a work just post a message with your nomination. If you are the first to nominate a work, it's always nice to provide an abstract to the work so others may consider their level of interest.
What is literature for the purposes of this club? A superior work of lasting merit that enriches the mind. Often it is important, challenging, critically acclaimed. It may be from ancient times to today; it may be from anywhere in the world; it may be obscure or famous, short or long; it may be a story, a novel, a play, a poem, an essay or another written form. If you are unsure if a work would be considered literature, just ask!
The floor is now open!
*
Nominations through post 37:
War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon - Fully nominated
Spoiler:
In favour - paola, issybird, Bookpossum, Synamon
War poems by Siegfried Sassoon, which though may or may not be available in public domain, are available legally in various places, e.g.
here
Sassoon's War Poems are available
here at MR.
Andrew Marvell - Fully nominated
Spoiler:
In favour - issybird, paola, Bookpossum, fantasyfan
One of the pre-eminent 17th century English metaphysical poets. The Marvell poem everyone knows is "To His Coy Mistress."
From The Poetry Foundation:
In an era that makes a better claim than most upon the familiar term transitional, Andrew Marvell is surely the single most compelling embodiment of the change that came over English society and letters in the course of the seventeenth century. Author of a varied array of exquisite lyrics that blend Cavalier grace with Metaphysical wit and complexity, Marvell turned, first, into a panegyrist for the Lord Protector and his regime and then into an increasingly bitter satirist and polemicist, attacking the royal court and the established church in both prose and verse. It is as if the most delicate and elusive of butterflies somehow metamorphosed into a caterpillar.
Public domain.
An edition from the University of Adelaide:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au
Their editions are usually good.
The Sonnets of Shakespeare - Fully nominated
The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems by Tomas Tranströmer - Fully nominated
Spoiler:
In favour - Hamlet53, paola, sun surfer, dakini
This is a complete collection of the poetry of Tomas Tranströmer. Winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Literature, Tranströmer is a Swedish poet, psychologist and translator. His poems capture the long Swedish winters, the rhythm of the seasons and the palpable, atmospheric beauty of nature. Tranströmer's work is also characterized by a sense of mystery and wonder underlying the routine of everyday life, a quality which often gives his poems a religious dimension.
This is available as an ebook from
Amazon,
Barnes & Noble, and
Kobo Books.
Can be bought for 40% off at Kobo with coupon code vouchercodes40 .
The Inferno by Dante - Fully nominated
Spoiler:
In favour - issybird, Bookworm_Girl, paola, dakini
Various translations, some public domain. Or not in translation.
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Fully nominated
Spoiler:
In favour - Hamlet53, issybird, Billi, sun surfer
There is a nice version in English translation here at MR
LRF file.
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Fully nominated
Selected Poems of Sylvia Plath - 3
Spoiler:
In favour - Synamon, sun surfer, medard
Amazon/
Kobo
Can probably use the current 40% off coupon at Kobo, since it's not an agency publisher.