Help choose the January 2015 selection to read for the MR Literary Club! The poll will be open for three days and a discussion thread will begin shortly after a winner is chosen.
The vote is multiple choice. You may vote for as many or as few as you like. If you vote for the winner it is hoped that you will read the selection with the club and/or join in the discussion.
In the event of a tie, there will be a one-day non-multiple-choice run-off poll. If the run-off also ends in a tie, then the tie will be resolved in favour of the selection that received all of its initial nominations first.
Select from the following works:
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
Spoiler:
From Kobo:
Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T.S. Eliot's career as a poet. While containing some of the most musical and unforgettable passages in twentieth-century poetry, its four parts, 'Burnt Norton', 'East Coker', 'The Dry Salvages' and 'Little Gidding', present a rigorous meditation on the spiritual, philosophical and personal themes which preoccupied the author. It was the way in which a private voice was heard to speak for the concerns of an entire generation, in the midst of war and doubt, that confirmed it as an enduring masterpiece.
From Bookpossum:
Not very long (about 35 pages in my paper copy) but very deep and immensely rewarding. For those who do not know this work, here is a small sample from The Dry Salvages:
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.
Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes
Pass Thru Fire: The Collected Lyrics by Lou Reed
Spoiler:
Kindle edition link.
From Amazon:
Containing a body of work that spans more than three decades, Pass Thru Fire is a stunning collection of the lyrics of an American original. Through his many incarnations-from proto punk to glam rocker to elder statesman of the avant garde-Lou Reed’s work has maintained an undeniable vividness and raw beauty, fueled by precise character studies and rendered with an admirable shot of moral ambiguity. Beginning with his formative days in the Velvet Underground and continuing through his remarkable solo career-albums like Transformer, Berlin, New York, Magic and Loss, and Ecstasy-Pass Thru Fire is crucial to an appreciation of Lou Reed, not only as a consummate underground musician, but as one of the truly significant poets of our time.
Canto General by Pablo Neruda