Help choose the January 2016 selection to read for the MR Literary Club!
Select from the following works:
The poetry of John Clare
Spoiler:
From sun surfer:
Most of his various selected poetry collections are only in pbook, though there is a Poems Chiefly from Manuscript free ebook on Amazon, and a Delphi complete works ebook for 99 cents. This nomination is open-ended with no particular collection in mind. Rather, we can read whichever poems or collection of his we each prefer and discuss our varying experiences with it.
From Goodreads:
John Clare produced some of English poetry’s most poignant and glorious lyrics. Writing not as an observer of nature but from an intimate knowledge of the wheatfields, hedgerows, and ditches of his village in Northamptonshire, he described animals, insects, trees, rivers, sunlight, and clouds with sublime sensitivity. But as enclosures and “improvements” came in the early nineteenth century, dismembering the rural landscape, his later poems became infused with a sense of disorientation and loss, and scattered with threads of madness. Clare’s genius has been rediscovered by fellow poets in every generation since his death, from Dylan Thomas to Ted Hughes to Seamus Heaney... His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be one of the most important 19th-century poets.
Sonnets of William Shakespeare
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in imperial Russia during the 1820s, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the emotions and destiny of three men - Onegin the bored fop, Lensky the minor elegiast, and a stylized Pushkin himself - and the fates and affections of three women - Tatyana the provincial beauty, her sister Olga, and Pushkin's mercurial Muse. Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it also portrays a large cast of other characters and offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein. Eugene Onegin was Pushkin's own favourite work, and it shows him attempting to transform himself from romantic poet into realistic novelist.
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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 join in the discussion.
Bonus votes:
Spoiler:
When the poll ends, bonus votes will be manually added before determining final results. Basically, anyone who has commented in two out of the last six discussion threads is eligible for bonus votes, and everyone eligible will have any votes cast doubled.
Everyone is welcome and encouraged to vote if interested in participating in the literary club whether eligible for bonus votes or not, and anyone interested in bonus votes is encouraged to become eligible as it doesn’t take much.
Currently eligible-
AnotherCat, BelleZora, bfisher, Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl, caleb72, ccowie, fantasyfan, Hamlet53, HomeInMyShoes, issybird, Lynx-lynx, sun surfer
This includes posts thus far in the July to December discussion threads.
*There are a few caveats to eligibility as outlined in
this post.
**If anyone feels there is any mistake in eligibility, please let me know before the poll is over. Once the poll ends and the tally with bonus votes added is announced, the results will be final.
In the event of a tie, it will be resolved in favour of the selection that received all of its initial nominations first.