Books Noted
Robert Bly, Talking into the Ear of a Donkey

W.W. Norton & Company, 2011

Robert Bly's latest collection ranges in form from free verse to his own rendition of the ghazal.

In the title poem, Bly seems to be addressing poetry itself when he writes

    I have been talking into the ear of a donkey.
    I have so much to say! And the donkey can’t wait
    To feel my breath stirring the immense oats
    Of his ears

Bly's poems often feel essayistic in nature, expanding upon a topic with emotional nuance and compelling sense of authority. When confronting aging and the passage of time, however, Bly expertly employs spareness and delicacy, understanding, as he points out in one poem, that "much subtlety is lost in explaining things." In the poem "So Much Time," Bly writes

                                 Things move so
    Slowly in the soul. It must be that we've
    Already been grieving for a hundred years.
    Old men and women know how much time
    Can go by while praying. Let's not try
    To cheer each other up. It's all right.

Jane Hirshfield notes that the collection is a "consummately beautiful and moving book," and longtime Bly fans will appreciate that the volume "carries the craft, wisdom, and gleaming image-hoard of a lifetime master."