Reading Year

[_Shannon_]

Reading Year

Dickens for the winter,
wrapped in thickness and safety and warmth.

Spring for things never read,
full of discovery and newness and expansion.

Hemingway for the first hot days,
clear and quick and a drink in hand.

Summer for Tennessee Williams and Southern writers,
ambling and languid and brutal.

Scholarly works and realism fill Fall,
cold and inside and impersonal.

[Lumiere]

I really like the simplicity of this, (although I think the idea merits expansion).

And I get it; I can identify with all those. (Winter is totally Dickens!)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh my God! How I've missed you! I wonder if I'd've recognized your voice without your pseudonym (or indeed hadn't already read this in your blog).

I can't off-hand compare it with your earlier work, but I love the plainspoken clarity of it.

[Jesterhead]

the flow cracks in places, but I like how you described which writers works you like to read in different seasons of the year.

[hillwalker]

What a fabulous idea.
And expertly introduced.

I'm sure there are plenty who could argue with your choice for each season - except for Dickens who is in his rightful place (winter when there was real snow and frost all around).

H

[_Shannon_]

Thank you all for your feedback! I agree there are some flow issues--and it probably could do with some expansion. I think I will try to edit some.

LOL! This was sort of the poem before the poem I was trying to write (still unwritten)...about something completely unrelated. I have only short snippets to write and gather my thoughts--so everything I seem to write reflects that reality.

I'd love to hear others' ideas about their own reading year....certain weather always puts me in mind of reading certain authors.

[MorpheusSandman]

This is such an imaginative, superb concept. It's so good that I can't help but join in the choir of wishing to see it lengthened and expanded upon! I've often pondered over why certain literature (and art, in general) appeals to me more in some seasons than others. Though the only part that we disagree about is fall. If anything, fall makes me more susceptible to poetry and lyrical romanticism. I don't get any "cold, impersonal" vibe from it.

[Bar22do]

I myself liked the evocative shortness of your poem. I found it original, so original! Bravo! Though I would choose to read sth heart-warming in the fall, to compensate for the outside "collapse" of life... A terrific idea, _Shannon_ - thanks very very much - Bar