How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) audiobook

I haven’t read much poetry in a very long time, but when I became aware of this collection by Barbara Kingsolver, I thought that it might be a nice change. I’ve very much enjoyed Kingsolver’s writing over the years, having read a number of her novels, but I had no idea that she wrote poetry. I found it to be much more than just a change of pace. I found these poems to be inspiring, lovely, and relatable, humorous at times. Marriage, hope , nature , motherhood, death with moving tributes to her grandfather in “This is How They Come Back to Us”, and her great grandmother in “My Great-Grandmother’s Plate “ and a very sad one about her mother’s death, sharing personal and intimate details of their relationship, are among the themes reflected. I loved the series of poems on a family trip to Italy with her mother in law . In “On the Piazza”, she brought me back to Piazza Navona, one of my favorite places in Rome, but also what it was like to be a tourist while trying to experience a place. I especially connected to “In Torricelli, Finding Her Mother’s House “ and “Into the Abruzzo”. “Here to remind me of graveyards and surprising sites of origin. A mountain that holds us to its secrets. These feral granite ranges gave the world children, the mother of my mother-in-law, her son, our family, and peonies.” I was brought back to the time I walked through the town where my grandparents were born.Reflecting on her daughters and motherhood in “Creation Stories” and “Meadowview Elementary Spelling Bee “ were touching. “Insomniac Villanelle “ - on reading and writers who bear “The chore of blunting night’s tormented edges Austen, Byron, Cather, Dickens, Emerson... Now there’s birdsong, daylight on the ledges.” There were some that I loved more than others, but not one that I didn’t like . Reading these poems was a perfect way to spend an afternoon on an overcast day.Thanks to Jenny, whose review ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) brought this to my attention.I received an advanced copy of this book from Harper through Edelweiss.

I love any book of poems that Barbara Kinsgsolver writes. She is a poet who still knows what it is to be a poet, to say things in such a way that you think of little things in brand new ways, to use words as art and dance, to make you understand the nature of life with tiny observations that give meaning to the most insignificant things around us.There were definitely poems and sections that I liked in this book better than others, but it's the sort of book that I'd like a physical copy of to dog-ear and underline and read again and again. These are the sorts of poems you read to realize you're not alone in the universe and other people are living all the same heartbreaking, wonderful, terrible, mundane, awful, beautiful things you are. "Passing Death" was especially heartbreaking for me because it describes so well what is happening to my wonderful mother-in-law right now, whom we can't even visit because of covid-19.For her children, this gradual dyingis like those tests at school that leave no one behind: death mastered in small increments.Last summer, they lost her laugh,the surprise of a marshmallow sandwich,jokes while she folded the laundry,a sheet furled around the make-believe bride.By then we knew she wouldn't see their weddings...Topics range from friendship to aging to nature to love, arranged by chapters that each have their own style and general theme.A great collection, with something for everyone (as long as you're willing to think a bit).I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

This is Barbara Kingsolver's second collection of poetry. I carried with me and read in parks, in trees, on benches, in bed, on a little boat her first collection, published in 1992, "Another America: Otra America." I read it out loud for only myself to hear. At that point Ms. Kingsolver had published four books: two novels, "Animal Dreams" and "Bean Trees," a collection of short stories, and a book about the women of the 1983 Arizona Mine Strike. I fell in love with her writing. Now, dozens of years and bestsellers later, she has written her second poetry collection, in which she reflects on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. The collection opens with how-to poems that touch on everyday life such as marriage and divorce, shearing a sheep, doing absolutely nothing, and flying! In the middle are poems about making peace. She finishes the collection with poems honoring the natural world. As she has done throughout her accomplished writing career, Barbara Kingsolver has presented the reader with questions and answers that are ultimately about evolution and hope.

Wonderful collection of poetry by one of my favourite writers. I finished it today sitting on the rocks at the stunning beach of Tor Bay, on the Gower Coast of South Wales, after a restorative dip in the rumbustious waves of the incoming tide. I think Barbara Kingsolver would have enjoyed it!There is much to savour in this book. I particularly enjoyed the Pelegrinaggio section, where the family accompanied the author’s 80 year old mother in law on a trip to see the Italy from which the latter’s parents emigrated before her birth to America.I also loved the truly beautifully expressed elegies in the section So This is How They Come Back to Us, including My Grandmother’s Plate and Thank You Note for a Quilt.The only poem I really couldn’t get on with was the prose poem Where It Begins. For me anyway, I think Barbara Kingsolver writes wonderful prose and poems, but this other form feels really contrived. Interesting, because in my own poetry group I am often told by one of my fellow poets that my story-telling poems might work better as prose poems! Perhaps that’s a hangover from all the blogs I’ve written!Highly recommend How to Fly.

Barbara Kingsolver has visions, knows and uses words like an alchemist. This collection of poetry soars from inner musings on the natural world to tracing and illuminating personal family history from roots in Italy to Africa and rural Kentucky. The word images can be illuminating, startling, befuddling and astute.As in her prize winning fiction and non-fiction works, the breadth and depth of her experience, knowledge and curiosity is an amazement.It is not easygoing reading and at times you may push yourself to slog through lines and metaphors that leave you in the dark. Then, the next line will take your breath away. Stay with her for those times are worth it.

3.5 stars rounded up. The simplicity of much of the work is gradually disarming. Some of the poems are deeply intimate, others are ordinary, and a few stand above the rest. I was most moved by "How to be Hopeful," "Dancing with the Devil: Advice for the Female Poet," and "The Nature of Objects."Your mileage may vary.

I listened to this as an audiobook. I enjoyed most of the poems and it has inspired me to connect more with nature and appreciate the little things.

In this 2020 collection, novelist Barbara Kingsolver demonstrates her poetry chops—which are considerable. The poems are presented in seven sections, including one made up entirely of “how to” poems and another focused on a family trip to Italy to get in touch with a grandmother’s roots. However, I’d say the overarching theme of the book is connectedness—with the people around us, with the work of our hands and bodies, and with the natural world. This theme comes through most clearly in the prose poem “Where It Begins,” which was my favorite. It’s just deft in its execution. Kingsolver’s precision of language and depth of knowledge and experience really shine in this one…and these qualities had already been shining pretty bright for eighty pages before I arrived at this gem.My engagement level did sag a little in the middle, but I thought the book finished on a high note. It hardly seems fair that a gifted storyteller like Kingsolver should be such a strong poet, but it’s hard to complain when she’s such a delight in both genres. I will say, I was blown away by how much Kingsolver seems to know about quilting, knitting, cooking, farm work, trees, flowers, bivalves, coral reefs…you name it. That breadth of knowledge empowers her to make some very cool connections in her poetry.

This book of poetry has seven parts. I loved Part I, with a series of How To . . . stay married, get a divorce, do absolutely nothing, drink water when there is wine, be hopeful. . . . And I was very moved by Part 3, which addresses those who have died. Her poem about her mother’s last forty minutes and their difficult relationship hit me hard.The other parts did not capture me as much as these two, but she is a fine writer (I had not read her work previously), and this collection has something to offer everyone.

Better known for her novels, Kingsolver shows a talent for poetry in this engaging collection. As with her novels, she demonstrates a love of the natural world from her vantage point of Appalachia. But she also focuses her keen eye on friends, family, and the resonance of death. The book opens with a series of delightful "How to" poems (as in the title of the book). Recommended.

This is one to own. I did not tire of reading a few pieces each day and am still revisiting the verses I loved most.