Rating: Summary: A night without grammar Review: Probably my favorite backhanded compliment of all time is in the Amazon.com review above: "Jewel's book of poetry is solid by celeb-poet standards." When that's the highest praise available, a negative review of this silly book seems redundant.
Rating: Summary: Simple, but enjoyable Review: I truly enjoyed Jewel's book. Granted, some of her poetry is simple, but poetry does not have to be complex and contain hidden meanings to be good. Jewel is an honest writer who bares her soul and her feelings. Like others who have bashed her book, I too, have read a great deal of poetry. I have read Yeats, Eliot, Auden, and I am taking an entire course on Shakespeare alone. All of these writers are amazingly talented, but at the same time so is Jewel. She may not be on the same level as the "greats" but she has been able to inspire many people, not all of whom are a bunch of "teeny-boppers". I think that her poetry is beautiful, straightforward, and honest. I also believe that many people have used this review to bash Jewel because they just don't like her, not because of her poetry. Poetry is a connection between thoughts, the soul, pen, and paper...who are we to judge???
Rating: Summary: a radiant piece of work Review: beautiful, like the birth of stardust. as brave as a flowering cactus.
Rating: Summary: Jewel can have a way with words.. Review: I bought this book of poetry from a favorite artist of mine, Jewel Kilcher, never knowing what to expect from her. Most poetry released by singers has been anything but extraodinary. Jewels is much better than dull but this doesnt surpass the level of amazement in her work. Some poems in her book I can never get enough of, but others seem to flutter images across the paper with no flowery launguage or meaning to it. One example is "Junkie"...'My mother says, she knows what im going to be when I grow up.' Short and as dull as pastille apartment walls. Bieng a poet myself I very often use metaphors expressing feelings not capable by the normality of words. In alot of the poems in 'A Night Without Armour" she does an excellent job of usuing beautiful art launguage as a sign of her poetic capabilities which shows the reason I gave this 4 stars. I read this book nearly every night because some poems striked a cord with me and the emotions she wrote down. Thus, I conclude that this book may not be jaw-dropping but I definitly recommend it for some very decent poetry; about calfs, Alaskan beauty, and other such things this so-called normal world can relate to.
Rating: Summary: a reminder of how beutifull life is Review: I love this book. people who say jewel is dumb are just jealous of how beutifull and poetish she is. why would anyone hate a beutaful book like this. I just don't understand it. why are people so mean and cruel when the world is so beutifull. There are so many beutifull things to cherrish in the world. even the things jewel talks about that aren't beautiful seem like they're beautiful.
Rating: Summary: I would have picked zero stars if it was an option Review: Sorry Jewel fans, but this book is bad. Worse than bad. A serious waste of the trees that were used to make the paper that went into this book. If you think this book is any good you need to consider the fact that you probably dropped out of community college because it was too hard, and if your father hadn't paid for your braces you wouldn't even have that waitressing job at TGIFriday's. I shutter to think of how many copies this book sold, because that number reflects only a fraction of the number of complete morons walking around today in the U.S. This book will some day be in exhibit right next to the New Kids On The Block Christmas Album in the museum of the downfall of the United States. And Jewel, if you're reading this, please do us all a favor and go back to living in that van in Alaska. The future depends on you.
Rating: Summary: This is just sad Review: Poe, Frost, e.e. cummings, Shakespeare, Shelley, Rimbaud, Baudelaire,Dickinson,Blake,all great and familiar poetic luminaries, all lighting the stage of life with their brilliance and creativity, illuminating our minds with their eternal brain stimulating art, even influencing languages and society, changing lives and inspiring others. I think Jim Morrison could be rated up here with these monumental cornerstones of Western society. But Jewel? Jewel?! I don't think so. Her poetry has become impossible..Impossible because its actually worse than her music. Something I believed existed entirely within the imagination. Her poetry reads like something scrawled by an overwrought angst ridden teeniebopper restless with the fleeting heart flutterings of the post puberty flatulence called infatuation but mistaken as "love". Bereft of intelligence or wisdom, creativity or ingenuity this can only be rated as "bad poetry". Very, very bad poetry. Laughably dimwitted, flighty and depressingly sad poetry. Sad because the English language in all of its nuances and complexities could be abused in such a way. Its a sad, sad world and Jewel's poetry sums it all up in a neat sad little bundled collection of scratched banality. Its sad that a group of trees had to die for this. This is just...sad.
Rating: Summary: A genious with the written word... Review: My favorite artist is Jewel. She has an amazing gift for putting together words. This gift is evident in her music and in her two books. This is an excellent book of poetry. I think her brashness and sense of wonder combined create the wonderful mood of this book. You'll find poems about love, humanity, fame, touring, and so much more. If you like Jewel- you'll like this. If you don't like Jewel... why not? If you're not sure about buying this book let me give a sample. The following is my favorite poem in the book and, yes, it is the entire poem. The title is "Shush":Can you imagine how quiet a plane crash would be if you were deaf? How unbearably loud a rape? Buy this book! Its well worth it. Get her book of memoirs as well. Its called "Chasing Down the Dawn".
Rating: Summary: Don't waste your money Review: If you want to read good, accessible poetry that anyone can understand, check out Billy Collins. Don't waste your money on this book. Sure, it's poetry. You can call anything poetry. But it's bad poetry. The only reason this was published is because Jewel has a recognizable name and the publishers knew it would make money. Don't reward such blatant bastardizing of the word poetry by supporting their methods and buying this book. For every book out there like this, there's one less book by a good poet. We're already such a celebrity-ruled culture in every other respect, I hate to see the publishing industry go in that direction as well.
Rating: Summary: A comparison seen Review: Hi all. It was in 1966 or 67 that E. Collins introduced me to Trout Fishing in America... or did I introduce it to him? Too long ago.. just can't remember. I do remember that it was wonderful to read, intelligent and vastly different than anything I'd read before. You cannot (well, you can if you really want to) look for symbols to "decode" Brautigan, although, at first I tried to as well. Along about the time the Grateful Dead released American Beauty/Reality I imagined that "Trout Fishing in America" was cryptic for awareness of the underlying and hidden truth in the living experience of the world around us. As more books were published (what joyous discoveries at the bookstore) I realized that Brautigan really used words to *paint* analogs of how something made him feel, and he did so with great economy and genius... he made me feel these things too. Collins would say I rant on too long, and he's right. R. B. was a delightful and gifted communicator. I can read his words afresh each time, and still find images and engendered concepts which had not occurred to me at earlier readings. Either I'm slow, or he's timeless. Something I haven't seen mentioned here... another author who writes "Brautiganisms". I think I have found within the pages of 'a night without armor' Poems by Jewel - ISBN 0-06-107362-8 (paperback) Of course Jewel was born well before Richard died or I would be wondering... anyway have a leaf through next time you're in the bookstore. Anyway, for me, Brautigan paints emotional pictures that speak to me on all levels, and right from the first reading he made me aware of levels within myself I was hardly aware of before I read him. Boo Forever Spinning like a ghost on the bottom of a top, I'm haunted by all the space that I will live without you. (The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster) ...later Folks. Steve Scott.
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