Mornings Like This: Found Poems [Paperback] Review

In the introductory author's note to "Mornings Like These: Found Poems," Annie Dillard states of the book, "Excepting only some titles and subtitles, I did not write a word of it." Basically the book consists of "bits of broken text" taken from other authors' prose books and rearranged on the page as poetry. Dillard's sources include "The American Boys Handy Book" (1892), an 1853 maritime conference report, a 1926 junior high school English text, van Gogh's letters, and more.
Dillard admits that half of the poems in this book "are just jokes." Some of them are quite clever and thought-provoking; in some of them she really seems to change the original author's intent. Dillard thus, in a broader sense, makes us question the very nature of the written text and the nature of its relationship to potential readers.
There are some really interesting passages in this book. She mines a stunning section on pain from a prehospital emergency care book. I found the funniest piece to be a "Index of First Lines," from two poetry anthologies. Overall, an intriguing book.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Mornings Like This: Found Poems [Paperback]



Buy cheap Mornings Like This: Found Poems [Paperback] now Get 20% OFF