Tag: Poems

Ted Hughes – Birthday Letters | Review

Title: Birthday Letters

Author: Ted Hughes

Type: Poetry

Page Count: 198

Rating: 3.75/5

I’ve always been more of a Plath fan than a Hughes fan, but that made this interesting because the poems were pretty much all about Plath and his relationship with her, so there was quite a lot there for me to enjoy.

The fact is, I don’t much like Hughes as a person, but as a poet, it’s hard to knock him. In fact, this did a lot to make me change my mind about him, at least a little bit. I’ve read a few other bits and pieces by Ted Hughes here and there, but this did at least made me want to read some more of his stuff.

It’s not exactly my type of poetry, but it is still pretty close and it’s definitely food for thought, and definitely worth reading. If nothing else, it was interesting to see how Hughes’ work has influenced some of the other poets that I like. He has a certain flair and a way with words that makes it a pleasure to read his stuff, at least here. Just maybe not always.

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Tupac Shakur – The Rose That Grew from Concrete | Review

Title: The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Author: Tupac Shakur

Type: Poetry

Page Count: 154

Rating: 3/5

I was quite exciting to get to this one because I’d heard someone talking about it on BookTube and I like Tupac’s music as much as the next person. Unfortunately, it got off on a bad foot to begin with thanks to four or five different introductions, each of which tried to paint Shakur’s poetry as being worthy of being included amongst the top ranks of contemporary literature.

But the poems themselves just feel like incomplete song lyrics. Half of them are just love poems for various different women, and a pretty sizeable proportion are about a god that I don’t believe in. Plus I got annoyed by him writing “2” instead of “to” and “4” instead of “for”. So yeah, only worth reading for major Tupac fans.

Learn more about The Rose That Grew from Concrete.