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Reader Reviews for "Collected Poems (1962-2002)"

Reviewed by Michelle Close Mills	5/22/2005
I discovered CJ Stevens' work through the poetry he posted on his website. I found myself hungry to read more and more. This is a volume that doesn't disappoint the reader for a moment. It's a beautiful, sensitive collection that takes note of the simplest details often overlooked by the human eye, and brings them to a place of importance. It was a privilege to read. Michelle Close Mills
Reviewed by Leland Waldrip	7/22/2004
C. J. Stevens Collected Poems Book Review Library Journal, Booklist, Canadian Forum, Mississippi Review, and numerous noteworthy individuals on the literary scene have praised C. J. Stevens Collected Poems in elegant words and phrases that reflect their deep admiration of his work. I won’t attempt to compete with these exemplary wordsmiths. I will just say that when this book arrived at my home, I sat down with it, and except for a few very necessary and very short breaks, I didn’t leave it until I had read every one of its 222 pages. I found his style to be very different from my own poetic endeavors, yet completely absorbing. Rhyme isn’t a characteristic of his poetry, just exquisite word choices that silkily spin a unique animated blend of anthropomorphism and its inverse. When he turns his pen to interesting characters of his childhood, we get pictures painted with objects: “And there was Hattie Farrington — a feather drifting with the breeze; drifting through the ironwork of another battered day, Now when a songbird huddles on an bough, and the immigrant wind with its alien tongue coaxes the bird to drop a feather, we think of Hattie Farrington and say: the softness of a feather on the new snow was truly Hattie’s way. Bless the shape of this morning.” When he turns his eye towards objects of the earth — barns, cups, fingers, cornstalks, hills, parsnips — a parade of people go marching by. Not just any people, but those with compellingly arresting features and character. Consider his take on cabbages: “These are the hard- headed sentries of Gurney’s militia—a squad of ruffians in bivouac all summer. Though they meet the reveille of the sun with their britches rumpled and with the smell of sauerkraut upon their breath, they are more soldierly than radish or cauliflower. They won’t be softened by the first white thrust of bayoneting frost. But they are vulnerable In the war of hunger. Too easily outflanked and gnawed by marauders, they still carry on. Heroes every one. And versatile as Swiss chard.” C. J. has an incisively sensitive eye for the details that would never be cataloged by most of us. He has a deft way of bringing them to our attention that is pleasing and intriguing, reflecting a delightful mix of the New England provincial and European erudition. I am happy to recommend this work to anyone who would like to enjoy an evening — or years — of very remarkable poetic accomplishment. © 2004 R. Leland Waldrip