New Directions

I don’t quite know what to make of this little collection of poems. I would love to know more about the process by which the poems were selected: obviously, these poems all involve cats in some way, but if there was anything else at all that guided the process, I can’t figure out what it is. Not all the poems even seem to have been written by people who liked cats. Some of the poems are beautiful, but others are disturbing, and few are just odd. I also can’t seem to find any sort of intent or continuity with regard to source. There are some modern poems, and some from the 18th and 19th centuries; I don’t know if there are any older than that. There was no information given about the poems or the authors (except to list a translator) so all I know of the poem’s ages comes from my own background knowledge. A few poems have been translated from other languages, but there doesn’t seem to have been any particular effort to include a broad sample or a certain number of countries or regions.

There is one children’s poem, “The Owl and the Pussycat,” and I was delighted to find it so unexpectedly. By the time I reached the end of the volume, however, the poem about the dead cat, the poem that gives a sad reimagining of a classic nursery rhyme cat, the poem about the person who is disgusted with cats, and the poem about the cat-owner who would like to kill her cat had all dampened my enthusiasm considerably. I understand that this poem book isn’t meant as an ode to cats, but rather as a collection of various depictions of cats in different countries, centuries, and languages; but the bizarre nature of the collection and its overall effect were a bit disappointing. Sometimes anthologies take bits and pieces from all over and craft them into a meaningful, beautiful, poignant whole. Here, however, the many pieces seem disjointed, and they don’t seem to make more than the some of their parts. Something feels lacking overall.… (altro)