Thursday, January 26, 2006
Great Feline Authors: the indigestible furball of the poem
Cats get their say in Poetry for Cats
Henry Beard
Villard Books, 1994
In the annals of feline literature, few members of my species have actually gotten credit for their own work. Henry Beard, who put together this anthology, recognizes that felines' literary accomplishments stretch back for centuries; the poems are not just for cats, but by cats.
Beginning with "Grendel's Dog," an excerpt from the Old English Beocat, and ending with "Meowl!," a cry for freedom from a cat of the Beat generation, Poetry for Cats illustrates the development of literary style from a feline point of view.
In perusing these nimble verses, I couldn't help but notice how these accomplished cats influenced the content of their catted ones' famous works. From Shakespeare's cat:
To go outside, and there perchance to stay,And from Allen Ginsberg's cat:
Or to remain within: that is the question...
with the indigestible furball of the poem in the heart coughed up out of their own bodies onto the absolute center of the immaculate carpet of life.
Tags: book reviews cats catymology
# posted by Aloysius @ 12:47 AM 
2 Old Comments:
Wow, We'll have to check this one out!
By 
, at
1:53 PM
I just read The Cat Who Went To Heaven. Have you tried that one? Warning: you need a bucket of tissues to get to that one.
By 
Gigolo Kitty, at
11:42 AM
