Book Review: "Selected Poems" by W.B Yeats

Sometimes we all need a poetry anthology to make us happy or to simply live the hotter days. There were days in the past where I would lie on the floor of the living room in the summer with the blinds open next to the screen door with a poetry anthology in my face. Usually, this would be accompanied by a lemonade or something (but honestly this diet means I can't even drink that haha, I hate this but here we are). I'm quite happy to share this re-read with you as WB Yeats is a simply fantastic poet.

Perhaps He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven is one of WB Yeats' most revered poems as it has one of his most famous lines at the end: "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams". The whole poem is about how the speaker does not have the means to get the most sought-after cloths and therefore, uses the abstract 'dreams' to lay beneath the feet of his loved one. It's short yes, but it is better than plenty of Yeats' longer poems. Don't get me wrong, I love Yeats' longer poems, but I believe that when he limits himself, he's often more careful with his wording. This poem is the perfect example of that.

Another great example of Yeats' shorter poems is The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water, which is one I hadn't actually read before reading this book. It is a beautiful short poem about the passage of time and how it metaphorically compares to water. The imagery of hands like claws definitely gives the reader a taste of the ageing process and I was actually quite surprised I liked the poem because of its length. Normally when I say 'short' poem, it needs to be a few stanzas but this one is just one. It is still a gorgeous poem though.

A poem I've often enjoyed by Yeats in the past is Death which is also featured within this anthology. It is all about the dread and hope that mix together when awaiting death and how thoughts can be both even though they are basically opposing feelings. It is also about the familiarity man has with death as it gets closer and how the idea of death is entirely invented by man as the reality of death is of course, unknown. It is perhaps one of the most articulate poems about death I have ever read, the line '...He knows death to the bone...' is probably my favourite line.

Another poem that I have enjoyed in the past is called Politics and if I'm correct in stating, it is the last poem in the anthology before the appendix. It starts with a quotation by Thomas Mann about how existence has become political, which means it's probably lasted longer than our own 21st century 'everything is political' atmosphere. The poem is about, as I understand it, the growth and regrowrth of conflict and war - the inevitability of way to instigate change and the ageing way in which people see the same things happen over and over even though they still long for the past. Again, it's another short poem but it is total gold.

There are many images of Greek and Roman mythology in Yeats' poems and I think we all know that, but the one set of images I have always enjoyed in Yeats' poetry is that of older people. There seems to be this contant reference to older people experiencing things: whether that be political, romantic, deadly or dreadful - the experience of the older folks seems to be articulated with great delicacy.

All in all, I've enjoyed reading something a bit different, it's been an interesting experience revisiting Yeats. I'm quite confident that I might read this book again soon but for now, I've probably had enough of poetry for a bit. Yeats is always great to revisit because of the different topics he covers, but I still have to say that he is amongst the greatest of the Irish writers. His poems about the battle in 1916 has got to be one of the greatest pieces of narrative poetry out there and I don't think any of us can deny that.