Fragments: Poetry, Ancient & Modern

Fragments is a timely and most refreshing anthology about our literary predecessors and rich poetics; aficionados everywhere have been awaiting such a comprehensive volume that both contextualizes and invigorates by key region and aesthetics. This book resonates with keen musical and visual elements of poetry, especially in the contemporary works of its own Blue Flute and fellow poets, Claudia Schoenfield, gennepher, and Polona Oblak, while alongside the great exemplary voices of Sappho, Chaucer, T.S. Eliot, and Edgar Allen Poe. With an astute eye to the eastern and western traditions of prosody, Blue Flute pens the genre with a fine-tooth comb.

Though prolific and ambitious at cataloging and compiling, Fragments lacks some chronology and balance. There are an odd number of poems per each cultural area, but little variety of poetic figures, so the liner aspect is obstructed by selective groupings. Still, Fragments is a very tactical read, especially with the given texts of translation; Blue Flute gives an essential display of visual and phonetic translations for the source language, which proves most helpful and satisfying. However, as we progress through the oeuvre, the pronunciation tips and additional comments/notes for the translations dwindle significantly. Yet, Fragments is alluring and favorable to a wide-ranging view of the verse. Readers everywhere will ultimately reconsider history and, in turn, recover a practice of the lyrical form.