The first time I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (about 1970), I committed the expected faux pas – I skipped most of the poems and songs. I was so engaged in the story itself that I wasn’t about to slow done for a poem.
When I read the books again about a decade later, I’d learned. This time, I read the poems. And the next two times, I read the poems as well, sometimes twice. I’d been educated.
The poems are more than worthwhile reading. They’re an integral part of the story, reflecting, enriching, and helping to explain the world of Middle-earth.
I saw the first notice last August, about two weeks before we were leaving for London. Tolkien’s poems had been collected. It was a three-volume set, soon-to-be published in Britain (Sept. 12) and a little later (Sept. 17) to the United States. The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien. I stared in wonder.
Some Thursday Readings
You Should Be Writing Instead of (or at Least Before) Podcasting – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.
Infinity Split – poem by Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.
James Fenimore Cooper is a more honest writer than Mark Twain – Naomi Kanakia at Woman of Letters.
“January 22nd, Missolonghi,” poem by Lord Byron – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
The Overlooked First Battle of the Retreat from Petersburg – Aaron Stoyack at Emerging Civil War.
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