I've been waiting to read Rossetti for so long; it was so disappointing to read her at least and realize that I absolutely hate her poetry.

Technically it's well written. The metre, rhyme, metaphor, analogy, language--all of that is perfection.

But her poems are mawkish, morbid, and obsessed with jesus, heaven, death, and female purity. If I never in the rest of my life read a poem about how earth is a vale of tears but one day we will finally die and join jesus in heaven for blissful ever, it will be too soon.

I enjoyed Goblin Market, obsessed with female purity as it was and too long by half; and there were one or two other poems about seasons and nature I enjoyed. And that was it.

I know how much she means to many other readers. But the themes of her work make it completely inaccessible to me. ( )

There are a few decent poems in Selected Poems of Christina Rossetti, most notably the bittersweet 'Remember', the death-metaphor 'Up-Hill', and the bit from 'Sing-Song' about how gemstones sparkle but are ultimately useless, whereas a flint "lies in the mud… But a flint holds fire". But, by and large, it is a largely underwhelming set of poems. 'Goblin Market', for example, is a long (and repetitive) poem that, at its end, seems to have been solely about how sisters should help one another. Talk about lack of payoff. 'No, Thank You, John' is about an ignorant girl who rudely shuns a polite suitor ("I dare say Meg or Moll would take/Pity upon you, if you'd ask."). And 'A Royal Princess' seemed to be building to something but ended with a sort of 'if it happens, it happens' mentality.

The selection is also organised in alphabetical order, meaning the book lacks rhythm; Rossetti's poems for children are mixed-up with her more mature pieces. Above all, there was a bit too much God-bothering and too many angels whizzing about. Rossetti spends most of the time with her arms stretched out to the sky, pleading for a chance to join Heaven's 'glory' and bask in the warmth of Jesus' indifference. And it's not the pseudo-inspiring sort of God-bothering; it was the sort of myopic, unintellectual, "I am not worthy, O Great One" self-flagellation that really depresses me ("Give me the lowest place: or if for me/That lowest place too high, make one more low/Where I may sit and see/My God and love Thee so."). All told, this selection of Rossetti poems was rather disappointing. ( )