Enjoyable, but I prefer his prose. ( )

2.5 stars ( )

Lewis says: Avoid Cheap Editions!

In 1953, when an American lady wrote to C.S. Lewis about acquiring British first editions of _The Screwtape Letters_ and _The Great Divorce_, he advised her against doing so, on the grounds that they were "scrubby little things on rotten paper". (See _Collected Letters_, vol. 3, p. 282.) The package that arrived from Amazon today proves that Lewis's work is still occasionally being published in scrubby little editions: _Narrative Poems_ has gone print-on-demand. Ugh! The cheap-looking copy with muddied text that was sent to me was printed in Lexington, Kentucky (site of Amazon's distribution center) this month. (See the "product images" section of this page for a comparison between the magnified images of the same letter "e" in the original edition and this print-on-demand edition.)

Even though this is one of only 3 or 4 books by Lewis I haven't read yet, I wouldn't have bought it if I had known it would look like this. The only poem in the book that Lewis had published while he was alive is "Dymer", which will be out of copyright before too long. If, like Lewis, you care about quality printing, I suggest you wait to read "Dymer" till then. Don't support Amazon and Harcourt's unholy alliance to foist inferior editions on the reading public. ( )

The poetry in Dymer isn't very good, which is funny since it's the one Lewis actually published. More on that here: http://hannahgivens.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/interesting-carictars-dymer-1926/

The other three poems in this collection are actually quite good, and this would be a good resource for a lot of analytical writing, especially "The Queen of Drum" for Lewis and women. More on that here: http://hannahgivens.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/interesting-carictars-narrative-poe... ( )

This is an interesting perspective for an Lewis fan. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see all sides of this author. Most people read his stories and/or his Christian prose, but few touch on his academic or poetical works. Much of Lewis thoughts and stories were formed by his love of poetry. It is worth reading his own poetical works to better understand why he thought what he did. ( )