The Great Cat: Poems about Cats

Book Overview

This delightful anthology gives us a teeming litter of literary tributes to the ever-fascinating, ever-mystifying cat. The feline has inspired poetic adoration since the days of the pharaohs, and the poems collected here cover an astonishing range of periods, cultures, and styles. Poets across the continents and centuries have described the feline family-from kittens to old toms, pussycats to panthers-doing what they do best: sleeping, prowling, prancing, purring, sleeping some more, and gazing disdainfully at lesser beings like ourselves. Here are Yeats's Minnaloushe, Christopher Smart's Jeoffry, Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat, T. S. Eliot's Rum Tum Tugger, William Blake's tyger and Rilke's panther. Here are tributes from Sufi mystics, medieval Chinese poets, and haiku masters of imperial Japan, from Chaucer, Shelley, Borges, Neruda, Dickinson, and Shakespeare. Here are the cats of Mother Goose, and the one who wore the hat for Dr. Seuss. The Great Cat will delight cat lovers everywhere, celebrating as it does the beauty, the mystery, the gravity, the grace, and, of course, the unassailable superiority of the cat.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400043344
• ISBN13: 9781400043347
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Everyman's Library
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.4" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Great Cat Anthology

This is actually a really good anthology. There were some poems I was familiar with, like Blake's Tyger, Milne's Pinkle Purr, Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat and a few folk poems such as The Cats of Kilkenny, but there are a huge number of poems here and I loved most of them. Some selections: In the clear gold of sunlight, stretching their backs, --White as snow--see the voluptuous cats, Closing eyes jealous of their inner glooms, Slumbering in the tepid warmth of their illumined fur. ***** It was a little captive cat Upon a crowded train His mistress takes him from his box To ease his fretful pain. ***** Praise be to thee, O Ra, exalted Sekhem, thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the gods and the judge of words and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; thou art indeed the bodies of the Great Cat ***** Yes, you are lovely with your ingratiating manners, sleek sides and small white paws, but I wish you had not come here. ***** Their moonpale cries hurl themselves against your full spoon. If you touchone gently it goes crazy. Its eyes turn up. It wraps itself around your ankle and purrs a rusty millenium, you liar, you tourist. ***** In the eyes of the cat Is the color of the sea, On a sunny day, in winter ***** Most cats, with the exception of Burmese, do not celebrate their birthdays. Rather, they are extremely sentimental about Palm Sunday and Labour Day, at which times they survive solely on white lace and baloney sandwishes. Cats on the whole are loath to discuss God. Generally speaking, cats have no money, although some of them secretly collect rare and valuable coins. ***** One cat built a secret nest in my socks. ***** He is all black, but has an electric tail. When he sleeps in the sun he is the blackest thing one can imagine. Even in his sleep he catches frightened mice. One can see this in the little claws that are growing from his paws. He is terribly nice and naughty. He picks birds off the trees before they are ripe. ***** Sleep, sleep, cat of the night with episcopal ceremony and your stone-carved moustache. Take care of all our dreams; control the obscurity of our slumbering prowess with your relentless heart and the great ruff of your tail. ***** Dear creature by the fire a-purr, Strange idol, eminently bland, Miraculous puss! As o'er your fur I trail a negligible hand, ***** Come into the garden, Fred, For the neighborhood tabby is gone. Come into the garden, Fred. I have nothing but my flea collar on, And the scent of the catnip has gone to my head. I'll wait by the screen door till dawn.

Cats of All Persuasions from Egypt to Now.

The feline has inspired poetic adoration since the days of the pharohs, (they were considered sacred in early Egypt) and the poems collected here cover an astounding range of periods, cultures, and styles. Oscar Wilde's 'The Sphnix,' proves that theory: "In a dim corner of my room for longer than any fancy thinks, A beautiful and silent Sphnix has watched me through the shifting gloom. In violate and immobile she does not rise, she does not stir For silver moons are naught to her and naught to her suns that reel. Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and all the while the curious cat Lies crouching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold. Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! and put your head upon my knee! And let me stroke your throat and see your body spotted like the Lynx! And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory, and grasp The tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round your heavy velvet paws! That is an example of the holy cat; here's an ordinary one: A cat is not a person, you say, not a Christian -- I have seen many! Playing with mice who sat on their tails squeaking out their protest, Then let them go to die by themselves of shock without wounds other than small claw-marks, little love bites. I've had some great cats, starting with Kit Carson, on to Tosca, her daughter Ligeia, Fluffy, Comet, his daughter Star, and her mother, Little Bit. All have had different personalities and were wonderful companions. We had Tina who was a black-and-white boy cat who mysteriously disappeared, as apparently we had him confused about being called by a girl's name. Then there was Bandy who saved a litter of kittens whose mother disappeared and was killed trying to find her way home to me. Cats are faithful to their owners and look after them as much as the owners feed and care for them. And they don't bark! This little Everyman Pocket-sized book of poems should delight cat lovers everywhere with the unassailable superiority of the cat (loveable and otherwise). Emily Fragos is the editor and she explains why she chose the poems in this volume. It is a 'great' treasure.