Collection of classic poems that have dogs in them. Nothing much to add. Fun to read and at times it's sad too. If you love poems and you love dogs, check it out.

#Dog-eared by # Duncan Wu is a wonderful. If you are a dog lover or know one this is perfect. The poems have such depth.
Thank you for the advance copy,
#Netgalley, #Duncan Wu, and # Basic Books

this book wasn't what I was expecting but it was still really good and a nice read if you don't know what to read next

This is about the strangest premise for a book of poetry that I have ever encountered. But, because I love dogs so much, and am a fan of prose and poetry no matter the premise, I decided to give it a go. Once I commit to reading each poem with an open mind, I was amazed by the book's beauty, insight and even humor. Dogs truly are man's best friend, having been for generations, and Duncan Wu's fascinating book certainly reminds the reader of the love between man and canine.

This book honestly was not what I was expecting at all. I was thinking it would be modern poetry including dogs, but instead it was a lot of classics, some of which were not favorable towards dogs. This may just be my mistake in reading the description so long before I actually read the book.

Dogs are man’s best friend - no truer words have ever been spoken! Duncan Wu has compiled such a great book that will touch the heart of any dog lover.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As a dog-lover, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to read this one. It was a cute collection of stories about the love we have for our dogs. Heartwarming and definitely worth your time!

I loved this book. Such a sweet tribute to paw friends. Perfect for a light, easy read when you don't know what book to read next. It will get you out of your reading slump. Best read while cuddling a pup.

I always enjoy poems about animals and had previously enjoyed other collections I found, so I was excited to see this one pop up. I really enjoyed the biographical information about each author and the animals that they had in their lives, but I was somewhat disappointed when a good number of the poems weren't necessarily about dogs, and maybe had only a few lines or a mention of dogs. I was really hoping all of them would have dogs as the central subject, but I did enjoy the variance between styles and subjects overall.

When I signed up for this book, I was expecting some poems about dogs, child-like poems, even. I did not expect to travel through multiple centuries, reading poems about dogs. That's what made this book exceptionally unique in my opinion. I liked that it was mostly "old" poems - poems from people like Ovid or Vergil, for example.
Even though I am not a big fan of dogs or poems, it was beautiful to read and I enjoyed the poems in general and the information provided about the authors of the poems.
Definitely a good choice for dog-lovers and a sweet gift!


I received a free ARC by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is not what I was expecting from the cover and that may be my own fault, but I fear the potential reader may misunderstand what this book is about as well...

What I was expecting was exactly what this author indicates this book is NOT in their introduction, a heartfelt book filled with poetry about our canine companions. While this book is dedicated to poetry about our four-legged friends, it is basically a history lesson of how we have always held a deep relationship with doggo-kind. It is a look at historical literature/poetry and how humanity has interacted with dogs through time.

Overall this book was interesting but not what I was expecting initially as it was more of a history lesson then a fun homage to dogs through poetry and I wonder if its marketing could be a bit clearer to the customer (at least as far as the cover's presentation goes). For what it is, the author does a great job of compiling documents from countless sources and breaking them down into an approachable, unique, and revealing message about one of the most recognizable connections humanity has with our animal-friends.

This book was not at all what I expected from the description.

I did like that the book/poetry was a collection over centuries of time. I learned a lot from blurbs that Duncan wrote about the authors that preempted the poems. In more recent years, the blurbs from the writers themselves were enjoyable.

I never knew how much hatred there was towards dogs, so as a dog lover it was a little heavy. As we got closer in time to the current century, I think I enjoyed the poetry more, but I wouldn’t say that any one poem really stood out to me.

I’m not someone who DNF a book but I learned in this book that I DNF all poems. Some were just so boring or in such old time language that I didn’t care and moved on to the next. Maybe for someone who loves classics and Shakespeare this is more their style but it’s not for me.

I would’ve loved some modern and more dog loving poems! I understand that the history isn’t of that nature entirely but I would’ve liked to get a little further. (It’s sort of like how in school we learned up to about WW2 and then never got much further into any history that we or our parents may have actually lived through and can relate to more.)

Maybe this sounds harsh, but the only really great thing about this book to me is that fees or royalties from the book will be shared with the ASPCA and the American Fox Terrier Rescue.

This is a book of selected poetry about man's best friend. The poems are from various time periods through history. It was interesting to see how far back the poems went, and that dogs have always had a significant impact on humans.

It wasn't necessarily what I was expecting it to be, but I enjoyed it for wat it was. If you have an interest in dogs and/or poetry, you might like this one!


Thank you to Duncan Wu, Basic Books, and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is not exactly what I was expecting but I still enjoyed it as both a dog lover and a dog owner. I honestly enjoyed the intro and bits of history and info more than the poems but that is just my own personal feelings. I really enjoyed seeing how far back our love for dogs goes. I would say if you love dogs, history, or poetry this is the book for you.

The premise is very interesting and intriguing, but sadly, this isn't what I expected from this book. I liked the introduction more than most of the entries. I'm disappointed and a bit sad because I wanted to like this book a lot.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc of this book. My opinions are my own.

I was expecting a nice little book with sweet little poems on the loyal, funny and endearing creatures that are dogs. This book, however, is not that. My mistake - I just didn't read the description of this book well enough. I just read the word 'dog' and that made me pick up this book :)
This book is a collection of poems through the ages, starting with the ancient Greeks all the way to more recent poets.

While there are a lot of beautiful poems in this book out of different time periods, what I missed was more emotion. I missed the link between the different poems and between the different times. It could have been more than just a collection of poems, but to me, it wasn't.

A very well researched collection of poems about mans best friend.

My first book of this type, and wasn’t disappointed.

I was able to read an advanced copy thanks to the website NetGalley

I wasn’t too sure on this book, it wasn’t really what I was expecting. It contained a lot of older poems and I think I would have liked a few more modern poems included. There was also a lot of information about the poets which I wasn’t really interested in. There were some lovely poems in but I just expected something a bit different. I would give this book 2.5 stars.

This book has an interesting premise, but fails to fully identity itself for what it is.

Dog-eared is a poetry compilation with the center focus being dogs. That is completely fine and generally, enjoyable. However, this book goes through a few tonal shifts that make it hard to say that it is a must-read or must-have. The introduction spends a lot of time engaging in academic discussion about the poems it will include. It talks about and quotes a couple of the included poems in a bit more depth. On some of the poems there is commentary on what the authors may have intended, or tidbits of what they thought about animals. Other times, there isn't anything additional added at all.

This book is organized chronologically, so the first few poems are excerpts from longer works. These poems are often accompanied by a little bit of commentary. Sometimes it is enlightenting and sometimes it feels kind of forced. This was probably my least favorite section, because some of these poems are also the most accessible and are included as excerpts. I am not a fan of excerpts, because I'd rather just read the entire work to see the full context. I understand many people like to just have relevant bits or won't take the time to read the entire thing, but that's my preference. Reading an excerpt with very little context makes me feel like I've been dropped in the middle of nowhere without a map.

Now, as a person who did study English & American Literature academically, as well as poetry (within English and creative writing), I genuinely see what the author was trying to do and I appreciate it. However, I don't feel like the execution was done that well. I like the effort, I like the concept, and I wish that this had been a stronger volume. At times this volume felt like it wanted to be an academic dive into canine poetry. At other times it felt like a poetry survey presentation done by a new undergraduate student, that falls flat. It has all the research, material, and beginning insight to be worth paying attention to, but it fails to really provide a solid thesis statement or consistent product. When I think of poetry and literature anthologies, I think of collections of work that I just HAVE to have, because they combine things I need or love, in an effective way or they are needed in order to complete an assignment for a course. Some anthologies you buy just to have the works, some you buy for the insights they provide, and some you buy because you're basically forced to. I have an anthology of short fiction that just gives quick author bios and then has the story or stories included for them. I also have a Norton anthology of Shakespeare that provides more commentary and historical context before each play. Both anthologies serve different purposes, but are highly effective. This anthology of poetry doesn't feel like either, and doesn't feel necessary. It feels like somebody said "I like dogs! Do you like dogs? Look at all these poems I found that include the word dog or that talk about dogs in them!" It is also too academic in tone at times to really be an anthology that an average person would buy just for fun. It doesn't always feel entertaining and it doesn't always feel informative. It teeters back and forth.

As far as consistency, some of the authors get more bios than others, some works are excerpted and mentioned, but not fully included. The bios and commentary are inconsistent in style and presentation, which is what really bothered me. If there was more attention to this aspect of the book, I think I would have enjoyed it better. Also, there is inclusion of what some poets thoughts were on dogs, dogs they owned, or things that they were against (ex: vivisections). These were really insightful inclusions, but I would really like to know where this information comes from. What are the sources? Some excerpts from letters expressing such details are included, but there is no bibliography showing where these views and stances come from. This is why I say that this book does not appear to know what it wants to be. There is some analysis at times. There is no analysis at others. There is some background info for authors at times. There is no background info at others. There are permission citations provided for necessary works. There are no citations for some of the other information that would appear to need citation. This just reads of inconsistency and I feel like if I produced a work similar to this for an in-class presentation, my professors would have some major critiques for not having been consistent, not providing proper citations, and for failing to polish the end product to make it effectively presentable.

The only other thing that really bothered me, was the intensive discussion of poems within the introduction. This was because once I actually got to some of the poems, the additional paragraph seemed to say the exact same thing as the intro and by included quotes from the poems, I felt like I was re-reading a poem that was already done. It felt repetitious, even though I know that I didn't actually read the full thing to begin with. This made it very hard for me to focus as I was reading and it led me to be confused momentarily and pause. I had to think, "didn't I read this already? Wait, which poem about Tray was discussed? Are there multiple dogs named Tray and it's all bleeding over? Or is it only one and I'm remembering it from the Introduction?" That was rather jarring.

Academic criticism aside, I thought this was a good compilation. I liked the range of poems over time and how thoughts on dogs appeared to largely remain the same, even though the poetry style and diction changed per major era. I liked the chronological progression and I love the subject matter. My only suggestion would be to clean up the inconsistency with a few quick edits, trim up the introduction, and add citations to additional biographical information since an academic tone is taken very early on. This is a great concept with a lack luster execution, that has the potential to be a great volume. I'm not going to run out and buy it, but if I ever decided to do some research on portrayal of animals over time, I might locate a copy to use as a directory of sorts. That's moreso what this book feels like. A directory of canine poetry, or a sampler of sorts.

In the Introduction to this collection, Duncan Wu says Understanding dogs as they really are is crucial to our understanding of ourselves; after all, what else are we looking at, when we reflect on our relations with dogs? and shortly after, in discussing Byron, whose ’purest relationships…were with animals, especially dogs…The important point for Byron is that dogs are better than humans. They love where humans merely lust; they are faithful where humans are capable only of betrayal.’ This idea, where ’dogs are better than people – angels with four furry legs and a tail – goes back to at least the seventeenth century’

By the second poem in this collection, MARTIAL (MARCUS VALERIUS MARTIALIS) was written between AD 38/41 and ca. 104, the ‘tone’ has added another … perspective, and some humour.

Epigram 1.83
'Your cute little pup licks your face and lips;
Oh what a surprise! – he loves to eat shit.'

By the late 1500’s, playwright John Heywood writes, in Of Loving a Dog the first instance of the phrase “Love me, love my dog,”

'Love me, love my dog: by love to agree,
I love thy dog as well as I love thee.'

In a poem by William Cowper, On a Spaniel Called Beau, Killing a Young bird which begins with a chastising of the dog for killing a bird, the ‘owner’s’ ending stanza –
''My dog, what remedy remains
Since, teach you all I can,
I see you, after all my pains,
So much resemble man.''

Beau’s Reply

'Sir, when I flew to seize the bird
In spite of your command,
A louder voice than yours I heard
And harder to withstand.'

'You cried, “Forbear!,“ but in my breast
A mightier cried “Proceed!”
‘Twas Nature, sir, whose strong behest
Impelled me to the deed.'

And ending with:

'If killing birds be such a crime
(Which I can hardly see),
What think you, sir, of killing Time
With verse addressed to me?'

As the years pass, poetry addressing animal rights becomes de rigeur, and this topic begins to show up in poetry and writing, including Charles Baudelaire – who generally preferred cats. And some poems even ended up on dog collars. Victor Hugo wrote a couplet for his dog's collar, Sénat, which read:

'I wish that someone would take me home.
Profession: dog. Master: Hugo. Name Sénat'

Many of these I’d read previously, such as Emily Dickinson’s ’They say that “time assuages”’ and ’By the Sea. Thomas Hardy’s ’”Ah, Are You Digging on my Grave?,”’ Kipling’s ”Four-Feet” as well as Robert Frost’s ”The Span of Life”

'The old dog barks backward without getting up.
I can remember when he was a pup.'

For those who love poetry and dogs, and find the thought of life without either unbearable, this might be a must read.

Of Note:
The Fox Terrier Network of North America, along with the ASPCA, will benefit from sales of this book.

Pub Date: 27 Oct 2020

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Perseus Books, Basic Books / Basic Books