Poems

Thomas Howard, writing about this book in a review, remarked, "This is the best - the glorious best - of Lewis." I wouldn't go quite that far in my praise of this book, but it does indeed have a number of poems that speak to the heart. Lewis's technique is outstanding, but technique does not guarantee great poetry, and some of Lewis's poems soar loftily while others fall flat. Most poems are short enough to fit on one or two pages, making this book a nice item to dabble in for a few minutes at lunch, before bedtime, or just lounging around the house. Some of my favorites were his Narnia Suite (a "March for Strings, Kettledrums, and Sixty-three dwarfs"!), Evolutionary Hymn (a satire that will make you chuckle), Love's As Warm As Tears (that I found moving), and The Apologist's Evening Prayer (a candid plea for mercy from someone who regularly spoke on God's behalf). If you already enjoy reading C.S. Lewis, then buy this book. If you haven't read anything by Lewis, you might want to start some place else (like The Chronicles of Narnia, The Weight of Glory, or God in the Dock) before turning to his poetry.

...this is on it! I have read and re-read this thing, and will continue to do so! My usual reaction to reading anything that Lewis committed to paper is something like... "Now there's something worth remembering for the rest of my life." His poems are no exception.
This compilation is superb in that it spans all of the short verse that Lewis wrote from the age of sixteen until his death at age sixty-five.
He was profoundly disillusioned with the direction of the "modern" poetry of his day. He lamented the incoherence and lack of structure that was taking place (his poem "A Confession" addresses these feelings), and he greatly favored a return to a metrically disciplined, rhyming style.
That's what we get here in Lewis's Poems. Over one hundred lightning flashes bursting with intelligent layers of meaning, yet remaining accessible to the average reader. These poems are healthy, they embrace life, they respect death, they exalt nature, they are wide-eyed at night and squinting at the brilliance of noonday. Using subject matter as diverse as salamanders to meteorites, these poems impart truth because they come from the mind of someone who believed in objective truth. As he said, "Great subjects do not make great poems; usually, indeed, the reverse."
And elsewhere "'Look in thy heart and write' is good counsel for poets; but when a poet looks in his heart he finds many things there besides the actual. That is why, and how, he is a poet."
If I started listing my personal favorites I'd exceed amazon's 1,000 word limit! Suffice it to say that perhaps the greatest thing about Lewis's Poems is that once you've read them you're left with a sense that the author thinks highly of the reader!
"It seems to me appropriate, almost inevitable, that when that great Imagination which in the beginning, for Its own delight and for the delight of men and angels and (in their proper mode) of beasts, had invented and formed the whole world of Nature, submitted to express Itself in human speech, that speech should sometimes be poetry. For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible."
- from Lewis's "Reflections On The Psalms" -
What makes Lewis so great?
Well, for starters... he thinks that words like Imagination, Nature, and Itself, are proper nouns that deserve capitals!

I was dissapointed by Lewis' poems. true, their range was one of the largest i've seen (from sci-fi to christian poems), but most were dull and just didn't live up to his reputation. i'd say stick with his fiction like the chronicles of narnia and the dark tower and other stories

Lewis is better known for his philosophical/theological writings and his fiction, but his poems are adequate and, at times, beautiful.