Tuesday, August 12, 2003
FALL 2003 TITLES
Marsh Hawk Press is delighted to welcome three new poets!
Now available on the Marsh Hawk Press web site are information on our upcoming Fall 2003 titles:
Sharp Golden Thorn by Chard deNiord
This is a work of spiritual intelligence, rueful, loving, ecstatic: an everyman sings here of God, lover, nature, all one and shapeshifting, and sings at times with the simple beauty of the best southwestern country music.
--Jean Valentine
"[It is] a brilliant first collection of poems. The language is everywhere fresh and bright, the words themselves like pebbles in a clear brook. The poet himself comes wonderfully to life in a voice with deep spiritual resonance."
--Jay Parini
House and Home by Rochelle Ratner
"Personal and religious encounters provide the raw material ... And the poems, which evoke Jewish ritual and communal life, are remarkable for their simplicity, clarity and depth of feeling. They are not so much ``about'' religious experience as they are moments of it…. The poems are declared imitations, representations, and as such gain their power from their exactness of observation and from the poet's use of language as a mimetic tool"
--Publishers Weekly
Mirage: a poem in 22 sections by Basil King
"A fine book—important on painting"
--Amiri Baraka
On Warp Spasm: “How to describe Basil King's life's work? Poetry? Fiction? History? Autobiography? And what of the intersections with his fascinating drawings? 'Warp Spasm' continues this unprejudiced investigation -- a weave of signs in a field, ever flexing to accommodate observations drawn from many times, voices & lives variously lived. In an era of rabid imperialism & cultural banality, this is the work of a man whose appetite for the fabulous life of the arts remains ablaze.”
--Michael Hrebeniak, editor Radical Poetics, U.K.
*****
Sample poems are featured for each of the three poets, including this:
From Mirage by Basil King:
I've
cried
for
my
mother's
venue
I‘ve
done
too
much
alone
it
couldn't
be
helped
it’s
a
loss
it's
one
of
my
short
stories
it's
my
autobiography
that's
on
going
I was hitch-hiking and I saw three large diamonds. Three faces were producing a wall that blocked the road. I could not go through or around. I did not want to turn back. I remembered the diamonds were sisters, and later I painted them. I also painted a large egg. The egg contained Dante's Beatrice. She was fully clothed and full-grown. Her lips were moist; she had already said, "My name is Beatrice and I am loved." I saw this egg enlarge itself until it dwarfed me. I know it wasn't there. I know it was. Oh road-maker, my name, my name, my autobiography dogs my view. These obstacles, these highway obstacles, keep me connected. They say STOP - GO - PASS -. They are my guardians. They solicit my questions. I don't have much feeling for the land, never did. I always felt more comfortable in the city. Store bought vegetables. Store-bought clothes. But the road is a long line. I went to its air and I strode its floor. Road-maker, my totem is relieved. There is so little color left that we no longer have impressions. Where there is no language, there can be no law.
Marsh Hawk Press is delighted to welcome three new poets!
Now available on the Marsh Hawk Press web site are information on our upcoming Fall 2003 titles:
Sharp Golden Thorn by Chard deNiord
This is a work of spiritual intelligence, rueful, loving, ecstatic: an everyman sings here of God, lover, nature, all one and shapeshifting, and sings at times with the simple beauty of the best southwestern country music.
--Jean Valentine
"[It is] a brilliant first collection of poems. The language is everywhere fresh and bright, the words themselves like pebbles in a clear brook. The poet himself comes wonderfully to life in a voice with deep spiritual resonance."
--Jay Parini
House and Home by Rochelle Ratner
"Personal and religious encounters provide the raw material ... And the poems, which evoke Jewish ritual and communal life, are remarkable for their simplicity, clarity and depth of feeling. They are not so much ``about'' religious experience as they are moments of it…. The poems are declared imitations, representations, and as such gain their power from their exactness of observation and from the poet's use of language as a mimetic tool"
--Publishers Weekly
Mirage: a poem in 22 sections by Basil King
"A fine book—important on painting"
--Amiri Baraka
On Warp Spasm: “How to describe Basil King's life's work? Poetry? Fiction? History? Autobiography? And what of the intersections with his fascinating drawings? 'Warp Spasm' continues this unprejudiced investigation -- a weave of signs in a field, ever flexing to accommodate observations drawn from many times, voices & lives variously lived. In an era of rabid imperialism & cultural banality, this is the work of a man whose appetite for the fabulous life of the arts remains ablaze.”
--Michael Hrebeniak, editor Radical Poetics, U.K.
*****
Sample poems are featured for each of the three poets, including this:
From Mirage by Basil King:
I've
cried
for
my
mother's
venue
I‘ve
done
too
much
alone
it
couldn't
be
helped
it’s
a
loss
it's
one
of
my
short
stories
it's
my
autobiography
that's
on
going
I was hitch-hiking and I saw three large diamonds. Three faces were producing a wall that blocked the road. I could not go through or around. I did not want to turn back. I remembered the diamonds were sisters, and later I painted them. I also painted a large egg. The egg contained Dante's Beatrice. She was fully clothed and full-grown. Her lips were moist; she had already said, "My name is Beatrice and I am loved." I saw this egg enlarge itself until it dwarfed me. I know it wasn't there. I know it was. Oh road-maker, my name, my name, my autobiography dogs my view. These obstacles, these highway obstacles, keep me connected. They say STOP - GO - PASS -. They are my guardians. They solicit my questions. I don't have much feeling for the land, never did. I always felt more comfortable in the city. Store bought vegetables. Store-bought clothes. But the road is a long line. I went to its air and I strode its floor. Road-maker, my totem is relieved. There is so little color left that we no longer have impressions. Where there is no language, there can be no law.
Friday, August 08, 2003
BASIL KING'S PAINTINGS
Some of you may be interested in the latest addition to Marsh Hawk Press's web site's Graphics Preview Gallery: what will be the cover to Basil King's forthcoming book, Mirage (November 2003). It's a timely reminder to note that several of Basil's paintings are reproduced on site for your viewing pleasure.
Some of you may be interested in the latest addition to Marsh Hawk Press's web site's Graphics Preview Gallery: what will be the cover to Basil King's forthcoming book, Mirage (November 2003). It's a timely reminder to note that several of Basil's paintings are reproduced on site for your viewing pleasure.
Friday, August 01, 2003
GHAZAL BY HARRIET ZINNES
Ghazals were a hot topic recently on the SUNY Buffalo Poetics Listserve. Several poets shared their versions, and Harriet Zinnes' poem, featured in her collection DRAWING ON THE WALL, received well-deserved praise. Here it is from her book which was named a "notable book of the year" by the National Book Critics Circle:
Ghazal
The lover holds the letter in the palm of his hand.
Unread it flutters as it wilts in his hand.
There are oceans to cross but the harbor is sealed.
Why not, she said, pick the shells from my hand?
Bejeweled the queen makes a tragic false start.
Her consort, resigned, plays the card in his hand.
It is bewitched the child cries out to her nanny,
Who laughs as the parrot eats from her hand.
There are eels, a dead whale, a voice in the sand.
Will Poe kiss the unringed, quivering ghostlike hand?
The waves are high and the hawk in the air
Spreads his wings in the sky as the crow flees his hand.
She is cold in her bed and the butler with tea
Wavers once, wavers twice, spills the tea on her hand.
It is the story of the rose. How many bouquets?
The tide slaps the oozing sand. Unmanned, he slaps her hand.
Ghazals were a hot topic recently on the SUNY Buffalo Poetics Listserve. Several poets shared their versions, and Harriet Zinnes' poem, featured in her collection DRAWING ON THE WALL, received well-deserved praise. Here it is from her book which was named a "notable book of the year" by the National Book Critics Circle:
Ghazal
The lover holds the letter in the palm of his hand.
Unread it flutters as it wilts in his hand.
There are oceans to cross but the harbor is sealed.
Why not, she said, pick the shells from my hand?
Bejeweled the queen makes a tragic false start.
Her consort, resigned, plays the card in his hand.
It is bewitched the child cries out to her nanny,
Who laughs as the parrot eats from her hand.
There are eels, a dead whale, a voice in the sand.
Will Poe kiss the unringed, quivering ghostlike hand?
The waves are high and the hawk in the air
Spreads his wings in the sky as the crow flees his hand.
She is cold in her bed and the butler with tea
Wavers once, wavers twice, spills the tea on her hand.
It is the story of the rose. How many bouquets?
The tide slaps the oozing sand. Unmanned, he slaps her hand.
