We have a copy of All Things That Deserve to Perish by Dana Mack to give away!
To win, sign up for our Free Newsletter on the right-hand side of the site and enter via the newsletter. Winner will be chosen by the end of November from subscribers who enter via the newsletter. Good luck!
But then comes this marvellous book where she finally succeeds in pulling us toward her so we may join her in this painful experience. We feel we are with her, those who have suffered the death of a loved one and even those who haven’t yet. With the speaker, and to the extent possible—and risking an assumption—we feel we are with Jenny Qi.
The view is sadly breathtaking and showcases LeMieux’s greatest strength—crafting images that compel us to see the world that she sees.The poet’s uncompromising attitude towards her subject matter is the unifying thread of her poetry. The reader eventually surrenders to the juxtaposition of seemingly mismatched topics and finally comes to appreciate the variety of ways in which LeMieux accomplishes this.
This is a brilliant collection of 110 poems which take us on a meaningful journey as if on a spacecraft, where we sometimes get a rollercoaster ride of negotiating the past with the present, sometimes on a straight ride through scudding clouds where cogitations on the transitory struggle with meditations on the everlasting, sometimes there is a pining for the worldly charms negated by the search for the unknown, the summum bonum.
Musician Mike Mattison and literary historian Ernest Suarez talk about their new book, POETIC SONG VERSE: Blues Based Popular Music and Poetry. They cover such topics as the nature of poetic song verse, the transformative nature of artists like Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Jimi Hendrix, the role of coffee houses in the 50s, and lots more.
For what Wrigley does so well with analyzing his own and others’ poetry, there is also a uniqueness with his ability to switch between poetic analysis and intimate memoir on command. The book as a whole is a highly original composition in that it succeeds in combining close readings of poetry, personal narrative, and poetry by Wrigley himself. All of which are quick to grab readers’ attention with a highly in touch sense of pathos and nostalgia.
One poem stands out as really bringing in many layers, from personal, national and nature. “Origin & Motion, “a top poem in this collection, merges Finnish literary and creation myths, sauna culture, and Finnish food and uses those elements to interpret an aging American mother “a widow, [who] grows old in a hot place.” This mother though far away is felt close: “My mother’s voice cuts through woods like the earth/in dark rye bread.” The poem moves from Finland’s epic poem and piece of national pride, the Kalevala, where “a barren water-mother’s knee is the place/where birds lay eggs.
I would like to congratulate Colleen Keating not only for writing this incredible book but also for honouring a woman from the past which like many other Australian heroines are often forgotten or not given credit for their achievements. Reading about Olive Muriel Pink will inspire you and give you strength to struggle to achieve your aims.
To celebrate the one-year anniversary, we have a set of the full Rivers Trilogy books by Joan Schweighardt to give away. This includes Before We Died, Gifts for the Dead, and River Aria.
To win, sign up for our Free Newsletter on the right-hand side of the site and enter via the newsletter. If you are already a subscriber – just make sure to enter when your newsletter comes. Winner will be chosen by the end of November. Good luck!
Castilian Blues, originally written in the 1960s and unpublished for political reasons until 1982, confronts the reader with the position of Gamoneda’s personal and intimate experience as a worker during the Franco dictatorship. The suffering of the people is the leitmotif of the whole book, revived with literary images that evoke spiritual and musical effects.