Other books that might interest you

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  Plainwater - Essays and Poetry

  Anne Carson

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  The poetry and prose collected in Plainwater are a testament to the extraordinary imagination of Anne Carson, a writer described by Michael Ondaatje as "the most exciting poet writing in English today." Succinct and astonishingly beautiful, these pieces stretch the boundaries of language and literary form, while juxtaposing classical and modern traditions.Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers miniature lectures on topics as varied as orchids and Ovid. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy. She constructs verbal photographs of a series of mysterious towns, and takes us on a pilgrimage in pursuit of the elusive and intimate anthropology of water. Blending the rhythm and vivid metaphor of poetry with the discursive nature of the essay, the writings in Plainwater dazzle us with their invention and enlighten us with their erudition.

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  Oh What a Tangled Web

  Brian Brady

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  After coming across an unexpected discovery in their storage unit, a couple enlists the help of the SFPD's Homicide Bureau to decipher their findings. The case becomes part of the workload for a two-officer team, Inspectors John O'Neill and Liam Donnelly, who follow a broken trail to find the criminal. With the help of Inspector Kathy Sullivan from Vice, the inspectors uncover the recent disappearances of girls in the escort and mail order bride services. The question remains – who is the man behind all this? This novel is an unraveling of twisted events that shakes up the SFPD and the city's justice system, with everyone involved giving it their all to solve this intriguing case.

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  Octaves - Poem from a Pulitzer...

  Edward Arlington Robinson

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  Edwin Arlington Robinson was born on the 22nd December 1869 in Tide in Lincoln County, Maine.  
  His childhood was described by him as ‘stark and unhappy’.  His name was drawn out of a hat from a fellow vacationer from Arlington Massachusetts when fellow holiday makers decided that his parents had waited long enough at 6 months to name him.  It was a name he despised and reflects the station to which his parents had placed him; their great hope at his birth were that he was a girl to complement their two sons. 
  His pessimistic mood carried him to adulthood and a doomed encounter with Emma Loehen Shepherd who constantly encouraged his poetry.  Edwin was thought too young to be her companion and so his elder, middle brother, Herman was assigned to her.  It was a great blow to Edwin and during their marriage on February 12th, 1890, he stayed home and wrote ‘Cortege’ 
  In the fall of 1891 Edwin entered Harvard, taking classes in English, French and Shakespeare.  He felt at ease with the Ivy League and made great efforts to be published in one of the Harvard literary journals.  Indeed, the Harvard Advocate published ‘Ballade of a Ship’ but then his career appeared to stall.  His father died and although he returned to Harvard for a second year it was to be his last but also the start of some life-long friendships. 
  In 1893 he returned to Gardiner Maine as the man of the household.  Herman by this time had become an alcoholic, having suffered business failures, and was now to become estranged from Emma. 
  Edwin began farming whilst he wrote and quickly developed a close relationship with Emma who had now moved back to Gardiner after Herman’s death with her children. 
  Although he proposed twice, he was rejected and in consequence moved to New York to start afresh. 
  But it was a salutary experience. Although surrounded by artists he had little money and life was difficult. 
  In 1896 he published his own book, ‘The Torrent and the Night Before’, paying 100 dollars for 500 copies.  Edwin wanted it to be a surprise for his Mother, but days before its arrival she died of diphtheria. 
  His second volume, ‘The Children of the Night’, had a wider circulation.  At the behest of President Roosevelt, whose son was an avid admirer, he was given a job in 1905 at the New York Customs Office although it appears his real job was “to help American letters”. 
  Either way his success began to widen and his influence proper.  During the 1920s he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on three separate occasions. In 1922 for ‘Collected Poems’ again in 1925 for ‘The Man Who Died Twice’ and finally in 1928 for ‘Tristram’. 
  During the last twenty years of his life he became a regular summer resident at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where he became the object of fascination by several women.  But he never married. 
  Edwin Arlington Robinson died of cancer on the 6th April 1935 in the New York Hospital in New York. He was 65.

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  Tenebrae - A Memoir of Love and...

  Dan Flanigan

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  Tenebrae is the ancient Latin word for darkness—the gradual extinguishment of light, one candle flame at a time. 
    
  In this memoir told in poems, Dan Flanigan follows that gradual dimming through the last illness and death of his wife. Written in free verse and prose poems, Tenebrae moves across the full arc of a long marriage. These poems refuse the familiar consolations. There is no posturing, no preciousness, no self-pity. A dying woman is rendered as fully human—strong, flawed, dignified, unmistakably herself—and the speaker does not cast himself as hero.  
    
  Other poems in the book reflect this same grappling with the fundamental issues of our lives—loss, hope, despair and acceptance, reflecting a compassionate embrace of the human condition. 
     
  If you think you don’t like poetry, Tenebrae may change your mind. 
  These are truly poems for the people—plain but exquisitely crafted and expressed in a language that is both elegant and easy to understand… They reach from the heart to the heart.

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  Hafiz: The Scent of Light

  Daniel Ladinsky, Hafiz

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  In modern-day Persia, the 14th-century poet Hafiz remains the most treasured voice of his homeland—a place where his work outsells Rumi, and even the Koran. Yet only recently have Westerners come to know this wild Sufi mystic's astonishing verses on love and spiritual longing.Now, with Hafiz: The Scent of Light, you will join Daniel Ladinsky—the acclaimed translator of The Gift—to revel in more than 30 of Hafiz' most stirring works. Offered here in the manner that Hafiz composed them, namely spoken or sung spontaneously amid companions and inspired music, each of these exquisite love songs (ghazals) shimmers with a nuance, depth, and passion rarely captured in previous translations. Hafiz once said: "A poet is someone who can pour light into a cup, then raise it to nourish your beautiful parched holy mouth." From his vision of an all-embracing Beloved who sees beyond our religious beliefs to his revelations on the oneness of worldly ecstasy and spiritual awakening, Hafiz continues to pour the light of his poetry forth today. Music composed and performed by Stevin McNamara (sitar and nylon string guitar), with special guest artists and composers Steve Gorn (bansuri flute), Jeffrey Rodgers (tabla, santoor, ethnic drums, percussion), Annette Cantor (vocals), Pandit S.N. Sopori (drupad/khyal/tarana singing), Bhushan Sopori (tabla), and Aurelia Roze (violin). Read by Nataraja Kallio.

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  Song of the Soldiers' Wives

  Thomas Hardy

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  Thomas Hardy is regarded as one of the best English novelists. His novels are heartbreaking, unconventional, sad and lyrical. He also wrote many poems. This is one of the best. This is the weekly poem for the week starting at 5 August 2012. (Summary by Stav Nisser)

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