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  The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer

  Eric Tran

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  In The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer, Eric Tran contends with the aftermath of a close friend’s suicide while he simultaneously explores the complexities of being a gay man of color. Grief opens into unraveling circles of inquiry as Tran reflects on the loss of his friend and of their shared identity as gay Asian American men. Through mourning and acute observations, these poems consider how those who experience marginalization, the poet included, may live and fall victim to tragedy. Tran explores how his life, even while in the company of desire and the pursuit of freedom, is never far from danger. Like grief that makes the whole world seem strange, Tran’s poetry merges into fantasy lands and rides the lines between imagined worlds and the reality of inescapable loss. At the intersection of queerness, loss, and desire, Tran uses current events, such as the Pulse nightclub tragedy, pop culture references, and comic book allusions to create a unique and textured poetry debut. He employs an unexpected pairing of prayer and fantasy allowing readers to imagine a world of queer joy and explore how grief can feel otherworldly. This collection shows a poet learning how to be afraid, to feel lost, to grieve, and to build a life amid precarious circumstances. The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer was the winner of the Autumn House Rising Writers Prize in 2019.

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  Fuente Ovejuna

  Lope de Vega, Adrian Mitchell

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  A cruel conqueror has captured the Spanish city of Fuente Ovejuna. As his reign of terror builds, the townspeople look within themselves to find the courage to overthrow him. The eminent Spanish playwright Lope de Vega based his best-known play on a historical incident that took place in 1476. Written in the early 17th century, the play remains a timely meditation on honor and selflessness in the face of oppression. 
    
   Recorded at the DoubleTree Guest Suites, Santa Monica in June 1993. 
    
   Directed by Robert Robinson 
   Producing Director: Susan Albert Loewenberg 
    
   An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast recording starring: 
   Christine Avila as Laurencia 
   Ivonne Coll as Jacinta and Queen Isabel 
   Héctor Elizondo as Commander Fernándo Gómez de Guzmán 
   Jorge Galván as Mengo 
   Carlos Gómez as Frondoso 
   Peter A. Jacobs as Captain Flores and Master Rodrigo Téllez Girón 
   Marabina Jaimes as Pascuala 
   Jonathan Nichols as Barrildo and Cimbranos 
   Al Rodrigo as Leonelo, King Ferdinand, and Soldier 
   Ruben Sierra as Esteban  
   Sam Vlahos as Sergeant, Alonso, and Alderman  
    
   Associate Producer: Robert Robinson  
   Technical Director: Raymond Guarna  
   Second Engineer: Jim Machowsky  
   Technical Advisor: Leo del Aguila  
   Music Director: Gerald Sternbach  
   Guitar performed by Ricardo Gomez

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  Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey

  Homer Homer

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  "Ah how shameless – the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone they say come all their miseries yes but they themselves with their own reckless ways compound their pains beyond their proper share.” – The OdysseyExperience the stunning Greek poetry of Homer in this collection of his two major works: The Iliad and The Odyssey. These epic poems are beloved for their presentation of Greek history and belief systems, their strong theming and lessons on Greek virtues, and their continued influence on the literary canon.The Iliad –In the final days of the long-fought Trojan War, the Greek gods begin to interfere with the events of the war. When plagues strike the Achaean army, the fierce leader Achilles uses his connections with the gods to further interfere, which begins a series of events that leads to death and destruction on both sides of the war. This dramatic poem is a commentary on human folly and hubris, while also an in-depth explanation of the warfare styles of the time and a representation of the Greek views on the interference of gods in major historical events.The Odyssey –Following the events of The Iliad, Odysseus begins a journey to return to his home of Ithaca after being away for a decade due to angering Poseidon, the god of the sea. After sneaking away from Poseidon, he embarks on a years-long voyage home during which he is captured and circumvented by earthly and godly foes alike. His journey home is slow and full of turmoil and adventure. Themes in this poem include hospitality, predetermined fate and omens, journeying home, and wandering as a test of faith and resilience.

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  The Poetry of Amy Levy -...

  Amy Levy

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  Amy Levy was born in London, England in 1861, the second of seven in a fairly wealthy Anglo-Jewish family. The children read and participated in secular literary activities and became firmly integrated into Victorian life. 
   
  Her education was at Brighton High School, Brighton, before studies at Newnham College, Cambridge; she was the first Jewish student when she arrived in 1879, but left after four terms. 
   
  Amy’s writing career began early; her poem ‘Ida Grey’ appeared when she was only fourteen. Her acclaimed short stories ‘Cohen of Trinity’ and ‘Wise in Their Generation,’ were published by Oscar Wilde in his magazine ‘Women's World’. 
   
  Her poetic writings reveal feminist concerns; ‘Xantippe and Other Verses’, from 1881 includes a poem in the voice of Socrates's wife. ‘A Minor Poet and Other Verse’ from 1884 comprises of dramatic monologues and lyric poems. 
   
  In 1886, Amy began a series of essays on Jewish culture and literature for the Jewish Chronicle, including ‘The Ghetto at Florence’, ‘The Jew in Fiction’, ‘Jewish Humour’ and ‘Jewish Children’. 
   
  That same year while travelling in Florence she met the writer Vernon Lee. It is generally assumed they fell in love and this inspired the poem ‘To Vernon Lee’. 
   
  Her first novel ‘Romance of a Shop’, written in 1888 is based on four sisters who experience the pleasures and hardships of running a London business during the 1880s. This was followed by Reuben Sachs (also 1888) and concerned with Jewish identity and mores in the England of her time and was somewhat controversial. 
  Her final book of poems, ‘A London Plane-Tree’ from 1889, shows the beginnings of the influence of French symbolism. 
   
  Despite many friendships and an active life, Amy suffered for many years with serious depressions and this, together with her growing deafness, led her to commit suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide on September 10th, 1889. She was 27. 
   
  01 - The Poetry of Amy Levy - An Introduction 
  02 - Xantippe (A Fragment) by Amy Levy 
  03 - At Dawn by Amy Levy 
  04 - In the Night by Amy Levy 
  05 - Sonnet by Amy Levy 
  06 - A March Day in London by Amy Levy 
  07 - The First Extra - A Waltz Song by Amy Levy 
  08 - A Game of Lawn Tennis by Amy Levy 
  09 - On the Wye in May by Amy Levy 
  10 - A June Tide Echo by Amy Levy 
  11 - A London Plane Tree by Amy Levy 
  12 - London In July by Amy Levy 
  13 - In the Black Forest by Amy Levy 
  14 - On the Threhold by Amy Levy 
  15 - The Dream by Amy Levy 
  16 - In September by Amy Levy 
  17 - A Dirge by Amy Levy 
  18 - In a Minor Key (An Echo From a Larger Lyre) by Amy Levy 
  19 - The Old House by Amy Levy 
  20 - Out of Town by Amy Levy 
  21 - In the Mile End Road by Amy Levy 
  22 - Ballade of a Special Edition by Amy Levy 
  23 - Ballade of An Omnibus by Amy Levy 
  24 - A Reminisence by Amy Levy 
  25 - To Lallie (Outside the British Museum) by Amy Levy 
  26 - Oh, Is it Love by Amy Levy 
  27 - Philosophy by Amy Levy 
  28 - Contradictions by Amy Levy 
  29 - To Sylvia by Amy Levy 
  30 - A Prayer by Amy Levy 
  31 - The Lost Friend by Amy Levy 
  32 - To A Dead Poet by Amy Levy 
  33 - London Poets by Amy Levy 
  34 - The Old Poet by Amy Levy 
  35 - The Sick Man and the Nightingale by Amy Levy 
  36 - Epitaph (On a Commonplace Person Who Died in Bed) by Amy Levy 
  37 - Run to Death by Amy Levy 
  38 - A Cross Road Epitaph by Amy Levy 
  39 - Twilight by Amy Levy 
  40 - The Two Terrors by Amy Levy 
  41 - Last Words by Amy Levy 
  42 - The Promise of Sleep by Amy Levy 
  43 - A Farewell by Amy Levy 
  44 - A Minor Poet by Amy Levy

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  Ab Khan Din Plays: One (NHB...

  Ab Khan-Din

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  This collection of plays written and introduced by actor-turned-writer Ab Khan Din charts the development of a writer able to turn the tumultuous experience of life in modern Britain into satisfying, humane and often richly comic drama.
  Whether drawing on his own childhood, growing up in an Anglo-Pakistani family in Salford, or on E.R. Braithwaite's account of racial tensions in the East End in To Sir, With Love, he depicts the struggles of individuals to come to terms with their conflicting cultural legacies- and he does so with unerring warmth and compassion.
  East is East (1996) is an irresistible comedy set in multiracial Salford in 1970, where the Khan children are buffeted this way and that by their Pakistani father's insistence on tradition, their English mother's laissez-faire and their own wish to be citizens of the modern world. The film adaptation that followed, with a screenplay by the author, became one of the most successful British films ever made. The version included here is the revised text first performed at the Trafalgar Studios in 2014.
  The short, elegiac play, Notes on Falling Leaves (2004), is an emotionally tender depiction of a young man as he loses his mother to dementia, 'overwhelming in its emotional impact' (Telegraph).
  In All the Way Home (2011), a quarrelsome group of siblings gathers at the family home under the shadow of impending loss. Amidst the cut and thrust of spiky Salford banter, long-harboured resentments rise to the surface and family bonds unravel and unwind.
  To Sir, With Love (2013), based on E.R. Braithwaite's autobiographical novel, is the uplifting story of a talented, idealistic young teacher discovering the reality of life as a black man in Britain after the Second World War as he struggles to find a way to connect with his students at a tough but progressive East End school.

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  The Heresy of Love (NHB Modern...

  Helen Edmundson

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  In the late 1600s, in a convent in Mexico, a gifted and progressive writer finds herself at the centre of a deadly battle of ideas. Celebrated by the Court but silenced by the Church, she is betrayed by the very people she thought she could trust.
  Inspired by the extraordinary life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Helen Edmundson's The Heresy of Love is a powerful drama about a clash between organised religion and personal faith, full of intrigue and danger, ruthless ambitions and illicit desire.
  Premiered by the RSC in 2012, The Heresy of Love was revived in a new production at Shakespeare's Globe, London, in 2015.
  'Superb... an instant classic' - Daily Mail
  'The great quality of Edmundson's play is that it has the sweep, the intrigue, and the bold theatrical effects of the original Spanish Golden Age dramas... an unmistakable winner' - Daily Telegraph
  'A bold and eloquent play that confronts titanic conflicts between church and state, faith and creativity, and male and female power-structures' - Guardian
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