Scottish poet and novelist, John Marshall, was born in Glasgow. He wrote his first poem when he was only 9. He is devoted to his family of five daughters. Despite having to manage a long-standing physical disability, he puts aside some time to write nearly every day. A selection of his observations and experiences are poignantly expressed in the poems in this book.
Cover: The only flag that counted in the life of my father Patrick John Dunleavy was the American flag with its forty eight stars. The flag with the harp is not the British one under which my father may have grown up. Rather it is a flag design used at different times to express Irish nationalism. It was created in the United States by a group of Irish volunteers who joined the Mexican side in the U.S.-Mexican war from 1846 to 1848 as the Los San Patricios or Saint Patricks Battalion. The motto Erin Go Bragh underneath the harp means Ireland Forever. The current Irish tricolor flag was flown in the Easter Rising in 1916 and officially adopted in 1919 by the Republic during its War of Independence. Photographed by Niall Mackey, the flags are a framed gift from Nora Geraghty, purchased during a Harris Auction sale in Delgany, County Wicklow, Ireland, in the 1960s. Nora thought it belonged in my home nearby, Carriglea, in Greystones, County Wicklow, Ireland.
Nominee for National Book Critics Circle Award, this volume contains many delights and some long poems. There is a European feel about Hecht's verse that is striking, partly due to the richness of the classical allusions, and partly due to the way Hecht handles autobiography. Poetry in the 20th century is very much shaped by the individualism of our times, but poetry that is in essence confessional, eccentric, and overly particularized quickly becomes tiresome. Hecht often avoids this pitfall by realizing his own insight through cultural rather than personal metaphor, and this allows his words and imagery to remain fresh and resonant. ISBN 0-394-58506-2: $18.95.
The great merit of this textbook resides in its sensitivity to the problems of the intermediate student, for whom Catullus will represent a first exposure to 'real Latin.'...Overall, this is a very responsible textbook....
Tracing the days of the writer edging into middle age, the 888 poems presented in volume four of The Complete Poems of Louis Daniel Brodsky offer a glimpse into the frenzied life of a man compelled, by his discipline and inner passion, to capture the elements of his existence and explode them upon the page ... Startlingly honest and bristling with the energy of Brodsky's discontent, this book records the poet gaining momentum, as a writer, even as his personal life spirals out of control. --Time Being Books.
Mexican Ballads, Chicano Poems combines literary theory with the personal engagement of a prominent Chicano scholar. Recalling his experiences as a student in Texas, José Limón examines the politically motivated Chicano poetry of the 60s and 70s. He bases his analyses on Harold Bloom's theories of literary influence but takes Bloom into the socio-political realm. Limón shows how Chicano poetry is nourished by the oral tradition of the Mexican corrido, or master ballad, which was a vital part of artistic and political life along the Mexican-U.S. border from 1890 to 1930. Limón's use of Bloom, as well as of Marxist critics Raymond Williams and Fredric Jameson, brings Chicano literature into the arena of contemporary literary theory. By focusing on an important but little-studied poetic tradition, his book challenges our ideas of the American canon and extends the reach of Hispanists and folklorists as well.
Coping and Hoping pretty well sums up what Ed Keelen has been through over the past several years. His friends call him “Miracle Man” for the number of times he has escaped the clutches of death and has come back to life. Even though he came back to a life of pain and suffering, to him it was a life well worth living. Ed's mantra is “to see the preciousness of life and the goodness of God through the lens of pain and suffering.” For quite a while, he was looking through the wrong end of the lens and would complain and show anger toward God and his friends. But through a process of reading the Psalms of Lament and then developing his own talent for writing similar poetry, he gradually went from despair to hope. Ed is not a trained or seasoned poet. Instead, he writes from the heart, and his poems engulf the reader in the emotional roller coaster that constitutes his life.
The present study uncovers the psychical stakes and dramas involved in Redgrove's practice, and in turn relates these stakes and dramas to the marked element of cultural critique to be found in Redgrove's nonfiction, but which is virtually absent from the poems."--BOOK JACKET.
