Striven, the Bright Treatise
Striven, the Bright Treatise

Author: Jeffrey Pethybridge

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781934819296

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Poetry. "'Against Suicide' is the title of one sequence in STRIVEN, THE BRIGHT TREATISE but could just as easily stand for the whole. A lyric manifesto, by turns probing and furious, STRIVEN, THE BRIGHT TREATISE enlarges upon the poet's brother's death in 2007. 'Can you psalm / this limit-work, ' Pethybridge asks, echoing Zukofsky; the limit of such work-in-language, such unpronounceable grief, is, ultimately, a Nessus-garment of a text, 'a shirt of beautiful / noise.'" G. C. Waldrep "In his cunningly evolving repetitions, in his provocative use of constraints, and in his adaptations of great works (from Dante's to David Bowie's), Pethybridge's STRIVEN, THE BRIGHT TREATISE exemplifies every element of Theodor Adorno's assertion that the unresolved antagonisms of reality reappear in art in the guise of immanent problems of artistic form. Pethybridge reveals a complex of eroding societal values and human failings as he navigates the impossibility of coming to terms with his brother's suicide. But, even as he reveals, he uses his formal range to query the vanity of trusting any lyric as a device capable of conveying the enormity of revelation that suicide engenders. Each formal design strives to bring to light more of the irresolvable elements that constitute this crisis of loss, though the poems are, in fact, testament to the possibility of shedding the brightest light on the motivations activating the agency of such striving. It is not a book bent upon understanding, and certainly not condoning, the choice of suicide though Pethybridge unearths many of the societal and personal antecedents of such a choice. Rather it is a text that formally explores every interstice of the zone between the irretrievable past and ongoing present, which the grammatical form of the word 'striven' suggests (past participle, used in the perfect tenses). This is a poetry that helps us to perceive that interminable bridge between past and present in all of its terrible normalcy, a bridge that carries us to the core of our human condition." Rusty Morrison "Sleeplessness and boundless sleep. These two poles constrain Jeffrey Pethybridge's STRIVEN, THE BRIGHT TREATISE. Rather, these are two obvious limits within which the book is made. Pethybridge is a formalist of the best sort, wracked into song by relentless reconsideration of the impossible situation any limit presents in itself: stretched between his bonds and singing in 'middle living.' This study in fraternal grief is also an anatomy of the process whereby we bear directly into pain, not that we 'lose the name of action, ' as Hamlet would have it, but as the only way to act and effectively to live out 'the haul of days.'" Aaron McCollough"

Bard, Kinetic
Bard, Kinetic

Author: Anne Waldman

Publisher: Coffee House Press

Published: 2023-01-17

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1566896703

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The expansive, countercultural, and wildly prolific life of celebrated poet Anne Waldman, in her own words. In Bard, Kinetic, Anne Waldman assembles a multifaceted portrait of her life and praxis as a groundbreaking poet. Waldman charts her journey through a maelstrom of radical artistic activity: growing up in Greenwich Village, creative partnership with Allen Ginsberg, touring with Bob Dylan, and founding the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church and later, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. She discusses the philosophies that guide her as a writer, activist, performer, instigator, and Buddhist practitioner, and pays homage to friends and collaborators including Amiri Baraka, Lou Reed, John Ashbery, Kathy Acker, and Diane di Prima. Waldman’s experiences serve as a guide for others committed to making the world a conscious and conscientious place that soars with the discourse and activism of poetry and poethics.

The Book of Rules of Tyconius
The Book of Rules of Tyconius

Author: Pamela Bright

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2016-09-15

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0268076251

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The Liber Regularum, written by Tyconius in the Fourth Century A.D., was the first system of biblical interpretation proposed by a Latin theologian. Augustine was very interested in this work and included an extraordinary summation of it in his De doctrina christiana. Although this treatment insured the preservation of the work and its lasting fame, Augustine's summary became better known than the original. Pamela Bright's The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its Purpose and Inner Logic reintroduces this neglected classic of early church literature. Bright asserts that although Augustine was greatly influenced by the Liber Regularum, his philosophical differences caused him to misunderstand its meaning. Bright reexamines the meaning of “prophecy” and “rule” from Tyconius's perspective and reveals that the purpose of the book was not to provide a general guide to scriptural interpretation, but rather a way to interpret apocalyptic texts. She cites Tyconius's intense concern with evil in the church as the genesis of his interest in the apocalypse and subsequently the meaning of the scripture concerning it. Tyconius speaks of the “seven mystical rules” of scripture that with the grace of the Holy Spirit reveal the true meaning of prophecy. If an interpreter follows the “logic” of these rules, the nature of the church as composed by both good and evil membership is revealed. Bright argues that Tyconius was not illogical or incompetent in the work's composition as many critics have claimed but rather that he organized his material in a concentric pattern so that Rule Four, the center of the seven rules, is also the central development of his theory. Of interest to theologians, students of biblical interpretation and of Augustine, The Book of Rules of Tyconius focuses attention upon a work that had great influence on the understanding of the nature of the church, on interpreting scripture, and its meaning for the Church of its day.