Poems are a window to your soul. They are a checkpoint to see if you have any senses left. This book completes the trilogy and the rest is history. During the course of 2008 and 2009, cycles of change were all about. I examined the past, present and future and I believe I have created a new stir. Time and space, love and gravity converged and this book of poems emerged. Enjoy.
Every journey starts with a first step, a second step and sometimes followed by a lot of prep. Hopefully this leads to a third step and many future accomplishments. Our lives have many cycles; right, wrong or indifferent, these poems categorize them into hills, ravines, ditches and mountains. Your first mountain starts at conception and generally takes a breaking point after high school or some form of higher education or armed services. Your second mountain typically lasts the longest. It consists of those working years and can span until your retirement. Marriage, house hunting and children sometimes get entwined into those productive years. Somewhere around 50 years old, sometimes later, one starts to navigate up the third mountain. Your most productive years are behind you and you ponder how do I make a difference when the dash is over on this sphere.
The story about Johnny North, a high school senior from Anchorage, Alaska and the vicissitudes that have been special delivered from the 98.6% parallel Oh Henry galaxy. The Dang family of Pennsylvania discovers Johnny in their barn and reveals to him that serendipity is alive and well on Planet Three. Various topics of faith, adventure, occupation, relationships and science get sprinkled with relevant music and poetry. To Johnny North, Dang Valley has the mixed-up ingredients of the Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Mr. Ed, Huckleberry Finn and Woodstock shoved into a blender where the only item left spinning is the maelstrom of life. George Dang, the old patriarch in town, helps entwine all the little stories into the big stories of consciousness and existence. Who better than Mark Twain to begin each chapter with an anecdote from the past to enlighten the present. Sometimes it is best to enjoy the ride from the outside and march fourth with twenty-twenty vision.
Collection of 101 poems written over a span of twenty years. Poem Chapters: Heroes, History & Me, Faith, Patterns, Blues & Country, Days of Music, Occupation, Relationships, Nature & Places, Appalachian Trail, The Dark Side, Love, Nonsense. Sample Poems: Godda be Like God, United States of Paradox, Prince of Peace, Cabernet Sauvignon, The Hominoid that Got Lucky, Catoctin to Katahdin, Love is a Four Letter Verb, Mathematical Love, Don't Let my Willie, Why do Men have Nipples? Poetry and music are like Laurel and Hardy, a sharp razor and a hairy back. They can survive on their own but do much better with the other one makin' sure they come back for more. Some people like to smoke cigars in the free lane. I like to smoke and inhale Mark Twain. Everythin' comes down to one, but what is the one, is it the Son or a one-celled paramecium? Could God have created a common duality to test our partiality and unsettled sensuality? Let down your right guard and think about that one real hard.
Collection of another 101 poems written in 2007. Some people live in the material world while others live in the spiritual world. Some people like to mix their drinks with coke and whiskey. I like to mix mine with faith and science. This collection of poemplanations, the convergence of poems with explanations and mixed rice, is my Lithuanian wall banger on ice.
From Simon & Schuster, in its ninth year, The Best American Poetry 1996 is universally acclaimed as the best anthology in the field. The compilation includes a diverse abundance of poems published in 1995 in more than 40 publications ranging from The New Yorker to The Paris Review to Bamboo Ridge.
A vibrant new collection from one of America's most talented young poets Every Riven Thing is Christian Wiman's first collection in seven years, and rarely has a book of poetry so borne the stamp of necessity. Whether in stark, haiku-like descriptions of a cancer ward, surrealistic depictions of a social order coming apart, or fluent, defiant outpourings of praise, Wiman pushes his language and forms until they break open, revealing startling new truths within. The poems are joyful and sorrowful at the same time, abrasive and beautiful, densely physical and credibly mystical. They attest to the human hunger to feel existence, even at its most harrowing, and the power of art to make our most intense experiences not only apprehensible but transfiguring.
The remarkable poem written in Yiddsh by Yitzhak Katzenelson at the time of the Holocaust of the Jews in the second World War (1943), after which the poet and his son were murdered by the nazis. The poem is written in 15 sections, each with 15 quatrains totaling 900 lines. It describes the occupation of Warsaw by the German army and the murder of the Jews, either there or in the concentration camps where they were dispatched. The poem ends with the Jews taking up the gun that symbolizes the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The English translation appears with the original Yiddish text.
#1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal! "A superlative novel . . . masterfully crafted."--The Wall Street Journal Based on "the forgotten tragedy that was six times deadlier than the Titanic."--Time Winter 1945. WWII. Four refugees. Four stories. Each one born of a different homeland; each one hunted, and haunted, by tragedy, lies, war. As thousands desperately flock to the coast in the midst of a Soviet advance, four paths converge, vying for passage aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that promises safety and freedom. But not all promises can be kept . . . This paperback edition includes book club questions and exclusive interviews with Wilhelm Gustloff survivors and experts.
