Ephemeral Echoes is an extension of Ali’s passion for poetry: a manifestation of his philosophy and intellectualism. The Twenty Twenty-One Edition is a florilegium of his poetic discourses, which are culminations of his reflections on (the schema of) existence as personifications of Sounds, where the essence of existence is Flux i.e. Flowing-Sounds. The poems relate to various facets of the human condition i.e. illusion, self, emotionality, rationality, dichotomy, subjectivity, objectivity, singularity, multiplicity, et cetera. The anthology is an invitation to everyone to embark upon a reflective odyssey.
If one poet can be said to be the Canadian poet, that poet is Al Purdy (1918–2000). Numerous eminent scholars and writers have attested to this pre-eminent status. George Bowering described him as “the world’s most Canadian poet” (1970), while Sam Solecki titled his book-length study of Purdy The Last Canadian Poet (1999). In The Ivory Thought: Essays on Al Purdy, a group of seventeen scholars, critics, writers, and educators appraise and reappraise Purdy’s contribution to English literature. They explore Purdy’s continuing significance to contemporary writers; the life he dedicated to literature and the persona he crafted; the influences acting on his development as a poet; the ongoing scholarly projects of editing and publishing his writing; particular poems and individual books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction; and the larger themes in his work, such as the Canadian North and the predominant importance of place. In addition, two contemporary poets pay tribute with original poems.
"Carlos de Oliveira published five novels and ten collections of poetry during his lifetime. Usually called a neo-realist, he also shows the influence of symbolism, surrealism and cubism (the writer was also a painter). Although outside of Portugal and Brazil he is best known in France, his work has also appeared in Spain, Italy, Germany, England and the U.S.A. One of his novels Bee in the Rain, was made into a movie." --Book Jacket.
This is the first full-length biography of Sylvia Plath, whose suicide in made her a misinterpreted cause celebre and catapulted her into the ranks of the major confessional voices of her generation.
"Shin Yu Pai is a poet known for her wide-ranging collaborations and creative practice engaged as much in physical space as the page. With its blend of personal essays reflecting on the development of her poetics, Ensō places new work next to old, to create not only a mid-career retrospective, but a guidebook for poets interested in moving their practice off the page and into the world around them. From her early work in place-based and ekphrastic poetry to her current experimentation with installation and projections, Ensō highlights the creative process to her poetry--the identities that resonate for her--and her thoughts on cultural hybridity, exchange and appropriation. She speaks deeply of how motherhood transformed her views of what is possible in poetry, reconnecting to her immigrant mother's creative legacy, and how personal and systematic racism and misogyny have shaped her practice, while inviting the reader into a deeper conversation about how a poet writes with and about their community"--
of Prose Poems is the fourth book of poetry by Saad Ali. It’s the first installment in his anthology of Prose Poems. The poems, on this occasion, are a homage to the most contentious form of the literary art i.e. prose poem. The ekphrases, on this occasion, are inspired by the paintings of a number of renowned classical, modern, postmodern and contemporary painters such as Michelangelo, Munch, Dali, Dix, Chagall, Luzajic, et cetera. The literary critics profess that what differentiates this form of poetry from verse, rhyme, et cetera is its trademark id est absence of line breaks. Of breaks—there are none here in Ali’s poetic discourses either. Of lines—there is a plethora of them here committed to capturing of all manner of events (from most simple to most complex) in human life. The book, inadvertently, is a tribute to Ali’s hallmark apparatuses i.e. contemplation and satire that take on existence and human condition in a rather direct and concrete fashion here; whereby, reflecting on the instances of fear, nostalgia, remorse, redemption, hate, affection, romance, courage et cetera—in both subjective and objective manner. Besides being a tribute to one of the profoundest human inventions i.e. language (and its subsequent facilitations such as literature, et cetera), this florilegium also is an invitation to all (human beings) for an individual and collective reflection on existence and human condition(s)—in both subjective and objective manner.
Much of the previous scholarship on Taiwanese modernist poetry easily falls into ideological arguments. This book participates in the development of an alternative approach to understanding Taiwanese modernist poetry. Dr. Au’s approach emphasizes the diversity and intensity of experiences of place and placelessness in the work of five poets: Lomen, Luo Fu, Rong Zi, Yu Guangzhong and Zheng Chouyu. The phenomenon of placelessness is a problem in all modernity and so modern aesthetics is an outgrowth of modern society’s sense of placelessness. This book not only shows how place becomes placelessness but also analyses Taiwanese modernist poets’ responses to the phenomenon of placelessness. Four kinds of places are examined, namely, the house, the city, homeland and an imagined literary community, in this work. The result is both refreshing and original.
Shostakovich and Asia – this unique combination of two highly dissimilar composers allows us to explore the breadth of influence of traditional Jewish culture on Western classical music in the 20th century and beyond. These two composers speak in different musical languages and have very different personalities. Shostakovich, a 20th century Russian composer living under totalitarian Soviet rule, and Asia, a contemporary Jewish-American composer, are nevertheless connected through time by the common thread of Jewish music. The first part of this book deals with Shostakovich and his incorporation of traditional Jewish elements in his music. In recent times there has been a great deal of controversy concerning Shostakovich’s “dissident” outlook and his critical attitude towards the Soviet regime. The contributors to this volume, however, have chosen to focus on the more humane qualities of Shostakovich’s personality, his honesty and courage, which enabled him in difficult times to express through his works Jewish torment and suffering under both the Soviet and Nazi regimes. The second part of this book is dedicated to the music of Daniel Asia and to his philosophical and religious identification with Judaism. Of particular importance is the composer’s opening article, a valuable testament to the religious and aesthetic beliefs that inspired him to create his most significant symphonic work, the Fifth Symphony, Of Songs and Psalms.
