Say Nothing: Poems of Jalal al-Din Rumi in Persian and English (Hardcover) Review

This small, handsome, bilingual volume of inspired verse by a Sufi icon and a giant of Persian literature, Muhammad Jalal al-Din Balkhi (known in the West as "Rumi" and in the East as "Maulana") is an excellent introduction to the poet and his poetry, written specifically for the 2007 celebration of the 800th anniversary of his birth and, generally, for the growing contemporary Western interest in Eastern literature.

Rumi's "Divan-e Kabir" ("Works") fills 10 volumes, while this book provides just an introductory selection of 44 poems/620 lines including rubaiyat (quatrains) and ghazals (longer poems of from 5 to 15 couplets) which alternate here.Skilled English translations and the clear, amply-spaced Farsi script of the original poems appear on facing pages.These bilingual page-spreads provide aesthetic, authentic, inspiring and useful texts for both English-speaking students of Persian literature and/or Farsi language and for Farsi-speaking students of poetry or English language.

Most readers will be interested in the poetry itself for its radically spiritual Sufi themes that contrast with the radical materialism of contemporary Western life.Rather than give commentary here, and in keeping with Rumi's emphasis on direct experience, I urge readers to buy or borrow the book and read it through or dip into it again and again to share Rumi's inspired quest for "something beyond your grasp,/ the wisdom beyond definition,/ hidden in the hearts of men of God."Poems are listed on the Contents pages by their opening lines:"Love is my only companion...," "Let Love, the Water of Life, flow in my veins...," "If you long to be purified...," "Seek the art of loosening knots...," "All that pure ruby wine...," "If a tree could move...," "We are from above...," "I am your friend...," etcetera.The end-of-couplet refrain, "Say nothing," in "I'm a slave of the Moon" on page 55 provides the title of the entire volume.

The front matter includes a useful 5-page commentary by a Sufi scholar at Boston College, the translator's 11-page discussion of her work of linguistic transposition, and a 14-page introduction to the lives of Rumi and his soul-mate in their search for transcendence, Shams of Tabriz. Back matter includes 24 pages of illuminating Notes for the poems, a bibliography of 15 "Suggestions for Further Reading," and a list of Primary Persian Sources.

If you read this little "vade mecum" you will surely want to travel much farther on the Sufi road with Rumi. "Hush!Enough chatter in the sea, about the pearls in His sea./ If you want to be a pearl diver, don't waste your breath."



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Translations of Rumi's poetry have been enthusiastically received by the English-speaking world. He speaks directly to the heart, allowing readers to feel that they know him intimately. And yet, the full flavor of his lightness and humor, his wordplay, and his Islamic references has often gone untranslated. Rumi's poetry is direct and immediate, but it's also measured, subtle, and nuanced in a way that earlier translations have seldom conveyed. It was, above all, a spoken poetry. Say Nothing captures the rich and varied tones of a mature voice that retains its youthful capacity for exaltation and revelation.This fully annotated, bilingual (Persian and English) editioncontains both short quatrains and longer ghazals, alternating forms that reflect the shifts in Rumi's moods and inspirations. Along with poems of ecstatic flight and equally ecstatic mourning, there are moments of terse commentary, challenging dialogs, and confrontational questioning. Extensive notes allow readers to delve more deeply into the multiple meanings of Rumi's words.

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Morning Earth: Field Notes in Poetry [Paperback] Review

John Caddy has created a series of windows to see the natural world. In clean, sparse language, he shows the reader another way to see the creatures, the plants, the weather that inhabits the earth with us.I like to read his poems to my grandchildren just to watch them think and smile.
In a way, one poem aday is like a vitamin for your soul.

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"Whenever you write," says John Caddy, "you surprise yourself saying likable things that you did not plan." In Morning Earth, Caddy -- winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry for The Color of Mesabi Bones -- brilliantly advocates poetry as a physical act - a morning practice or devotion, a decision to record quickly the direct, momentary experience of each new day. Caddy shares a selection of his daily poems covering the seasons of the year and provides instruction for individuals, teachers, and students starting their own daily earth journals. The raw, unfiltered inscription of each day opens the senses, integrating the writer with the whole of life through brief but powerful individual moments, inspiration, and connectedness. Twenty-five black-and-white images illustrate the text.

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Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours, a Bilingual Edition [Paperback] Review

This is a wonderful introduction to the great troubadour lyric and provides a useful series of commentaries of each troubadour included in the book. The editor who did translations to complement those of Pound and Snodgrass provides a passionate and valuable survey of the 200-plus years of this lyric tradition. Most importantly, the Occitan texts - side by side with the English - are a revelation, providing the lyric power and beauty of this world-changing literary movement. It is very difficult to not come back and read over the lyrics time and again.

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Although the troubadours flourished at the height of the Middle Ages in southern France, their songs of romantic love, with pleasing melodies and intricate stanzaic patterns, have inspired poets and song writers ever since, from Dante to Chaucer, from Renaissance sonneteers to the Romantics, and from Verlaine and Rimbaud to modern rock lyricists. Yet despite the incontrovertible influence of the troubadours on the development of both poetry and music in the West, there existed no comprehensive anthology of troubadour lyrics that respected the verse form of the originals until now.

Lark in the Morning honors the meter, word play, punning, and sound effects in the troubadours' works while celebrating the often playful, bawdy, and biting nature of the material. Here, Robert Kehew augments his own verse translations with those of two seminal twentieth-century poets-Ezra Pound and W. D. Snodgrass-to provide a collection that captures both the poetic pyrotechnics of the original verse and the astonishing variety of troubadour voices. This bilingual edition contains an introduction to the three major periods of the troubadours-their beginning, rise, and decline-as well as headnotes that briefly put each poet in context. Lark in the Morning will become an essential collection for those interested in learning about and teaching the origins of Western vernacular poetry.


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An Italian Morning: Poems [Hardcover] Review

These exuberant, thought-provoking poems, both passionate and precise,are sometimes beautifully, painfully lyrical. D'Ambrosio's books are notable for their wit and generosity of spirit. An Italian Morning shows her at the top of her form.



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In An Italian Morning, the reader will find 39 poems, 12 "Interlude" selections, and 9 paintings by Suzanne Gilliard. We are conveyed into a world that one can reach only through poetry - where the joy found in solitude and the solace found in universal connection emerge. Here, D'Ambrosio brings us to an enriched familiar.
The title of this beautiful book, An Italian Morning, taken from her poem "The Consolation in Being History," alludes to the mysterious origins of her Italian-American self and then to her engulfing love of the world and family. Brimming over with fresh language, the book treats the serious and/or witty concerns of maturity and the yearnings and lively flickerings of youth.
D'Ambrosio presents an entirely original method of bringing attention to her poetic style - with three "Interludes," way-stations, that act as multi-layering rest-stops to refresh and delight with their harmonious tone. The innovative "Interludes" comprise six of her unexpected "found-poems" - three from Melville's Moby Dick and three from Shakespeare - and six of her own translations of the great Argentinian poet Alfonsina Storni.
Accompanying the vivid imagery of D'Ambrosio's poetry are the brilliant and passionate paintings of Suzanne Gilliard. Gilliard's painterly realism sets the stage for each section of An Italian Morning and makes this an artistic pairing that is worth experiencing again and again.

In all, D'Ambrosio's An Italian Morning is witty, lyrical, profoundly moving, and masterfully orchestrated.

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Prayer for the Morning Headlines: On the Sanctity of Life and Death [Paperback] Review

"For me Father Berrigan is Jesus as a poet.If this be heresy, make the most of it."
-Kurt Vonnegut"Dan Berrigan is a national treasure, and he has added another powerful, poignant book to his towering life's work. Adrianna Amari's photographs offer searching complements to Berrigan's poems. Read and reflect on this book, and share it with others."
-Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
Co-Author, Static!"Beautiful. Haunting."
-Martin Sheen
Activist and Actor, The Departed and The West Wing"The steadfastness of this Saint, Daniel Berrigan, is ever revealed in his poems. His poetry is joined in this beautiful volume by the muses of history and art."
-Ramsey Clark
Former U.S. Attorney General

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"Seed Hope. Flower Peace."Decades after the end of the Vietnam War, and years since the start of the Iraq War, these words by Jesuit priest, poet, peace activist, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Daniel Berrigan still resonate. Prayer for the Morning Headlines: On the Sanctity of Life and Death pairs select Berrigan poems with luminous photographs of cemetery statuary by Adrianna Amari.In this beautiful collection, the evocative images combine to form a meditation on the profound impact of the loss of any life, and bear witness to lasting grief, memory, and love. As noted historian Howard Zinn states in his eloquent introduction, "...it was in Baltimore that Adrianna Amari took her extraordinary photographs of sculptures scattered through the city. It is all there, as in Berrigan's poems- life and death, the prayer that comes with commitment, the hope that comes with resistance, the visions of a world where peace and justice prevail."At times tranquil, at times dramatic, the words and images in Prayer for the Morning Headlines always implore readers to love one another and fight war no more.

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Morning, Noon and Night (Paperback) Review

I stumbled upon a discount copy of Spalding Gray's Morning, Noon and Night and was morbidly compelled to read it. Basically, he recounts a day in his life when his youngest son was still an infant.
Other of his works are better written and with sharper wit and insight, and to plod through this one - to get it - you have to hear Spalding tell it in your head, see his expressions and mannerisms.
This memoir is something of a reflection on parenthood, and, well, everything, in true Spalding fashion. The book is full of sentiments that everyone confronting parenthood can relate to. I found myself angry at him for saying some of it though (OK, so I'm not finished with my anger just yet). Toward the end he writes:
"Here it is only ten-fifteen in the evening and I'm wasted, and I didn't even go to work. I don't know how people do it. I don't know how people raise families and work at the same time. What's more, why would they want to do it? With only one life to live, why bring more life into the world to be responsible for? It's absurd. It's ridiculous, I think. Why complicate your life with more life that you are ultimately responsible for? I love my children, but they could only be accidents born out of a kind of blind passion. I could never have had a child if I had to think about it."
Although he didn't go to work, he didn't do much parenting either. His girlfriend, working from a home office, also cooked, managed the household renovations, tended to the baby. He was selfish and spoiled - yoga, bike-ride, drinking.
But in the light of his death this work also sketches a portrait of a very sad, confused, scared - desperately scared - childish man. (Lots of inky water imagery too.) The humour and the wonder had already started leaving him.
http://magnificentoctopus.blogspot.com

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Quite Early One Morning [Paperback] Review

This book is a compilation of Thomas' sessions at the BBC. There are poems in prose and in verse. His style transmits nostalgia for his native Wales. Some of the best parts are his sketches of other Welch poets. A highly recommendable book by one very good poet, the same one who died in New York at the Chelsea hotel, after having more than 40 scotchs with soda. His poetry is rhythmical and clear, very imaginative and precise.

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Morning in the Burned House [Paperback] Review

This book is very aptly titled.The poems feel like waking up in a pile of cinders that used to be a house.Not sad really.Just sort of empty.As if everything has been reduced to stark facts with a few flowerssprouting here and there out of the ashes.There is something profoundlytouching about these poems.They do an amazing job of conveying the spentfeeling after the huge emotional turmoil of losing a parent.One line fromthe book that runs through my head sometimes:"After a pause, shesays--he hears her say--'I love you like salt.'"

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Winter Morning Walks : 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison (Poetry Series) [Paperback] Review

Fabric: the opening, dedicatory poem sketches a man's early morning walk along a road, a road that reminds him of an unrolled length of cloth, and the dark fields in the distance seem like the counter in the store his father worked at. He remembers his father behind the counter unrolling a bolt of cloth for the boy and saying "you can make something special with this."
Kooser, fighting cancer when he wrote these postcards, continues to use his naturally metaphorical imagination to transform common things and daily events into well-timed and expertly sculpted poems. There are at least a dozen gems in this collection and memorable metaphors and similes on nearly every page. The postcards--poems no longer than a page, and mostly much shorter than that--form a diary of sorts, not only a response to and a subtle record of his battle with cancer, but a testimony to his joy in the heartbreaking beauty of existence.
Kooser uses items from what Randall Jarrell called "the dailiness of life" to slide back to the past and to clarify the present. The "material"--his father, his mother, his uncle, roadside refuse, the moon, birds, graveyards, robes, a snowflake, the creaking snow, bolts of cloth--is embroidered beautifully and succinctly.
This book will lodge in the memory and engender respect for the overlooked yet rich fabric of our daily lives.

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Blue Cold Morning [Audiobook] (Hardcover) Review

29 Apr 2009
by Leslie Woods
Unfortunately I do not possess the poetic soul that Phibby has in abundance, so I will not attempt to describe her beautiful, colorful, vivid poetry. You will not be sorry if you purchase THIS book!
[ Reply ]
7 Apr 2009
by Bridge Crewe
I've always been a big fan of Phibby's work. Her art comes from a very poetic, entertaining place where the resolve isn't always "storybook". It comes from a clear, descriptive place where her words direct the reader like a scene. You are no longer a reader when you take part in her poetry, you're a viewer! She paints incredible pictures with choice words and colorful imagination and clarity. I urge you to buy this book!
[ Reply ]Phibby's World of Poetry [ No Rating ] 1 Apr 2009
by Mukul Dahal
In Phibby's world of poetry words sing and images and imagery perform an artistic performance. Each of the lines bloom in such a way that a poem becomes a garden full of human compassion and tenderness. Hers is a distinct voice that makes her poems unique in their own way. I have been a reader of her poems for over five years, the period during which they have planted in me a thirst to read more and more of them.

------- Mukul Dahal
The wonderful world of Phibby Venable [ No Rating ] 31 Mar 2009
by w.k. kortas
It may be unfair to view Phibby's work as poems--although everything you would expect from poetry (flow, meter, vibrant imagery) is certainly to be found in them--as much as compressed novels. Her writing has the story arc, the strong characterization, and the sweeping themes you would find in a work spanning several hundred pages--but she has, somehow, found a way to do so in the space of a few dozen lines. Phibby's writing is utterly affecting and effective; her poetry is as good as any being written anywhere in America today.

Phibby's work is always pure poetry. Her pen paints pictures of the world around her that defy explanation. Her work is brilliant but instinctive. She captures human nature in ways I had never imagined.

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Reflections on everything from jazz to independent living..probing insights captured in photographic imagery..! This poetry meets the human condition head on, yet lingers in a mystical imagination of spirit..

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Morning Poems [Paperback] Review

The concept of this book (to write a poem before getting out of bed) bubbles as subtext under each stanza.There is slow contemplation and sleepy humour throughout; the thoughts of an old poet waking. Among my favourites were "The Russian" and "November".This was my first experience of Bly, but it will not be my last.

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