In this absorbing memoir, well-known eco-philosopher, Buddhist scholar, and deep ecology activist/teacher Joanna Macy recounts her adventures of mind and spirit in the key social movements of our era. From involvement with the CIA and the Cold War, through experiences in Africa, India and Tibet, to her encounter with the Dalai Lama and Buddhism which led to her life-long embrace of the religion and a deep commitment to the peace and environmental movements, Macy’s autobiography reads like a novel as she reflects on how her marriage and family life enriched her service to the world. Widening Circles reveals the unique synthesis of spirituality and activism that define Macy’s contribution to the world.
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Widening Circles: A Memoir
Posted by admin on November 12, 2011
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Imitations
Posted by admin on November 10, 2011
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Not quite translations–yet something much more, much richer, than mere tributes to their original versions–the poems in Imitations reflect Lowell’s conceptual, historical, literary, and aesthetic engagements with a diverse range of voices from the Western canon. Moving chronologically from Homer to Pasternak–and including such master poets en route as Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Rilke, and Montale–the fascinating and hugely informed pieces in this book are themselves meant to be read as “a whole,” according to Lowell’s telling Introduction, “a single volume, a small anthology of European poetry.”
Breathing the Water
Posted by admin on November 8, 2011
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The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration
Posted by admin on November 6, 2011
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A work of art, whether a painting, a dance, a poem, or a jazz composition, can be admired in its own right. But how does the artist actually create his or her work? What is the source of an artist’s inspiration? What is the force that impels the artist to set down a vision that becomes art?
In this groundbreaking book, Edward Hirsch explores the concept of duende, that mysterious, highly potent power of creativity that results in a work of art. With examples ranging from Federico GarcÃa Lorca’s wrestling with darkness as he discovered the fountain of words within himself to Martha Graham’s creation of her most emotional dances, from the canvases of Robert Motherwell to William Blake’s celestial visions, Hirsch taps into the artistic imagination and explains, in terms illuminating and emotional, how different artists respond to the power and demonic energy of creative impulse.
In this groundbreaking book, Edward Hirsch explores the concept of duende, that mysterious, highly potent power of creativity that results in a work of art. With examples ranging from Federico GarcÃa Lorca’s wrestling with darkness as he discovered the fountain of words within himself to Martha Graham’s creation of her most emotional dances, from the canvases of Robert Motherwell to William Blake’s celestial visions, Hirsch taps into the artistic imagination and explains, in terms illuminating and emotional, how different artists respond to the power and demonic energy of creative impulse.
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New Poems: A Bilingual Edition (European Poetry Classics)
Posted by admin on November 4, 2011
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This stunning version of Rainer Maria Rilke’s New Poems disproves Robert Frost’s dictum that poetry is “what gets lost in translation.” On the contrary, Stephen Cohn’s keen ear and flair for the iambic line keep the poet’s virtues very much intact. And unlike most previous translators, Cohn seldom allows meaning to triumph over music. In “The Panther,” for instance, he deploys assonance, alliteration, and surprising rhythms to convey the pain of an animal’s entrapment:
The bars which pass and strike across his gaze
have stunned his sight: the eyes have lost their hold.
To him it seems there are a thousand bars,
a thousand bars and nothing else. No world.
In the second quatrain, his meter effectively mimics the motion of the beast “pacing out that mean, constricted ground.” And in the final strophe, the translator evokes the look of the caged beast whose eye “slides open to admit some thing outside; / an image runs through each expectant limb / and penetrates his heart, and dies.” Cohn’s straightforward use of dies seems particularly on the mark: out of its element, an animal somehow ceases to exist–at least in Rilke’s poetic menagerie.
In “The Parrot House,” Rilke paints a memorable picture of displacement, describing those birds who balance “on perches that silently rock with their yearning.” Cohn’s translations, too, have taken leave of their origins. Remaining Rilke’s at their core, these poems nonetheless sing in their reincarnated forms. –Martha Silano
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