Some didn’t believe, some kept flying
December 21, 2011
The Conference of the Birds is being referred to as the perfect gift book this season. It definitely fits that pocket, being the book is beautifully illustrated and tells a meaningful story about the human journey to make sense of our lives. It sheds light on the arduousness of the journey, the obstacles encountered and the reason why, as Winston Churchill proclaimed during World War II, one should “never, never, never, never give up.”
I don’t like the gift-book designation for The Conference of the Birds because it makes me think of relegating it to the coffee table for public display, and the story is one that should be kept more intimately near, at the bedside or in a personal drawer at the office. Its philosophies are worth revisiting to help us keep sight of life’s higher purpose, beyond the minutiae on our iPhones and Blackberries.
Peter Sís’ is a seven-time winner of The New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year award. He’s also a MacArthur Fellow (2003). The Conference of the Birds is an adaptation of Sufi poet Farid Ud-Din Attar’s masterpiece with the same title about one’s search for divine truth. Attar lived in northeastern Persia between the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, according to the book’s end pages.
Sís’ version opens with the poet Attar waking one Kafkaesque morning and realizing he’s a hoopoe bird. He gathers together all the birds of the world and rallies them to search for King Simorgh, hidden behind a veil of clouds, who has the answers to the world’s troubles. Some of the birds are reluctant to embark on the journey because they don’t want to leave their comfortable lives, and they’re not sure the king exists.
"Parrot: I like it here. I feel safe. They bring me food and water every day. Peacock: I'm special! I'm not like anybody else - look at all my colors!"
Nevertheless, off they go, filling the skies, soaring high and far. On their journey to find King Simorgh, who lives on the Mountain of Kaf, the birds must pass through seven valleys: quest, love, understanding, detachment, unity, amazement and death.
"The endless deserts are crystals of sand. The mountain ranges are a string of beads."
Some perish in these valleys; some lose hope; some get confused. In the Valley of Unity, “All who enter here are bound at the neck by one rope.” In the Valley of Detachment, “It is here that all curiosity and desire expire.” Most perplexing is the Valley of Amazement, “place of constant pain and gnawing bewilderment.”
"You don't dare to look here...you don't dare to breathe...piercing swords of pain."
Valleys are typical representations of challenges in a journey. Sís, however, keeps his storytelling unique and vibrant not alone with the colorful, abstract illustrations but also with the experiences of the feathered characters. Throughout, he reminds us the birds’ long flight is a pathway to wisdom by frequently incorporating into the artwork the symbol of a labyrinth, that circular path one walks to find the way to the center.
The most powerful and direct messages come toward the end with the explanation of why many birds don’t make the full journey. That is, why they give up. It’s a piercing reality check about human weakness, and one of those reasons I suggest the book be kept near. The power of fear and discouragement can be overwhelming, and that’s not only on spiritual journeys, but also the personal journeys one takes when following the heart or pursuing a dream.
"A band of thirty battered, beaten, beleaguered companions trying hard not to try and hardly able to fly..."
Layers of new meaning reveal themselves with each new reading of the text. As I work on this post, I recognize for the first time, after two readings, the foreshadowing behind a statement the hoopoe makes in the beginning, pointing the birds toward a truth that will be revealed regarding the king on the Mountain of Kaf: “He is as close to us as we are far from him.” When you read the book, you’ll understand why.
A therapy of summer morning
June 7, 2011
I received a copy of Gaylord Brewer’s new poetry collection in March via a friend who’s a poet and university professor. He recommended the title and also procured a signed copy for me (love that!). I read several of the poems at that time and experienced subjects, philosophy and use of words that seduced my senses. By ‘use of words’ I mean how they’re conjoined and phrased, in a way I want to read out loud or repeat to enjoy a textured rhythm or cleverness.
But it wasn’t until these summer days arrived that I read Give Over, Graymalkin from beginning to end, during early dawn hours, and in so doing, “reclined in a therapy of summer morning.” That phrase is a beginning line in a poem about the dead metaphor of clouds. It appears in a section devoted to the banality of such overused metaphors, including the post-divorce Harley and the “old guy on that hog.” As Brewer confirms in this interview, the 15 poems with their “ribald humor and literary cynicism” are a thematic detour from the other, more reflective poems in the book.
The majority of the poems were written in India, Spain and France, and it’s the section from the time in India that’s my favorite. In one of those poems, Brewer makes a phone call to his mother in Kentucky in which he tries to express his experiences through “the echoes, stalls, hollows” of the long distance connection that “make joking difficult./ I hear my voice, stiff and loud.” In another he speaks of the spiritual guidance of a Swami who instructs him to laugh first thing in the morning – a laughing meditation – and so “I part curtains, lock doors and windows,/and start laughing my ass off.” It’s a brilliant poem carefully balanced between the humor of what seems ridiculous and the hope of a seeker.
Brewer’s writing invites pensive engagement without getting too heavy. Indeed, his reasoning, meditative voice in this terrific collection gets under your skin. Consider in “Jungle Appetites” how he reaches the point of recognizing “All the easy,/mournful luck of my life, announcing to the wild.”
Two from Canada, one from Billy
February 4, 2011
These three soon-to-be-published books caught my attention this week, and it happens two of them are by Canadian authors: one a short story collection set in cities along the U.S. Canadian border, the other a novel set in Newfoundland. The third is a new collection by Billy Collins, the ever enjoyable and loved-by-the-public former U.S. Poet Laureate. His accessible and typically upside lyrics take on the dark topic of death in his new book of poems. What’s that going to be like?
Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod. It’s not often I stand in the kitchen reading a book that just arrived in the mail. I may read the first sentence or skim the jacket copy but not stand like I did one day this past week, leaning against the counter for a long read. This book snatched my exclusive attention that quickly. MacLeod’s narrative voice speaks with a seductive mix of conviction and vulnerability as it takes us inside the lives of its everyday people, such as two runners who’ve been competing together for a long time and a group of bricklayers mentoring a high school kid on a summer job. MacLeod is a delightful discovery for me, published by indie press Biblioasis in Emeryville, Ontario. His debut will be available in the U.S. this April.
Galore by Michael Crummey. Crummey takes a mythic viewpoint of his native Newfoundland in this story that spans two centuries. Publisher’s Weekly gives the novel a starred review and calls it Crummey’s “gorgeous latest” – his previous novel River Thieves also is set in Newfoundland. From the publisher’s website: “When a whale beaches itself on the shore of the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, the last thing any of the townspeople expect to find inside it is a man, silent and reeking of fish, but remarkably alive. The discovery of this mysterious person, soon christened Judah, sets the town scrambling for answers as its most prominent citizens weigh in on whether he is man or beast, blessing or curse, miracle or demon.” On sale by U.S. publisher Other Press in April.
Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems by Billy Collins. Library Journal’s starred review delivers the verdict that Collins’ ninth collection of poems is “witty bleakness.” Collins’ poetry is frequently described as not only witty but also playful, which is why his take on death likely will be unique. Here are the opening lines from the title poem of his new collection, out in March:
Every morning since you disappeared for good,
I read about you in the newspaper
along with the box scores, the weather, and all the bad news.
Some days I am reminded that today
will not be a wildly romantic time for you . . .
Small press book wins the fiction NBA
November 18, 2010
Jaimy Gordon’s Lord of Misrule won the 2010 National Book Award (NBA) for fiction. The book’s publisher, McPherson & Company, released the book just days ago (November 15), so few have read and/or reviewed this astonishing winner. That’s not the big news, though, rather that once again a surprise unknown from a small press took a huge fiction award.
At the beginning of 2010, the year’s Pulitzer Prize in fiction was awarded to Tinkers by Paul Harding, published by the small Bellevue Literary Press. During the years Harding tried to get his book published, New York agents and editors sent rejections and this laughable advice: “Nobody wants to read a slow, contemplative, meditative, quiet book.” (via The New York Times)
These two awards may well be the harbinger of small independent presses assuming the helm of literary fiction. They’re giving hope to readers and authors of this genre that small plus literary no longer equals obscure. Bruce McPherson, owner and publisher of McPherson & Co., said he usually prints 2,000 copies of a new book. When the Lord of Misrule was nominated as an NBA finalist, he took a chance and printed 8,000 (via WSJ Speakeasy).
I’d wager he’s going back for a second printing.
Here’s the list of winners for the 2010 National Book Award:
- Fiction: Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (McPherson & Co.)
- Non-fiction: Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
- Poetry: Terrance Hayes, Lighthead (Penguin Books)
- Young People’s Literature: Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird (Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group)
Don’t dump yr garbage can on my head
November 12, 2010
Now here’s a book title that screams bad-boy poet Charles Bukowski. Beerspit Night and Cursing collects the correspondence between him and Sheri Martinelli from 1960 to 1967.
I don’t remember where I came across a mention of it this week, and the librarian who helped me find it couldn’t say how the book got lost in the stacks. No matter. It sits in front of me now, and I like the look and feel of this apparently much used library edition. Beat up and repaired, as the drinking, gambling, whoring, “laureate of lowlife” Bukowski would like it. (via Wikipedia)
Their correspondence began with a letter Martinelli sent Bukowski rejecting his poetry submission to her San Francisco literary magazine Anagogic & Paideumic Review. She said “i don’t find a ‘thump’ in yr work” and suggested he:
“go to the old boys–the greeks/latins/a good translation in library & discover that life has never been any different… then awakens in the soul… a desire to leave a message of help for those who come after us/ & not to list what life does & is doing to us/ maestro ezra pound kept telling me ‘now don’t dump yr garbage can on my head…’ so I learned this lesson the hard way…”
Bukowski was in fact well-read, having spent much of his youth in libraries. And so he informs Martinelli:
“I have read your classics, I have wasted a life in libraries, turning pages, looking for blood. It seems to me that there has not been ENOUGH garbage dumped, the pages do not scream; always the effected dignity and know-all and dry page sunburned and listless as wheat.”
You just gotta love the blunt-speaking Bukowski. The reason his poetry claims devoted fans, including this one.
Martinelli is not well-known today, but she was high-profile during her time, especially among the Beats. According to the book’s introduction, she was a protégée of Anaïs Nin and the muse and mistress of Ezra Pound. E. E. Cummings and Rod Steiger collected her art, which is now in collections around the world.
In the shadow of the podium
November 8, 2010
This photo of W. S. Merwin signing a book was taken after his reading at The Kenyon Review Literary Festival last Saturday night. The audience packed into Rosse Hall, putting me — delayed by traffic congestion on I-71 – in likely the worst seat in the house: the first row, smack up against the stage, in front of the podium that stood at the edge of the stage.
Imagine sitting in the first row of a movie theater, and you’ll get the idea of my crooked neck. All I could see was this U.S. Poet Laureate’s brilliant blue eyes and thick white hair. But what did it matter? One attends these events to listen.
W. S. Merwin read first from his collection The Vixen: Poems, published by Knopf in 1996, and later from The Shadow of Sirius, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. In between and among his readings of poems, he talked about his role as poet laureate, his love of dogs and our human connection to the natural world, which he said we should neither ignore nor exploit.
There was no Q&A after the reading. W. S. Merwin was escorted to a desk on stage where he signed one book per person. That’s his signature below on my first edition of The Shadow of Sirius. I also got another take-away from this event – curiosity to investigate, perhaps re-read, Jonathan Swift of Gulliver’s Travels fame. Merwin invoked the satirist when he quoted from the Miscellanies: “I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”
Merwin’s first collection of poetry, A Mask for Janus, was published in 1952. From The New York Times: “Mr. Merwin came to wider attention for his hard-edged political allegories that condemned the Vietnam War and environmental destruction, starting with his 1967 collection, The Lice.” He’s written more than 30 books of poetry and prose as well as many translations. The Poetry Foundation provides a comprehensive list of his work.
William Stanley Merwin is the nation’s 17th poet laureate.
This week’s surprise book announcements
October 14, 2010
Two major literary awards –the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award – announced some unexpected results this week.
On Tuesday, Man Booker judges gave the coveted British award to 68-year-old Howard Jacobson for The Finkler Question. It’s the first comic novel to win the Man Booker since the inception of the prize 42 years ago. While many believe the award for Jacobson has been long in coming, The Finkler Question didn’t get as much “predicted winner” buzz as did Emma Donoghue’s Room and Tom McCarthy’s C.
On Wednesday, the National Book Foundation listed its 20 finalists for the 2010 National Book Awards (NBA), and guess who’s missing among the fiction finalists? “National Book Awards Snub Jonathan Franzen,” reports the Guardian.
Author Pat Conroy announced the Freedom-less 20 finalists in Flannery O’Connor’s Savannah, Georgia, childhood home. They include so many books I haven’t read, which is my big sigh every year when the finalists are announced. But that’s the beauty of the National Book Award selections: They’re unpredictable, bringing to the forefront impressive books deserving a wider audience. Last year, Bonnie Jo Campbell’s story collection American Salvage published by Wayne State University Press rose into the literary limelight as an NBA fiction candidate. This year, Karen Tei Yamashita’s novel about Asian-Americans published by Coffee House Press, I Hotel, similarly rises.
Here is the full list of 2010 National Book Award finalists in the four categories. Two of the books aren’t available yet: James Richardson’s By the Numbers is set for publication November 1, and Jaimy Gordon’s Lord of Misrule is to be published November 15. Unless the publishing houses release them earlier, the reading public doesn’t have access to them until a few days before the winner is announced, which will be November 17.
Fiction
Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule
Nicole Krauss, Great House
Lionel Shriver, So Much for That
Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel
Non-fiction
Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq
Patti Smith, Just Kids
Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward
Megan K. Stack, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War
Poetry
Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City
Terrance Hayes, Lighthead
James Richardson, By the Numbers
CD Wright, One With Others
Monica Youn, Ignatz
Young people’s literature
Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker
Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird
Laura McNeal, Dark Water
Walter Dean Myers, Lockdown
Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer
How to live and play the piano (etc.)
September 24, 2010
Here’s a handful of books that caught my interest this week. These are neither recommendations — I haven’t read them — nor forecasts, rather encounters that took me down a path to learn more about the books. All part of the ongoing discovery of what’s out there for us to read and enjoy.
How to Live or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Blackwell. This book sounds like a great way to be introduced to Montaigne, not only his life but the answers in his famous essays about how one best lives a life. Blackwell’s biography of the 16th century philosopher was first released in Britain. The Guardian’s review written by Ruth Scurr says this: “Central as the essays are to [Blackwell's] own approach to his life, it is ultimately his life-loving vivacity that she succeeds in communicating to her readers: ‘What he left behind was all the better for being imperfect, ambiguous, inadequate and vulnerable to distortion. Oh Lord, one might imagine Montaigne exclaiming, by all means let me be misunderstood.’”
Piano Lessons: A Memoir by Anna Goldsworthy. I’m a fan of life stories about piano lessons, being one who studied the piano many years and still plays my Yamaha U3. Goldsworthy is an Australian pianist who performs internationally and records with the ABC Classics label. She is also a teacher and on the Liszt list. That means she studied with a teacher who’s in a lineage of teachers who studied with composer Franz Liszt. From the book’s website: “With wit and affection, Goldsworthy captures the hopes and uncertainties of youth, the fear and exhilaration of performing and the complex bonds between teacher and student.”
Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye. A first novel in which a man returns home to Duluth, MN, to take care of his estranged, dying father. At the heart of their 35-year broken relationship is a shipwreck the father survived. From the publisher’s website: “When his father for the first time finally tells the story of the horrific disaster he has carried with him so long, it leads the two men to reconsider each other.” Geye’s debut is listed in Publishers Weekly’s Rousing the Sleepers: Top 20 hand-sells from independent presses this fall.
The Isabella Breviary. According to the publisher’s website, this is an exact replica of the 15th century illuminated manuscript given to Isabella of Castille to commemorate the double marriage of her children. (The original is owned by the British Museum.) Isabella is the queen who sponsored Columbus’ discovery of the Americas. Publishing company Moleiro specializes in the reproduction of codices, maps and works of art between the 13th and 16th centuries. Fun to peruse online, not only this breviary but the several illuminated texts offered by Moleiro. 987 numbered copies being sold.
One with Others [a little book of her days] by C. D. Wright. Several years ago I discovered C. D. Wright via her poem “More Blues and the Abstract Truth.” It remains one of my favorite poems. Her poetry doesn’t consistently work for me, yet I always check it out because when it does, it’s terrific. In October, her new collection published by Copper Canyon Press finds its center in a civil rights incident that happened in her native Arkansas. From the publisher’s website: “This history leaps howling off the page.”
