A riddle is a question with a surprising answer. A poem is an unexpected view of the world around us. Combine the two, and you have this collection of twenty-two riddle-poems gathered from Native American sources by Brian Swann, a preeminent scholar, poet, and collector of riddles from around the globe. With stunning illustrations, this remarkable book encourages all to see the world anew.

Touching the Distance: Native American Riddle-Poems

Children's Books

Swann, Brian

Literature & Fiction

HMH Books for Young Readers

When is a riddle not a riddle? When it's a riddle-poem! Riddle poems are unique. The succinct poetic images in this delightful and often moving collection have been gathered from various African sources by Brian Swann, a preeminent scholar, poet, and collector of riddles from around the globe. Warm and colorful paintings by renowned author-illustrator Ashley Bryan make this book a treasure. There are twenty-two poetic visions to ponder in this noteworthy collection.

The House with No Door: African Riddle-Poems

The Phoenician Women (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

Peter Burian and Brian Swann re-create Euripides' The Phoenician Women, a controversial play about the fateful history of the house of Laios following the tragic fall of Oedipus, King of Thebes. Adding to the impressive Greek Tragedy in New Translations series, this translation displays the cohesion and rigid organization of this complex and much debated play. Through use of dramatic, fast-paced poetry, this version captures the original spirit of Euripides' focus on classic repercussions of fate, interspersed with the everpresent power of will. The edition is accompanied by critical introductions, expositions of translators' principles, stage directions, a glossary of mythical Greek terms, and commentary on difficult passages.

Politics & Social Sciences

Burian, Peter

Eurípides

Social Sciences

Oxford University Press

Peter Burian and Brian Swann re-create Euripides' The Phoenician Women, a controversial play about the fateful history of the house of Laios following the tragic fall of Oedipus, King of Thebes. Adding to the impressive Greek Tragedy in New Translations series, this translation displays the cohesion and rigid organization of this complex and much debated play. Through use of dramatic, fast-paced poetry, this version captures the original spirit of Euripides' focus on classic repercussions of fate, interspersed with the everpresent power of will. The edition is accompanied by critical introductions, expositions of translators' principles, stage directions, a glossary of mythical Greek terms, and commentary on difficult passages.

Dramas & Plays

Introduction / The editors -- When artifacts speak, what can they tell us? / Paul G. Zolbrod -- Anthologies and narrators / Dell Hymes -- Heidegger and the Aztecs : the poetics of knowing in pre-Hispanic Nahuatl poetry / Willard Gingerich -- Post-structuralism and oral literature / Arnold Krupat -- North American Indian mythography : editing texts for the printed page / Anthony Mattina -- Strategies in text and context : the hot pepper story / Joel Sherzer -- Pima heaven songs / Donald Bahr -- A note on translation and remarks on collaboration / Brian Swann -- Bluejay and his sister / M. Dale Kinkade -- Telling the tale : a performance analysis of a Hopi coyote story / Andrew Wiget -- The natural history of old man coyote / William Bright. Life and death in the Navajo coyote tales / Barre Toelken -- Wesucechak becomes a deer and steals language : an anecdotal linguistics concerning the Swampy Cree Trickster / Howard Norman -- How the bird that speaks Lakota earned a name / Julian Rice -- Traditional Osage naming ceremonies : entering the circle of being / Carter Revard -- Walking the world of the Popol Vuh / Dennis Tedlock -- Chief Seattle's speech(es) : American origins and European reception / Rudolph Kaiser -- Sam Blowsnake's confessions : Crashing thunder and the history of American Indian autobiography / H. David Brumble III -- On stereotypes / Duane Niatum -- Bringing home the fact : tradition and continuity in the imagination / Paula Gunn Allen -- Native American novels : homing in / William Bevis.

Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature

Arnold Krupat

University of California Press

Introduction / The editors --When artifacts speak, what can they tell us? / Paul G. Zolbrod --Anthologies and narrators / Dell Hymes --Heidegger and the Aztecs : the poetics of knowing in pre-Hispanic Nahuatl poetry / Willard Gingerich --Post-structuralism and oral literature / Arnold Krupat --North American Indian mythography : editing texts for the printed page / Anthony Mattina --Strategies in text and context : the hot pepper story / Joel Sherzer --Pima heaven songs / Donald Bahr --A note on translation and remarks on collaboration / Brian Swann --Bluejay and his sister / M. Dale Kinkade --Telling the tale : a performance analysis of a Hopi coyote story / Andrew Wiget --The natural history of old man coyote / William Bright. Life and death in the Navajo coyote tales / Barre Toelken --Wesucechak becomes a deer and steals language : an anecdotal linguistics concerning the Swampy Cree Trickster / Howard Norman --How the bird that speaks Lakota earned a name / Julian Rice --Traditional Osage naming ceremonies : entering the circle of being / Carter Revard --Walking the world of the Popol Vuh / Dennis Tedlock --Chief Seattle's speech(es) : American origins and European reception / Rudolph Kaiser --Sam Blowsnake's confessions : Crashing thunder and the history of American Indian autobiography / H. David Brumble III --On stereotypes / Duane Niatum --Bringing home the fact : tradition and continuity in the imagination / Paula Gunn Allen --Native American novels : homing in / William Bevis.

Krupat, Arnold

History & Criticism

Univ. Of California Pr.

Fifteen brief poems, with folk sources in a variety of countries, present riddles to solve which can be answered in the illustrations.

A Basket Full of White Eggs: Riddle-Poems

Orchard Books

A richly diverse anthology of Native American literature draws on the work of more than 200 tribes across the United States and Canada, providing information on the historical and cultural contexts of the stories, songs, prayers, and orations.

Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America

United States

Vintage

A rich diversity of attitude, experience, and literary style can be seen in I Tell You Now. For these Native American writers, being caught between two cultures has sharpened the struggle for self-identity and a sense of self-worth. They describe their bittersweet memories of childhood and family life, their fight against prejudice and poverty, their triumph over personal problems, their role models and schooling, their reverence for the land and anger over the rape of it, and their sources of artistic inspiration. Metaphorically or literally, they do go home again—to a proud and dignified cultural heritage. And the vehicle for these inheritors of an oral tradition is the written word.In their introduction, the editors, Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat, trace the history of Native American autobiography in its various forms.

I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers

Biographies & Memoirs

University Of Nebraska Press

"The poems that make up Brian Swann's rich and constantly rewarding book Snow House are muscular and masterful. He has a marvelous ear and the ability to write poems that move insistently forward to a lovely and offhand resolution. The long and sinuous sentences that make up this collection range over the natural world, memories, and myths -- and, like 'a kind of semiotic stuntman,' Swann merges these subjects with the poems ostensibly describing them, so that you suddenly realize that you are being pulled along by a song 'that mirrors itself with you in the middle / doing much of the mirroring.' And yet in the end the world of the poems retains its fierce independence, the independence of 'the world which could be you but isn't, ever, quite.'" -- John Koethe, from his judge's citation "Brian Swann is our poet of the primal present.... Snow House is a profound poetry that wakens us and helps us identify our sublime and perilous location." -- William HeyenThe scraps, bright, all of them, these small birds, as if torn from the sunnow bloody-mouthed, then a broken line moving closer, brant -- no,blue geese, and in synapses all round swamp-sparrows, as blades of lightpush in till the last one takes over so masks drop from stones andon the headland windowpanes are morning swollen and a wave curveslike gravel along the long bay where no hull moves so it all startsto look a little contrived, as if the boats had gone out to seas on cue, and hidden.Here you find yourself shattered at a thousand points, flashing like crabs, a leg here, a claw there, and eyes everywhere. -- "Manitu Bay"

Snow House: Poems (Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series Award)

Poetry

Pleiades Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Swann, Brian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Swann, Brian

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Swann, Brian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Touching the Distance: Native American Riddle-Poems

The House with No Door: African Riddle-Poems

The Phoenician Women (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

The Phoenician Women (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature

Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature

A Basket Full of White Eggs: Riddle-Poems

Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America

I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers

Snow House: Poems (Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series Award)