In 1908, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote "Requiem for a Friend" in memory of Paula Modersohn-Becker, the German painter who had profoundly affected him and who had died a year earlier. Although a great modern painter, Modersohn-Becker is remembered primarily as she is portrayed in Rilke's poem. Dear Friend looks at the relationship of two great artists whose often-strained friendship was extraordinary for both.

Dear Friend: Rainer Maria Rilke and Paula Modersohn-Becker

Arts & Photography

Torgersen, Eric

Individual Artists

Northwestern University Press

Ethiopia

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Hanging Loose Pr

Eastern Structures No. 12

Ward, Mark

Strahan, Bradley R.

Jenckes, Norma

Watkins, R. W.

Lignori, Priscilla

Baranosky, Edward

Walker, Tamara K.

Butson, Denver

Hosseini, Mace

Independently published

Poetry. With IN WHICH WE SEE OUR SELVES, Eric Torgersen begins with the formal structure of the ghazal as popularized by Agha Shahid Ali and unapologetically makes a more American thing of it, arguing in his Afterword that this transformation is as inevitable as what happens when the children of immigrant parents pass through an American junior high school: not everyone is pleased with the result. "I've tried to avoid faux- Eastern themes and tones," he writes. Fluently metrical and effortlessly rhymed, at times in short, hard-hitting lines with refrains as brief as a single word, these poems leap off the page with speech as American as this: 'My gang all quit when I didn't split the take right. / We crashed and burned when I didn't hit the brake right.' Following the common practice of "signing" the poems in the final couplet, Torgersen allows a chorus of voices—selves?—to speak of, to, for and even against this Eric, this 'Ric, this Torgersen, this Eric the Derrick, this Torgie. "Back Then," a tale of a life gone wrong, begins simply: 'I was just an average Joe back then. / I had no plans or dough back then. // Family gone, no friends to speak of, / I was feeling pretty low back then. // I started hanging out too much. / I had no place to go back then.' Seven couplets later, he signs with his given name, embedded in the name of his country: 'America, it wasn't you. / I did it. Long ago. Back then.' "There is wisdom here in Eric Torgersen's poems, wisdom and also humor (the poems make us feel that it is impossible to have one without the other.) Irony and tenderness—along with wisdom and humor—also move playfully in each other's company. And all these qualities are brought together under the aegis of a form as challenging to write as it is enticing to read. What joy these poems give and what a pleasure they offer to anyone lucky enough to be drawn into their orbit." —Jim Moore, author of Invisible Strings and Underground: New &amp; Selected Poems "In this fine collection Eric Torgersen's great wit and fine ear turn themselves to the ancient Persian verse form, the Ghazal, and dress it, sometimes hilariously, in American tone and circumstance perfectly fitted to an election year, or any year in our strange and various country. When he writes, 'The house, you'll notice, is on fire again./ We might decide to put out the flame for a change. // Look back. Look down. We're all alone up here./ Let's not forget the way we came for a change,' you realize this is a book anyone can read with pleasure and instantaneous understanding even by those determined not to understand." —Christopher Howell, author of The Crime of Luck

In Which We See Our Selves: American Ghazals

Mayapple Press

The world’s premier publisher of Asian forms in English, Eastern Structures picks up where Contemporary Ghazals left off, publishing English-language examples of the Middle Eastern form, but now in addition to Korean sijo and Japanese forms such as haiku and tanka -- rendered exclusively in the 5-7-5 and 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic structures. Issue 5 features the ghazals of Denver Butson, John Philip Drury, Steffen Horstmann, William Dennis, Eric Torgersen, Mindy Watson and editor R W Watkins; the sijo of Tamara K Walker, Chi Holder and Pat Geyer; the haiku of Mark Redfearn, Priscilla Lignori, James Lignori, Michael Lustbader, Ann Hills and several others; the third in a series of sijo essays by L J MacDowall; and an introduction to the Cambodian pathya vat by Bob Newman with exemplary contributions by Gareth Writer-Davies. Issue 6 is expected in late Winter or early Spring 2018, and submissions of traditionally structured Asian poetry and relevant non-fiction are welcome and encouraged

Eastern Structures No. 5

Rûmî

Dennis, William

Lignori, James

McDowall, L. J.

Hills, Anne

Drury, John Philip

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

The Complete Eastern Structures / Volume One provides the newcomer an excellent opportunity to own the first five issues of R. W. Watkins’s groundbreaking magazine in one handy 8.5” × 11” collection. Born out of the ashes of Watkins’s Contemporary Ghazals, Eastern Structures is the only English-language print magazine dedicated exclusively to several major Asian verse forms. Always true to form, ES publishes the most accurate representations of the ghazal, sijo, haiku and tanka in English today. Also featuring essays and editorials, this collection offers an excellent cross section of the best work from the past two years by some of the premier poets working in such forms. Among others, Steffen Horstmann, Denver Butson, William Dennis, L. J. McDowall, Priscilla Lignori, Mark Redfearn, Clark Strand and Watkins himself are all well represented. Issues One to Five of Eastern Structures are still available individually from Amazon.

The Complete Eastern Structures / Volume One: Nos. 1--5

Horstmann, Steffen

Redfearn, Mark

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