The Tears of the Muses

Weinfield, Henry

Dos Madres Press

Poetry. Translation. "A poet of exquisite formal control, Henry Weinfield writes lyrical and narrative poems that have a rich, sad music for which the ear and the heart hunger"--Kevin Hart. "The secret of this poet's power lies in the music of his verse. If poetry consists foremost of harmony in words, Weinfield has perfect pitch! Whatever the subject, with the happy rhythms of dance and the lovely magic of verbal sound he always takes us along to that point, where all things and all words, even the most abstract, look new and fresh. This is a precious book"--Louis Dupre. Henry Weinfield is a poet, translator, and literary scholar. He is the author of a number of collections of poetry, including The Sorrows of Eros and Other Poems; of a translation of and commentary on the Collected Poems of Stephane Mallarme; and of a literary study, The Poet Without a Name: Gray's Elegy and the Problem of History. His poems, essays, and articles have appeared in numerous journals. His verse translation of Hesiod's Works and Days and Theogony (with Catherine Schlegel of the Classics Department) was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2006. He is a professor in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Without Mythologies: New & Selected Poems and Translations

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Poetry. "In THE ATHEIST'S PRAYER Madeline Tiger never forgets, even in the most intimate moments, that 'truth is...like the old inveterate river that holds clouds.' Tiger encompasses, with a tender embrace, a life made whole; her ministrations do not deny it sorrows, and she is glad to celebrate its hard-won triumphs. I don't know when I have ever been allowed to contemplate the intricacies of the personal so unflinchingly and to understand that, beyond the window, there is a vast untempered world, a glorious one. It is the caring in these quietly intelligent poems which makes living in this world possible"--Burt Kimmelman.

The Atheist's Prayer

Tiger, Madeline

Fiction. "In the Diaspora, the Book replaces and compensates for the the Land that is lost. But in Bea Opengart's IN THE LAND, the Land and the Book are one. Opengart's accounting weaves personal reflection with precise reportage, the awareness of tradition with an openness to the changes, the upheavals, of contemporary Israeli life. Neither tourist nor native, she is, rather, the lost lover strangely returned, the stranger forever falling in love. Give yourself to her Book as she gives herself to the Land"—Norman Finkelstein. With ten color photographs taken by the author.

In the Land

Opengart, Bea

Poetry. "Here is a quarter century of work from a poet who has patiently teased out the sounds of sense from American speech—overheard on a father-and-son tour of prospective colleges or at a 'scrub-urban birthday barbecue.' To read David Katz's shapely, sonically savvy, poems is to enter with the poet into an ongoing dialogue between contemporary talk and our modern literary past (as Bishop, Crane, Borges, Rushdie, Moore, O'Hara, Stevens, Auden, and Lowell traverse the stage of his poetry in turn), as well as with ancient Jewish culture (as enunciated by Gabirol, Halevi, and the Bible). Katz's CLAIMS OF HOME bestrides the new world and the old, claiming finally an enduring home in the heart"—David Yezzi.

Claims of Home

Katz, David

Poetry. "Infused with an eerily adept understanding of Latin American history and culture dating from the 15th century to modern times, their collective duende, REFLECTIONS IN A SMOKING MIRROR will come to stand as a monumental work and as a companion piece to the epic Gabriel García Márquez novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. This collection of poems takes on the true power of myth"—Wayne Atherton. "REFLECTIONS IN A SMOKING MIRROR tells the story of the fall of an ancient, vibrant civilization to Spain's conquistadors under Cortez. Pines's language is intelligent and refreshing, his ideas provocative, his images striking, and his narrative—however tragic—dramatically thrilling. This book is a smoking mirror"—Maurice Kenny.

Reflections in A Smoking Mirror

Pines, Paul

Poetry. "I like the vivid lines that James Tolan is able to produce. He knows how to hold onto the hog and let go at the right moment"—Robert Bly. "From the wellspring of a ramshackle youth emerges a poet capable of great empathy, whose eloquence is embodied in reticent, measured, sensuous verse. This poet resurrects the catastrophe of childhood with hard-won insight. Yet even the wise poet might not get inside of us and seize us. James Tolan, though, does and, in his wisdom, realizes that memory is always in danger from the words meant to perpetuate it. His attention to craft is what allows for his knifing, unforgettable testimony. I wonder what word in this extraordinary collection can be done without"—Burt Kimmelman.

Red Walls

Tolan, James

Poetry. Jewish Studies. "In his Foreword to this astonishing book, Henry Weinfield calls the prophet Elijah 'one of the most daemonic and uncanny figures in literature.' And with these poems, Weinfield himself becomes one of the most daemonic and uncanny poets writing today. The high formality and decorum of his verse produce an unparalleled lucidity and sublime resonance. In 'The Book of Elijah,' modern English poetry, mediated by the inescapable language of the King James Bible, is now the vehicle for an epic tale drawn from the archaic Jewish tradition. But this is hardly an exercise in antiquarianism. Look at Weinfield's 'Praise and Lamentation': in a fluid, conversational style, he has written one of the most powerful and intelligent political poems in recent memory. This is a book to read at Passover&mdash;and all year long."&mdash;Norman Finkelstein

A Wandering Aramaean: Passover Poems and Translations

Poetry. "'...[W]hat is this intervening / That passes for now but / A box with windows...' I am shaken by these poems, over and over lines so wise, so tender, they both weep and laugh as they tumble from the page. I love the quiet authority in the seeing&mdash;in the telling&mdash;the careful, calm listening, the poet's life, passing through him, touched and held sacred by him, on its way to each reader.... In AND WE'D UNDERSTAND CROWS LAUGHING W. Nick Hill shows us that it is, yes, a fine thing to hear the coded voices, the evidence of existence all things place in the wind, but it's an even higher calling to translate these voices. The poems give hope, describe impossible loveliness and hold clues on how to survive our collective day of reckoning. This wonderful, kind and meticulously crafted book, without knowing it or intending it, is in truth a book of answers."&mdash;Gary Lemons "The scale of Nick Hill's poetry runs from fava beans to 'the dinosaur's great collapse.' The cultural richness reaches from Spain and Latin America to the twisting wonders of contemporary American poetry. This book has literary heft, and should establish him as one of our essential poets."&mdash;James Bertolino

And We'd Understand Crows Laughing

Hill, W Nick

ández Granados's Principle of Uncertainty have come out in Literal, eXchanges and Mid-American Review where the translation chapbook "Constructed on Coincidence" was a feature of the 2010 30th anniversary issue.The Americas Review The Bilingual Review and others have publish

Poetry. "How do we stay rooted in a world of flux? 'Oh, to keep ourselves / from falling,' Jennifer Arin exclaims, and here is a poet who understands and celebrates the complexity of this impossible wish. Meditating on ancient languages and cityscapes, flow charts and romance, Arin brings an awareness of time's ineluctable passage and poetry's power to stop it, however briefly. Brilliant and resonant, one illumination following another, WAYS WE HOLD delivers on its promises because for Arin, poetry 'is one / small way we hold on.' You will want to hold onto this book, like a lost friend rediscovered."—Elisabeth Frost"'Nothing comes without a history,' Jennifer Arin reminds us in 'A Portion,' her penultimate poem from this extraordinary collection. Deftly moving between the playful and the lyrical, the serious and the subversive, Arin parses the etymology of phrases from Aztec kings, affectionately refers to time as 'an escape artist anyway,' and fearlessly explores the tragic accident that befell a beloved mentor 'riding / the unplanned / curve.' With sparkling wit and clarity that provokes and seduces her lucky readers, Arin's poetry celebrates the quirky coincidences of our shared humanity, the tenderness that ultimately connects us in the WAYS WE HOLD."—Mary Winegarden"In WAYS WE HOLD, Jennifer Arin takes the long view—from prehuman history to pumpkins in the state of Delaware, from a Sumerian scribe to her own Russian-Jewish grandparents. Confronting time, death, and chaos, she finds solace in human connection, the 'way[s] we hold on, or try to.' Her thoughtfully-shaped poems, 'planting word rows / across the page,' reveal a lively curiosity, a wry sense of humor and a levelheaded understanding of the human condition."—Chana Bloch

Ways We Hold

Arin, Jennifer

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