Poetry. Translated from the German by James Mitchell. Readers of these carefully crafted translations by James Mitchell will profit not only by their economy and clarity of expression, but also by the fact that the same translating technique allows Holderlin's imagery and remarkable spiritual imagination to shine forth in English. Friedrich Holderlin was born in Germany in 1770 and studied in Tubingen from 1788 to 1793, where he became friends with fellow-students Hegel and Schelling. Thereafter he wrote some of the most fascinating lyric poetry in the history of German literature. Translator James Mitchell has lived and worked for many years in Germany and San Francisco as a writer, book publisher and college teacher.

Poems of Friedrich Holderlin

Literature & Fiction

HÖLDERLIN, Friedrich

Poetry

Ithuriel's Spear

Fiction. It's the quarter century before the new millennium. In these stories, Lena Rossi, perplexed speck in the human continuum, wanders through a last epic party in 1970's San Francisco, before the rents go through the roof and the thrift stores have been picked clean. Dogs howl and she follows them through the Church Street Safeway and the hippie trails of India, while the ghosts of Italian WW II POW's drink homemade liquor in their old prison camp in the Presidio. Author Kevin Killian calls these stories "indelible monuments of the original new narrative movement," and Robert Gluck says they are "sarcastic, irreverent, hilarious and somber while they exemplify a great conscience."

Post War and Other Stories

Rosa, F.S.

Contemporary

Poetry. Asian Studies. Translations from the Chinese by James Mitchell and Yulie Lou. This book describes the development of Zen Buddhism in Tang-period China, and it presents the recorded teachings of Shitou Xiqian, Yaoshan Weiyan and Yunyan Tansheng, collected from the Chinese canon. These three Buddhist masters were instrumental in the growth of the Cao-Dong School, one of the "Five Houses" of Chan, later introduced to Japan by Master Dogen Zenji in the 13th century as Soto Zen. The translations were made during James Mitchell's tenure as visiting professor at the Foreign Affairs Graduate College of the People's Republic of China, Beijing, with the indispensable assistance of Prof. Yulie Lou, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Beijing University, after a careful examination and comparison of the Song-period histories.

Soto Zen Ancestors in China

Fiction. A dreamtime narrative which takes place in South Pennsylvania in the early 60's. Here live Rim, Jace, Paul, and John Logan, all local high school students. Rim is writing a novel, which has as its subject John Logan. The text weaves back and forth from the narrated biography of Logan and several passages taken from Rim's novel. Originally published in 1969. Andrei Codrescu: "Reading Logan is like entering the twister of a mind that conducts an erudite yet fresh symphony." Jack Spicer said of Hunce's writing in 1965: "If this is dictation, it's driving me wild."

Logan

Voelcker, Hunce

Fiction. Gay and Lesbian Studies. Memoir. This collection of conversations and ruminations during walks around the city was first published in 1979 by Black Star Series, San Francisco. It was immediately recognized as a core text by a group of young writers known collectively as the New Narrative school, associated with Robert Gluck's workshops and other events held at Small Press Traffic. The anecdotal stories reveal what it was like to be gay and interested in intelligent literature in 1970's San Francisco. Dennis Cooper calls it "a seminal and perfect work," and for Camille Roy it is "a founding document, and the brilliant record of an opening in writing."

My Walk with Bob

Boone, Bruce

Biographies & Memoirs

Cultural Writing. Essays. Richard Schwarzenberger is a gardener and writer at home in San Francisco. For a decade, regular columns from Faro's garden have appeared in the East Bay Monthly and in the S.F. Chronicle, where he wrestles with his garden as Jacob wrestled with the angel, pinning it down and winning a blessing.

In Faro's Garden

Schwarzenberger, Richard

Arts & Photography

FICTION. Bob Gluck writes: "Mike Amnasan is an amazing writer. His spare prose displays the brutal equations of power, variables and constants that shape consciousness and flesh. His is a take-no-prisoners minimalism where needs are isolated in a kind of silence: the need to be recognized, the need to be touched, the need to dominate, and strongest of all the need to explain. Here is the spectacle of ferocious creativity and disappointment, a drama in which hope is continually dispatched and revived."

Liar

Amnasan, Mike

Genre Fiction

Autobiography of Frances Lynd Scott.

Saga of Myself

Frances Lynd Scott

Cultural Writing. Gardening. Widely regarded as the first gardening book in European history, and currently the only translation available in English, this book was written in the ninth century by Walafrid Strabo, Abbot of the Carolingian monastery at Reichenau Island. It tells us what our medieval gardener is growing in his garden, explains the benefits and medicinal properties of the plants, and gives an idea of how they are to be looked after. James Mitchell introduces and translates this classic from the original Latin hexameters, and S.F. Bay Area gardening columnist Richard Schwarzenberger provides a foreword.

On the Cultivation of Gardens

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Strabo, Walafrid

Gardening & Landscape Design

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

Books by Ithuriel's Spear

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

Poems of Friedrich Holderlin

Post War and Other Stories

Soto Zen Ancestors in China

Logan

My Walk with Bob

In Faro's Garden

Liar

Poems of Friedrich Holderlin

Saga of Myself

On the Cultivation of Gardens