In Book VI of Virgil's AENEID, as the unburied dead stand on the shore of a river waiting to be carried across, they reach out their arms in longing for the distant shore of peace. A poetry of late life, Peter Weltner's AND THEY REACHED OUT THEIR ARMS IN LONGING FOR THE DISTANT SHORE also seeks transport, as poetry often does, to a distant shore, the one of tradition, of meaning, love, and peace. It is a book that re-envisions the deep past of in the writings and history of ancient Greece, Rome, and the biblical world of Mark's gospel, for example. It does so by at the same time pondering the history of violence, in both the distant and the more recent past as a way of elucidating the present. It is a book which seeks, in a sense, longs for, the "now" that waits for us in the elusive "then" of the past in order to make a vision of peace more possible."Peter Weltner is a poet of finely tuned craft with a sensuous ear for the sound of language. His poems look directly at the world. They don't flinch in the face of loss and death; they strive, in a manner wonderfully accomplished, for transcendence." 
Joseph Stroud (Of This World and Everything That Rises, Copper Canyon Press)

And They Reached Out Their Hands in Longing for the Distant Shore

Literature & Fiction

Weltner, Peter

Poetry

Marrowstone Press

Carmen Bardeguez-Brown's Meditation on Love, Dancing, Loss, and Forgiveness is a dance of memory and desire. 
It is a seamless combination of poetry and prose, English and Spanish, and the geographic roots of Ms. Bardeguez-Brown's life - Puerto Rico and New York City - which beautifully convey her inner journey, at times imagistic, at time expository, always blended into a powerful, natural balance. 
The work consists of some pieces solely in English, some solely in Spanish, and some a combination of the two, which creates palpable dance beats, rhythms, concentration, and sensuality. The juxtaposition of prose and poetry, such as in "Dance Conversations II" and "Conversation Between the Leader and the Follower" enhance the effects. 
Even if your Spanish is not good enough, like mine, to get the nuances of the Spanish pieces, the rhythms and emotions are easily discernible. 
No matter how winding the subject matter is, the ultimate feeling is of simplicity and acceptance.\n--Don Linder, award-winning script and fiction writer

Meditation on Love, Dancing, Loss, and Forgiveness

Bardequez-Brown, Carmen

"...Three Poets, Marlena Maduro Baraf, Carmen Bardeguez-Brown, and Julio César Paz ...a unique collection of poetry that is an act of kinship and a compelling documentary of language in time. These three voices rally the power of poetry in a global way, from New York to Hanoi to Chiang Mai." 
-Elaine Sexton, author of Drive\n"The fact that three Latino poets collaborated on this work gives the book a nuanced and more complex vision. These poet-travelers offer us a feast of images from their adopted societies. They present us with what is new and different while remembering that which was left behind." -Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, Author of Daughters of the Stone, A Woman of Endurance, and Indómita 
. 
"Three beautiful poets, connected by history and by their love of words have given us this unusual, memorable collection of friendship, and of understanding." -Esther Cohen, Poet, New York.

Three Poets / Tres Poetas

Bardeguez-Brown, Carmen

Baraf, Marlena Maduro

Paz González, Julio César

A mid-16th century coinage, 'antiquary' derives from Latin 'ante, ' 'before, and 'antiquus, ' 'former' or 'ancient.' An antiquary, however, not only admires or studies old objects or books; he also copies or repeats them. An antiquary ponders past things in part to restore them to the present. Peter Weltner's collection of poems and stories, Antiquary, explores pasts, both individual and historical, personal and communal, in search of what endures not as relics, not as mere collectibles or dated things, but as lasting images and values. It seeks to find those meanings, for good or for ill, which persist through time, the abiding human desires and experiences of suffering that confound then with now.

Antiquary: poems and stories

BENCH, A Story of Wonder, is a children's book about a young boy who meets and befriends an old man, seemingly homeless, who lives in the woods at the edge of a river near a small city. The old man begins to tell the boy stories about the old wooden bench at the edge of the river. Magic and mystery unfold.

BENCH, A Story of Wonder

Garwood, Galen

Bird and Tree/In Place is one book of poems composed of two. Its epigraph is taken from the English Romantic poet, John Clare: to "turn the blue blinders of the heavens aside/To see what gods are doing." In Weltner's book, the gods are such fundamental powers and presences as the past, memory, human existence in place and time, passion in all its senses, and what glimpses of transcendence humanity is allowed to see. It is a poetry of quest and questioning, of a late life looking back, of form and freedom pondering those essential things long pondered before us.

BIRD and TREE / IN PLACE

Scrapbook Mappings of My Country

Woods and the City is a new collection of poems by the American poet, Peter, Weltner 
As Agenda's W.S. Milne writes, "Weltner's poetry resists the post-content, post-intellectual, post-memory culture we seem to be living in today, succeeding through his writing in making us feel human again. He is a believer in human reason and dignity, as well as the bright necessity of passion....His poems extol the virtues of the free and beautiful human being in an age of "ravaged conventions."\nWoods: nature, the green world, freedom, wilderness, flowing streams and lakes, mapless, a place to get lost in, shadowy and dark, primeval, pastoral, the world of first things, timeless, inhuman, unchanging. The city: civilization, art, history, order patterned streets and aspiring buildings, laws and customs, the endless movement of people, a human place, transient, time-haunted, ever-changing. Such is the opposition long proposed between country and court, the forest and the metropolis. But the poems in Woods and the City imagine the two not as opposed, but as part of one sojourn, like a life wandering between worlds, unknowing, in search of home.

Woods and the City

Growing up in the South during the 40s and 50s, coming of age and 'coming out' in the Alaskan Arctic during the 60s, maturing as an artist in the Pacific Northwest during the 70s and 80s, Galen Garwood's SELL THE MONKEY is a fascinating memoir, one of humor and poignancy, swimming through generations of racism, homophobia, alcoholism, and uncertainty. It is an engaging chronicle of living and surviving in Ida's World, his glamorous and talented mother, who played ragtime piano at Alaska's legendary Malamute Saloon; it is a tale of monkeys, snakes, pigs, elephants, and insects; a story full of eccentric characters--Keoga the Snake Man, Dirty Earl, Greasy John, Mad Irene. It's about poets and painters, friends and lovers, art and sex, loss and discovery, and a life blessed by imagination.
Born and raised in Georgia, Galen Garwood has understood early on that life doesn't just smile at us with her beauty. As a child, he's experienced tragedy in the family with her mother's survival of a shooting, lived through the challenges and shame of her elopement with Sam, and endured her errant ways, which eventually saw the young Galen and his siblings put into an orphanage. These are experiences that are powerful enough to leave a painful mark on the psyche of a young man. The reader follows his story as he and his siblings are ferried back to their mother, then their father, and then grandparents. Galen's story is characterized by tumultuous moments as he journeys through adolescence and struggles to get a job in a bar in Alaska and get himself through college. His quest to make sense of his life will take him across continents to Asia, where he'd make new friends and re-discover a fascinating love for art. The most powerful moment of his life would come when he freely accepts his homosexuality. The question the reader asks is: Can he finally come to grips with himself and fully reconcile with his past, taking full control of his destiny? Sell The Monkey is a captivating story of family, love and abandonment, and man's search for his identity. The story is told in clear and powerful prose, and the reader is pulled in from the very beginning by the ruthless honesty with which the narrator looks at his life. It's a story that answers the question: What does it take to feel at home with one's self? I enjoyed the way the protagonist was developed throughout the narrative and how he grows from a victim to someone who can live life on his own terms, embracing art and determining how his work can be appreciated

Sell The Monkey,: A Memoir

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Two Eggs And A lemon is an enthralling, enchanting account of Joanna MacLean's four years working with the Red Cross in the pivotal four years ( 2002-2006) of Myanmar's political and social transformation. Each Chapter heading has a graphic rendering of her photographic documentation.

Two Eggs and a Lemon: My Four years In Myanmar

MacLean, Joanna

Leaders & Notable People

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