Handwriting
$15.00
Title | Range | Discount |
---|---|---|
Trade Discount | 5 + | 25% |
- Description
- Additional information
Description
"Tumultuous, vibrant, tragic and over too soon." —Newsday
Handwriting is Michael Ondaatje’s first new book of poetry since The Cinnamon Peeler. The exquisite poems collected here draw on history, mythology, landscape, and personal memories to weave a rich tapestry of images that reveal the longing for–and expose the anguish over–lost loves, homes, and language, as the poet contemplates scents and gestures and evokes a time when "handwriting occurred on waves, / on leaves, the scripts of smoke" and remembers a woman’s "laughter with its / intake of breath. Uhh huh."
Crafted with lyrical delicacy and seductive power, Handwriting reminds us of Michael Ondaatje’s stature as one of the finest poets writing today."Richly sensual images…. [Ondaatje] contracts the narrative to a few concrete images, giving his verse a mysterious reticence." —The New York Times Book Review
"Poems that are virtual hybrids of the contemporary and the ancient." —Boston Book Review
"Smooth poetic lines…. Another finely polished Ondaatje gem." — Time Out-New York
"Extremely beautiful." –Robert Hass, The Washington PostMichael Ondaatje is the author of three previous novels, a memoir and eleven books of poetry. His novel The English Patient won the Booker Prize. Born in Sri Lanka, he moved to Canada in 1962 and now lives in Toronto.In the dry lands
every few miles, moving north,
another roadside Ganesh
Straw figures
on bamboo scaffolds
to advertise a family
of stilt-walkers
Men twenty feet high
walking over fields
crossing the thin road
with their minimal arms
and "lying legs"
A dance of tall men
with the movement of prehistoric birds
in practice before they alight
So men become gods
in the small village
of Ilukwewa
Ganesh in pink,
in yellow,
in elephant darkness
His simplest shrine
a drawing of him
lime chalk
on a grey slate
All this glory
preparing us for Anuradhapura
its night faith
A city with the lap
and spell of a river
Families below trees
around the heart of a fire
tributaries
from the small villages
of the dry zone
Circling the dagoba
in a clockwise hum and chant,
bowls of lit coal
above their heads
whispering bare feet
Our flutter and drift
in the tow of this riverUS
Additional information
Weight | 3.48 oz |
---|---|
Dimensions | 0.2600 × 5.2000 × 7.9900 in |
Series | |
Imprint | |
Format | |
ISBN-13 | |
ISBN-10 | |
Author | |
Audience | |
BISAC | |
Subjects | zen, Japanese, short stories, beauty, art, anthology, poetry, french, collection, canada, language, poems, literary fiction, essays, poem, translation, gift ideas, poesÃa, gift books, poetry book, poetry collection, metaphysics, poetry books, POE000000, poem books, poem a day, collected poems, writing, philosophy, feminist, feminism, nature, historical, war, culture, spirituality, self help, buddhism, family, health, yoga, Mythology, modern, music, classic, school, spiritual, environment, love, Animals, grief, death, fairy tales, coming of age, 21st century |