Download or read book Alan Birkelbach written by Alan Birkelbach and published by Texas Christian University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birkelbach writes of the Texas landscape and its people with conversational ease, making his vivid descriptions shimmer through each poem. He balances the ordinary and the phenomenal, the factual and the suppositional, the temporal and the eternal in poems remarkable for their depth of insight. As Billy Bob Hill writes in his introduction to the volume, Birkelbach can disguise a mosaic of word music in plain sight hidden in conversational English.

Download or read book Alan Birkelbach written by Alan Birkelbach and published by Texas Christian University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birkelbach writes of the Texas landscape and its people with conversational ease, making his vivid descriptions shimmer through each poem. He balances the ordinary and the phenomenal, the factual and the suppositional, the temporal and the eternal in poems remarkable for their depth of insight. As Billy Bob Hill writes in his introduction to the volume, Birkelbach can disguise a mosaic of word music in plain sight hidden in conversational English.

Download or read book Alan Birkelbach written by Alan Birkelbach and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Waking the Bones written by Alan Birkelbach and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the most complete selection of work by 2005 Texas State Poet Laureate Alan Birkelbach ever put in one volume. It brings together selections that represent his more recognizable pieces, work that has only been available in journals, work that has only been available in books that are out of print or unavailable, plus a generous selection of new work. In Case of Poetry Reading Break Glass It is almost certain this is a scenario that will never happen: if someone spontaneously combusts while reading something by Bukowski then perhaps they should be allowed to burn. Then let's all go for the axe. Of course, the sign there would read, "In case of fire break glass," and inside the tiny little alcove, the shelf barely big enough to hold an ancient dwarf mummy, would be a poetry book which most of us, I fear, would not know how to use. We would stare blankly at it for several seconds, wondering what possible good it could do us, how it might yet save our lives.

Download or read book Weighed in the Balances written by Alan Birkelbach and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "These poems are a raft of images --lightning, tornado, farm, dragonfly, the cotton cord of a seining net. 'Roll your pants legs up,' wade into this lovely stream which God drives across in a 'truck with a bad transmission.' You will want to 'memorize the route.'" Diane Glancy, poet, author of "Boom Town," Black Hat Press, Associate Professor, Macalester College, Chancellor, National Federation of State Poetry Societies. "These are poems of being, steeped in stories, sensuous and surreal. Profound in their simplicity, Alan Birkelbach's poems resound with the beauty and irony of life, its songs of discovery, from one who drinks deeply." Mary Hebert, author of "Horatio Rides the Wind." editor, "Not Black and White: Inside Words from the Bronx WritersCorps." "A unique and original voice, Alan Birkelbach invites us into his world of surprises. In 'Weighed in the Balances' he balances the unexpected with the everyday, questioning with revelation. His wit and wisdom shine through these poems and leave us 'leaning toward the sun.'" Margo LaGattuta, poet, author of "Embracing the Fall." "I most liked the unexpected and remarkable diversity in voices, imagery, thematic concerns and settings. Alan Birkelbach's poetry is as at home in the Yucatan as in Dalhart." Billy Bob Hill, Browder Springs Publishing. "Striking, immediate images startle us. His concisely chosen words etch into our memory the scene as vividly as an encounter with a rattlesnake. Instantaneous focus distinguishes Birkelbach's personification. His nontraditional subjects are diverse and tactile, like 'melted crayons'" Peggy Lynch, Poet-in-Residence, 1998, Paris American Academy, author of "Love, Love Peggy." "Easily caught and drawn into the magic of these poems' rich imagery, we are children and can smell the "melted crayons." We "hear voices in the rain," taste the sweet potatoes and marzipan, feel the crushed tissue in our fists. These poems touch our human core, male and female, old and young. We willingly follow the gentle pull of lines, and when released, we swim away slowly, and remember." Gail Teachworth, poet, "Everywhere Is Someplace Else," President, Florida State Poets Association.

Download or read book Viva Texas Rivers written by Steven L. Davis and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-24 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than the lifeblood of our natural world, Texas rivers have nourished the human spirit for as long as people have gathered on their banks. A living bond has flowed between Texas writers and rivers ever since the 1960 publication of John Graves’s classic journey along the Brazos, Goodbye to a River. Many of Texas’ leading writers have had their hearts captured by a river, and they have created sparkling accounts of the waterways they love. Now, editors Steven L. Davis and Sam L. Pfiester have assembled the best of those works into a revelatory collection of diverse literary voices. Ranging from the desert canyonlands of the Rio Grande to the swampy Big Thicket, from crystal clear Hill Country streams to the Red River’s treacherous quicksand, Viva Texas Rivers! showcases many classic writings along with brand new essays written for this volume. The literary nonfiction is complemented by flashes of poetry that brilliantly reflect these curving ribbons of light. Authoritative and expertly edited, Viva Texas Rivers! offers shimmering accounts of hidden paradises, as well as searing exposés of abuse and despoliation. Yet even in the bleakest times, as these writers have found, Texas rivers can bestow a sacred grace —and unexpected redemption. Viva Texas Rivers! brings you as close to the living nirvana of a Texas River as you can get without launching yourself into a canoe and following a great blue heron as it glides just above the breaking rapids, leading you around the bend as the river flows onward toward the best places in our hearts.

Download or read book Wingbeats II Exercises and Practice in Poetry written by Scott Wiggerman and published by Dos Gatos Press. This book was released on 2016-01-19 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINGBEATS II: EXERCISES & PRACTICE IN POETRY, the eagerly awaited follow-up to the original WINGBEATS, is an exciting collection from teaching poets—58 poets, 59 exercises. Whether you want a quick exercise to jump-start the words or multi-layered approaches that will take you deeper into poetry, WINGBEATS II is for you. The exercises include clear step-by-step instruction and numerous example poems, including work by Lucille Clifton, Li-Young Lee, Cleopatra Mathis, Ezra Pound, Kenneth Rexroth, Patricia Smith, William Carlos Williams, and others. You will find exercises for collaborative writing, for bending narrative into new poetic shapes, for experimenting with persona, for writing nonlinear poems. For those interested in traditional elements, WINGBEATS II includes exercises on the sonnet, as well as approaches to meter, line breaks, syllabics, and more. Like its predecessor, WINGBEATS II will be a standard in creative writing classes, a standard go-to in every poet's library.

Download or read book Rogue Waves written by Alan Birkelbach and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rogue Waves examines those moments that are like their namesake, events that occur unexpectedly, that cannot possibly be real, that have disproportionate impact, and just as quickly are over. This book is all about " . . . the keystone that dislodges, the chain that breaks . . . ." The implicit question is always, "What happens when our pathway changes all of a sudden?" We find new ways to help us cope, accepting the paradox of a new reality, sometimes only checking to see what parts still work and then moving forward. Rogue Waves is about the abrupt shifts in our paradigms and perspectives and balance. "Alan Birkelbach's thoughts and images, set in Wallace Stevens-like word play, spill so fast the reader must clutch or miss the depths and read again, or maybe yet again. But we're included. Whether it's Persephone in bunny slippers pulling Pluto out of bed, or little-boy Alexander the Great posing heroically before a Sears camera, he invites figures from myth, history, the streets he walks daily, to sit down with him and us at breakfast. Lurking beneath the scattered surfaces of seemingly random observations are moments when we find our canoe on the bottom, our self on the wrong street, rocks falling on us from Krakatoa's explosion, or stones from a pyramid we were stacking the wrong way."-Frances Neidhardt

Download or read book Meridienne Verte written by Alan Birkelbach and published by Purple Flag. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alan Birkelbach's tenth book of poetry, Meridienne Verte, is an existential romp through terrain that seems familiar at first - but changes before our very eyes. With each accessible poem, balancing wisdom with irreverence, Birkelbach invites readers in with simple and common language - and then leaves them in an environment not unlike the scientific explorers in his poem "A Little Conversation about Geometers" who have suddenly found themselves in a different place in the center of the earth, all rules of gravity and survival changed. It is their world, yes, but it isn't the same anymore - because someone asked a question that altered everything: "What use was there in measuring the stars...?" In so many of the poems, "When Those Choose to Talk" or "Atlas On His Day Off," for example, Reality (with a capital R) is so far away - but it isn't really. The poems are full of the mysterious minutiae of the reality we all know, transported to mythical and almost unbelievable settings. Whether it is the transient nature of a camisole failing off an invisible shoulder, or the misericordia in a church most of us will never visit, the implicit value of the inherent, far-off, and short-term treasure, and measure, is promoted to be one of hope and exuberance. Life may be short. But based on Birkelbach's poems it is well worth living.

Download or read book A Cycle of the West written by John G. Neihardt and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2018-08 with total page 726 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Cycle of the West rewards its readers with a sweeping saga of the American West and John G. Neihardt’s exhilarating vision of frontier history. It is infused with wonder, nostalgia, and a keen appreciation of epic history. Unquestionably the masterpiece of the poet who has been called the “American Homer,” A Cycle of the West celebrates the land and legends of the Old West in five narrative poems: The Song of Three Friends (1919), The Song of Hugh Glass (1915), The Song of Jed Smith (1941), The Song of the Indian Wars (1925), and The Song of the Messiah (1935). This unforgettable epic of discovery, conquest, courage, and tragedy speaks movingly and resoundingly of a unique American experience. The new introduction by former Texas poet laureate Alan Birkelbach and annotations by Joe Green present fresh views of Neihardt’s iconic work.

Download or read book A Cycle of the West written by John Gneisenau Neihardt and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 892 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Cycle of the West rewards its readers with a sweeping saga of the American West and John G. Neihardt's exhilarating vision of frontier history. It is infused with wonder, nostalgia, and a keen appreciation of epic history. Unquestionably the masterpiece of the poet who has been called the "American Homer," A Cycle of the West celebrates the land and legends of the Old West in five narrative poems: The Song of Three Friends (1919), The Song of Hugh Glass (1915), The Song of Jed Smith (1941), The Song of the Indian Wars (1925), and The Song of the Messiah (1935). This unforgettable epic of discovery, conquest, courage, and tragedy speaks movingly and resoundingly of a unique American experience. The new introduction by former Texas poet laureate Alan Birkelbach and annotations by Joe Green present fresh views of Neihardt's iconic work.

Download or read book By the Light of a Neon Moon written by Janet Lowery and published by Madville Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection offers memories of love found and of love lost. There are verses about line dancing and mechanical bulls, crusty bartenders and jukeboxes whining out two-stepping songs full of pedal-steel guitar. And, of course, the collection won't be complete without a few crying-in-your-beer poems too.

Download or read book Cooking with the Texas Poets Laureate written by Elizabeth Ethredge and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2024-02-27 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It should come as no surprise that poets are often exceptionally fine cooks, savoring food the way they savor words and at the same time recognizing that just as a gathering of words does not necessarily mean a good poem, neither does a mixture of ingredients necessarily mean a good recipe. In Cooking with the Texas Poets Laureate, the editors, all members of Dr. Paul Ruffin’s 2014 graduate Editing/Publishing class, solicited recipes and food-related poetry and prose from Texas Poet Laureates of this millennia. The result is a most unusual gathering of personalities equally comfortable with the spatula or the pen. Eating Texas It’s taken a long apprenticeship to make waffles in the shape of Texas. First there were mountains over Waco. Then the Panhandle sank. A few more false starts when the Red River swamped Oklahoma and the Rio Grande dripped into Mexico. Now I can make perfect ones. All I have to do is take care to stop pouring the batter a little shy of El Paso, Dalhart, and Texarkana. For some reason, Brownsville needs more. Otherwise, my grandchildren complain they don’t have the tail of Texas to bite off.

Download or read book The Texas Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Poetry Train America written by John E WordSlinger and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2013-06-09 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A colorful combination of storytelling, poets, poetry, and railways presented using America's fifty states as a backdrop. 3 men who travel the U.S.A. in the year of 2012... To write a written documentary on Poets and the Railroad in our times... When they sleep they get taken back in time to the 19th Century, when the roads were built, and they have such great experiences, and meet key Poets, and figures... Upon waking they have conversations about Poets from the 20th Century, and RxR events... Then it goes into their written documentary on Poetry and Poets now... Main Characters that Andy and Red and Train Marshal Charlie journey within their Dreams, and they are Alphonso G. Newcomer, Mad Bear, Jung Hem Sing, Mr. Welchberry, Patrick O'Hara, Jimmy New Orleans, and many more

Download or read book If in Later Years written by Ron Moore and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-20 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If in Later Years is filled with poems of depth and insight that provoke, engage, surprise, and astound. Reading Ron Moore’s second collection of poetry takes readers on journeys around the world and back through the ages of time. Each poem is written with great insight, learning, and craft, and each invites multiple readings and reflection. From a Tibetan monk sitting in silence and contemplating the atom to a love affair with Buenos Aires, Moore takes his readers on journeys that are both personal and profound. While each poem has its own voice and beauty, Moore shapes all of them with lyrical and mindful skill. Unafraid to tackle the hard questions of philosophy, aesthetics, consciousness, and art, he uses his poems to delve into themes of desire, loss, love, beauty, and the distant horizons of the mind.

Download or read book Goodbye Mexico written by Sarah Cortez and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-02 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology gathers the strong voices of accomplished poets reaching into and beyond nostalgia to remember, to honor, and to document through figurative imagery their experiences of Mexico and the vibrant border areas before the ravages of narco-violence. Locals Listen to the Mariachi Band at El Jardin in San Miguel You see their silhouettes along the stone wall or arm in arm below the glow of garden lights huddled like foothills, earth you could plant maize in. Cowboy hats and serapes, the smell of beer and cinnamon churros. You think of family and language how the music rolls through your hips to the sweat behind your knees. How it rushes through you, to a place you still don’t know. —Lois P. Jones