Winter sky : new and selected poems, 1968-2008 / Coleman Barks.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barks, Coleman.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poetry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (334 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Athens : University of Georgia Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

As the foremost translator of thirteenth-century mystic poet Jalal Al-Din Rumi, Coleman Barks reaches a devoted, inspired, and ever-widening international audience. Yet the foundation for Barks's work as a translator is his own significant body of work as a poet. Winter Sky offers a selection from Barks's seven previously published books combined with a group of new poems. Barks's open-hearted, free verse poetry is infused with a joy of the spirit at play with the forms of the world. His journey through life is deeply embedded in his work. The poems spring directly from experience and engage with subjects such as the elation and struggle of having and raising children, grief over the deaths of loved ones, the transition from parent to grandparent, or the changing nature and intensity of desire. Barks's open letter to President Bush, written days before the invasion of Iraq and widely circulated online, is a poetic plea for peace, offering a startling and moving alternative to war. Whether it is the childhood excitement of being named best athlete at summer camp or the early signs of dementia at the age of seventy, Barks uses the personal to convey the universal. The unique flow of a life is here in poems that are rueful, confused, torn, and grateful, but always informed by Barks's transcendent sense of joy and playfulness.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Acknowledgments

Notes in Lieu of Preface

2003 - 2008 NEW POEMS

The Center

Extravagance

The Light in Everyone's Eyes

As the Dew

From There ain't nothing like it.

On Spirit

FROM SCRAP WOOD MAN (2007)

Guidance We Have Need Of

Reading in Bed

From Notebooks

Wine Poems

The Speed of Consciousness and August 18th

Car Trips

The Return of Professor Dumwhistle

These Winter Skies

Losing It

American College Students Overheard in a Restaurant After I Return from Afghanistan

Just This Once

From Central Asian Sufis and the Nature of the Heart

1978-2002 FROM TENTMAKING (2002)

Tentmaking

Purring

Divination

Book Tour Cure for Talking Too Much in Public

Question

Bill Matthews Coming Along

Black Rubber Ball

Bridge

Luke and the Duct Tape

Whittling

Spring Morning

Light on Leaves

The Ant

Abscission Leaf, Looking into Water

Silo, Spring Violets

The Final Final

Currycombing

Donald Hall Is Falling Down

The Animal

So Close, Not a Foot

Love for Clouds

1971 and 1942

None Other

Fly

Stone

Lard Gourd

The Railing

What We Learn from Literature

These Very Feet

The Look on the Dog's Face

Grace

Service

The Saint and Sinner Bullshit

Fine Arts Auditorium

Night Train, Southern France

Kingsnake

Driving Back from the Mountains

Straying

Elegy for John Seawright

FROM CLUB: GRAND DAUGHTER POEMS (2001)

No Finale

Club

Wietien

To Make an Ocean

Auspices

Boxkite

Dumb Chess

Glad

In Opening Game Day Traffic

Poetry for Children

FROM GOURD SEED (1993)

A Wish

A Section of the Oconee Near Watkinsville

Buttermilk

The House of the Tibetan Bellmaker

Higdon Cove

The Great Blue Heron

In the Woods, You and I

Fried Green Tomato Sandwiches.

A Walk in the Botanical Gardens

Bedclothes

Titty-Bream

Summer Food

Kindling

The Fire

The Wind Today

Orange Circles on Lavender Wings

Let the Door Be Locked

Hymenoptera

Some Orange Juice

WRFC

Walk Soup

Each Peach

The Tree

Audience

Spring Lizards

The Grocery Store

Vigil Notes

New Year's Day Nap

Darshan Singh and Christian Harmony

Small Talk: Coffee

The Second Mike Poem

Three

Every Evening

The End of the Sentence

The Fucking Grave

Salt

Becoming Milton

Two-Hour Wait in Toronto

Night Creek

An Up-Till-Now-Uncelebrated Joy

These Things, Hereafter

Sleet

The Brain-House

Carolina Silverbells

Fightingtown Creek

Gourd Day

A Hard-Cuss for Gourd Seed

1967-1977 FROM WE'RE LAUGHING AT THE DAMAGE (1977)

Good night.

Snow.

Putting up a bowl, its true resting

A flame is walking

This is how we'd like

FROM NEW WORDS (1976)

Sunbath in May

The Last Rebirth

The Hall Mirror

Sand

New Words

FROM THE JUICE (1972)

Body Poems-Big Toe

Stomach

Elbow

Cheek

Heart

Brain

Appendix

Knuckles

Navel

Shoulder Blades

Jaw

Upper Lip

Adam's Apple

Small of the Back

Crown of the Hair

Tongue

Bags Under the Eyes

Nape

Jowl

Ear Lobe

Thighs

Achilles Tendon

Wrist

Hips

Eye

Blood

Semen

Cavities

Roof of the Mouth

Middle Finger

Genitals

Skull

Spine

Coccyx

Blind Spot

Lymph

Scar

Pelvis

Buttocks

Inner Ear

Goosepimples

Liver

Haunches

Back of the Knee

Dimple

Sleep

Spleen

Fingertips

Armpit

Uvula

Taste Buds

Spoor

Yawn

Tic

Nostrils

Blush

Halfgainer, Halftwist

Spit 'n Image

Hands

Rice

Caul

Shadow

Bosoms

Balls

Birthmark

Sound Made by Snapping the Fingers

Choosing.

Goat &amp

Boy

Five Ways Down Stringer's Ridge

The Literal Snake

The Afterlife

The Oracle

Nickajack Cave

The Finger of Necessity

The Mule

The African Night Adder

The Flag Page

Taking a Nap Underneath My Desk

Keats

The Swim

Notes.

Notes:

"A Brown Thrasher Books original"--T.p. verso.

ISBN:

9786613267948

9781283267946

1283267942

9780820342023

0820342025

OCLC:

753978369