Gathering 25 years work by one of America's most elegant and pertinent poets, this title contains work from eight books, including an excerpt from the erotic verse novel 'Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons', and a work written in the shadow of hegemonic empire.

Jerome Rothenberg's Poland /1931, a continuing series of ancestral poems, has been appearing in installments over the course of five years, published in limited edition by various small presses.

“Stern’s unadorned craftsmanship has few rivals in American letters.”— Philadelphia Inquirer Early Collected Poems gathers the poems from the first six books of Gerald Stern’s body of work. A master poet, Stern has sought new language for the overlooked, neglected, and unseen facets of human experience. Whether writing about modern poets, Hebrew prophets, death, war, or love, “Stern’s literary songs are sharp, surprising, and unerring in their delivery” ( Ploughshares , Editor’s Choice). from “The Red Coal” The coal has taken over, the red coal is burning between us and we are at its mercy— as if a power is finally dominating the two of us; as if we’re huddled up watching the black smoke and the ashes; as if knowledge is what we needed and now we have that knowledge. Now we have that knowledge.

In this autobiographical novel, the author moves among the dead poets of Stalin's Russia with the poet Marina Tsvetaeva, mingling with the ghosts of writers such as Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam and Joseph Brodsky. The author, herself of Russian descent, reconstructs the lives and fates of Russian, often Jewish, writers during the long age of Soviet terror, re-establishing them at the heart of the European tradition.

Yoel Hoffmann's novel The Christ of Fish, revolving around its heroine Aunt Magda, offers a heart-stopping view into the soul of things. Hoffmann makes a beautiful, epiphanic mosaic out of 233 pieces of Aunt Magda's life in Tel Aviv. Originally from Vienna, still speaking German after decades in Israel, and a widow, Aunt Magda has "divided her life into two periods: 'When my husband was alive' and 'now.'" "Now," ever elusive and ever inclusive in Hoffmann's work, contains her childhood, her marriage, her nephew, her best friend Frau Stier, Wildegans' poetry, apple strudel, two stolen handbags, Bing Crosby, a favorite cafe, and a gentleman admirer. Spontaneous and dreamlike, Hoffmann's images of reality shift in currents of "realness,"creating moments of absolute clarity -- life, seized as it is and of itself-- from the "cotton reels of memory." One reel concerns the title fish: "At the beginning of the fifties (Food was scarce in those days. Once a month, in exchange for government stamps, we ate a yellow chicken.) on Passover Eve, Aunt Magda's friend Berthe came to visit her and brought her from the Jordan Valley a large carp in a metal bucket....Aunt Magda filled the bath with water and put the carp in it. Two whole days the carp swam up and down the length of the bath. On the third day, Aunt Magda declared that the carp 'thinks just like we do, ' and sent Uncle Herbert (an expert in Sanskrit) 'to put the fish back in the sea.'"

Umberto Saba (1883-1957) is one of the great Italian poets of the twentieth century, as closely associated with his native city Trieste as Joyce is with Dublin. He received a sparse education but was writing distinctive poetry before he was twenty, ignoring the modernist groups which dominated the day. He came at personal themes in unexpected ways, using an unapologetically contemporary idiom. He acquired an antiquarian bookshop which prospered for a time, but his Jewish background placed him at risk with the rise of Fascism. When the Germans took northern Italy in 1943, he and his family went into hiding in Florence where they escaped detection until the Allied liberation. National fame came late in his life. 100 Poems is the most extensive selection of his work so far published in Great Britain. He emerges as one of the great European writers of his time. The book features writing from every period of his writing life. Patrick Worsnip's translations honour the poet's use of traditional Italian forms while using appropriately colloquial diction.

In this book, each of the chapters offers an analysis of the origins and development of an important aspect of Japanese culture, including religion (Pure Land Buddhism and Zen, Shinto and folk religions, Confucianism and Tokugawa era ideology), philosophy (classical Buddhism and the contemporary Kyoto School), literature and the arts (medieval poetry and drama, modern fiction and films), and social behavior (family system, feminism, nationalism, and economic growth). The central, underlying theme is the uniqueness and creativity of Japan as seen from twentieth century perspectives. One of the fascinating things about Japanese culture is that, on the one hand, it seems to have held onto its traditional foundations with a greater sense of determination and celebration than most societies and, at the same time, it appears to have attained a position at the forefront of international modernist and postmodernist developments. The authors explore several approaches to this issue. One school of thought is influenced by recent Japanese writers and intellectual historians such as Mishima, Tanizaki, Watsuji, and Nakamura. Another approach is influenced by Western poststructuralist commentators such as Barthes, Derrida, and Lyotard. A third approach is to argue against the thesis known as nihonjinron ("Japanism" or cultural exceptionalism), by suggesting that the notion of Japanese uniqueness is itself a cultural myth generated by nationalist and particularist trends originating in the Tokugawa era. The volume features an essay by Kenzaburo Oe, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, entitled "Japan, the Dubious, and Myself."

"The bardo of waking life is a meditation on the Tibetan Buddhist bardo realm, which is viewed as the bridge between lives, the state people enter after death and before rebirth. This book examines waking life and its history and language as if it were a bardo state rather than ultimate reality. Bardo is at once prose poetry, intimate memoir, and anthropological inquiry"--Provided by publisher.

A one-man think-tank for the New Left, Paul Goodman wrote over thirty books, most of them before his decade of fame as a social critic in the Sixties. A Paul Goodman Reader that does him justice must be a compendious volume, with excerpts not only from best-sellers like Growing Up Absurd, but also from his landmark books on education, community planning, anarchism, psychotherapy, language theory, and poetics. Samples as well from The Empire City, a comic novel reviewers compared to Don Quixote, prize-winning short stories, and scores of poems that led America's most respected poetry reviewer, Hayden Carruth, to exclaim, "Not one dull page. It's almost unbelievable." Goodman called himself as an old-fashioned man of letters, which meant that all these various disciplines and occasions added up to a single abiding concern for the human plight in perilous times, and for human promise and achieved grandeur, love and hope.

Rabbi Cardin--writing as a religious leader, friend, neighbor, wife, mother, and daughter--guides us toward a fuller understanding of Judaism. She invites us to become weavers of tradition; to knit our personal stories together with those of our ancestors and our community; and to honor, savor, and celebrate the sacred in our lives. This important addition to the Jewish family library presents detailed explanations of each ritual, along with historical, cultural, and scriptural background. By describing traditional rites as well as contemporary innovations--the Passover seder and Miriam's Cup, baby-naming ceremonies and the practice of wrapping the newborn in a tallit--Rabbi Cardin shows how we can honor and add to our tradition. Supplementary margin notes offer: Examples of ethical wills Personal anecdotes Rabbinic stories, folk tales, and poetry Tips on addressing the December Dilemma Enhancing the volume are exquisite drawings by Ilene Winn-Lederer, a mini-prayerbook of blessings for home observance, and a 20-year calendar of Jewish holidays. Rabbi Cardin invites us to record details of our observance in Personal Weavings--favorite holiday recipes, family rituals, and prayers of the heart--so that the Jewish tradition may be renewed and enriched. The Tapestry of Jewish Time reflects a profound spirituality that inspires us all to contribute to the lush weave of Jewish life.

Recent decades have been decisive for Russia not only politically but culturally as well. The end of the Cold War has enabled Russia to take part in the global rise and crystallization of postmodernism. This volume investigates the manifestations of this crucial trend in Russian fiction, poetry, art, and spirituality, demonstrating how Russian postmodernism is its own unique entity. It offers a point of departure and valuable guide to an area of contemporary literary-cultural studies insufficiently represented in English-language scholarship. This second edition includes additional essays on the topic and a new introduction examining the most recent developments.

Recent decades have been decisive for Russia not only politically but culturally as well. The end of the Cold War has enabled Russia to take part in the global rise and crystallization of postmodernism. This volume investigates the manifestations of this crucial trend in Russian fiction, poetry, art, and spirituality, demonstrating how Russian postmodernism is its own unique entity. It offers a point of departure and valuable guide to an area of contemporary literary-cultural studies insufficiently represented in English-language scholarship. This second edition includes additional essays on the topic and a new introduction examining the most recent developments.

Published very shortly before his death in February 1976, Meaning is the culmination of Michael Polanyi's philosophic endeavors. With the assistance of Harry Prosch, Polanyi goes beyond his earlier critique of scientific "objectivity" to investigate meaning as founded upon the imaginative and creative faculties. Establishing that science is an inherently normative form of knowledge and that society gives meaning to science instead of being given the "truth" by science, Polanyi contends here that the foundation of meaning is the creative imagination. Largely through metaphorical expression in poetry, art, myth, and religion, the imagination is used to synthesize the otherwise chaotic and disparate elements of life. To Polanyi these integrations stand with those of science as equally valid modes of knowledge. He hopes this view of the foundation of meaning will restore validity to the traditional ideas that were undercut by modern science. Polanyi also outlines the general conditions of a free society that encourage varied approaches to truth, and includes an illuminating discussion of how to restore, to modern minds, the possibility for the acceptance of religion.

An extraordinary history of love, from the ancient Sumerians to Freud Of all human emotions, love is perhaps the most mysterious, and the most decisive in shaping our destiny. Without it we are unfulfilled. But is it one emotion, or a compound of many? The Anatomy of Loving captures the color and vitality of human experience and thought on the subject of love, beginning with the seduction poetry of ancient Sumer, and moving to the findings of twentieth-century psychoanalysis. In this brilliant, humanistic exploration, psychoanalyst and scholar Martin Bergmann examines the thinking of figures throughout history who have influenced our notions of love to the present day: Plato and Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe, Chekhov and Stendhal, Madame Bovary and Eliza Doolittle. Medieval courtly love and nineteenth-century romantic love, homosexual and bisexual love—all are examined by Dr. Bergmann as they have been manifested in art and literature. And, though proponents of psychoanalysis have yet to agree on a single definition of love, Bergmann traces the fine differences made in that discipline between sexuality, narcissism, love and infatuation, sublimated love, and religious love. Above all, Bergmann eloquently delineates how the idea of love serves as a unique crystallization of the longings that suffuse the human heart. “A learned appreciation . . . The perspectives afforded the reader are at once specialized and rich.”— Partisan Review

Product Description Winner of the New South Wales Premier's Christina Stead Prize for best Australian work of fiction in 1995. "Lily Brett's third novel is about a happy marriage, the presence of death in life, the yearning for meaning and the realization that making sense of life is sheer farce. Esther Zepler and her husband, Sean, both expats from Melbourne, live and work in New York. They are both successful - she writes obituaries for papers worldwide and he is an artist. They are also successful parents. Brett writes with great wit and a sometimes shockingly base humor which is always very funny - for my money she's much better than Nora Ephron. Nothing is out of place in this novel as it concentrates upon Esther's life, her pain as well as her happiness. The pleasure of Just Like That is that is has great intellectual poise while it exploits all the joys of the contemporary novel. Like Catch 22 it is a serious novel that is often hilarious. Esther Zepler is a wonderful creation. ... A fabulously good novel." -the Sunday Age (Melbourne) About the Author Lily Brett is the Australian author of five novels, seven volumes of poetry, and three books of essays. Her 2001 novel "Too Many Men" was a critically acclaimed bestseller that received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers' Weekly. Her most recent novel is "You Gotta Have Balls" (2006). Her sixth novel, "Lola Bensky," is being published this autumn in Australia and Germany.

Mythic themes and philosophical probing in film as an art form, as seen in works of Preston Sturges, Jean Cocteau, Stanley Kubrick, and various other filmmakers. Film is the supreme medium for mythmaking. The gods and heroes of mythology are both larger than life and deeply human; they teach us about the world, and they tell us a good story. Similarly, our experience of film is both distant and intimate. Cinematic techniques--panning, tracking, zooming, and the other tools in the filmmaker's toolbox--create a world that is unlike reality and yet realistic at the same time. We are passive spectators, but we also have a personal relationship with the images we are seeing. In Cinematic Mythmaking , Irving Singer explores the hidden and overt use of myth in various films and, in general, the philosophical elements of a film's meaning. Mythological themes, Singer writes, perform a crucial role in cinematic art and even philosophy itself. Singer incisively disentangles the strands of different myths in the films he discusses. He finds in Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve that Barbara Stanwyck's character is not just the biblical Eve but a liberated woman of our times; Eliza Doolittle in the filmed versions of Shaw's Pygmalion is not just a statue brought to life but instead a heroic woman who must survive her own dark night of the soul. The protagonist of William Wyler's The Heiress and Anieszka Holland's Washington Square is both suffering Dido and an awakened Amazon. Singer reads Cocteau's films--including La Belle et la Bête , Orphée , and The Testament of Orpheus --as uniquely mythological cinematic poetry. He compares Kubrickean and Homeric epics and analyzes in depth the self-referential mythmaking of Federico Fellini in many of his movies, including 81⁄2 . The aesthetic and probing inventiveness in film, Singer shows us, restores and revives for audiences in the twenty-first century myths of creation, of the questing hero, and of ideals--both secular and religious--that have had enormous significance throughout the human search for love and meaning in life.