daydreaming w/ Bob Arnold
Yet one more edition of this tiny gem
(fiction and short essays)
from New Directions, this time as a
"New Directions Pearl" —
do ignore the typo on the
author's birth date on the back cover
1890, which it isn't, 1899 is more accurate —
Groucho Marx, Jean Rhys and H P Lovecraft were born in 1890.
First Voice
Went fetal as an ear on the bed and tried to feel
the dusty blue rhomboid of window being
in the vanguard of twilight every second,
hurtling, the word impressing itself
as no hurtling would on my mind
through space on the back of this
whale turning, turning, punctual
the other cheek to that star
_________________
Midwood
Norton, 2022
Newell Lyon learned the oral tradition from his elders in the Penobscot Nation in Maine and was widely considered to be a “raconteur among the Indians." The thirteen stories in this new volume were among those that Lyon recounted to anthropologist Frank Speck, who published them in 1918 as Penobscot Transformer Tales. Transcribed for the first time into current Penobscot orthography and with a new English translation, this instructive and entertaining story cycle focuses on the childhood and coming-of-age of Gluskabe, the tribe's culture hero. Learning from his grandmother Woodchuck, Gluskabe applies lessons that help shape the Wabanaki landscape and bring into balance all the forces affecting human life. These tales offer a window into the language and culture of the Penobscot people in the early twentieth century.
In “Still They Remember Me," stories are presented in the Penobscot language and English side-by-side, coupled with illustrations from members of the tribal community. For the first time, these stories are accessible to a young generation of Penobscot language learners and scholars of Native American literatures at all levels, from grade school to graduate school.
PHOTO OF BREECE D’J PANCAKE, ALBERT AND SHIRLEY SMALL SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
There is in Lopez's "Sliver of Sky" —
a tragic portrait of his early childhood years of
sexual predatory abuse by a family friend —
which may be his truest wildlife essay.
Random House, 2022
