L.M. Browning's Blog, page 30
June 21, 2011
Written River Summer Solstice Issue
I am pleased to announce the release of the second issue of Written River: A Journal of Eco-Poetics! This issue is overflowing with poetical musings and images. There is the poetry of: Brandi Katherine Herrera, Marisa Handler, Beth Anne Boardman, J.K. McDowell, Simon Peter Eggertsen, Jamie K. Reaser, L.M. Browning, Roselle Angwin, Rodney Nelson and Kasey Phifer. Jason Kirkey speaks with Written River editor Jenn MacCormack about his new poetry collection, Estuaries. We have with stunning landscapes by our feature photographer Duncan George. Our two essayists for this edition are: Theodore Richards with his piece, Nature and Education and Pamela Biery with her essay, Truckee River Reflection. Also featured: Celebrating the Launch of Homebound – an imprint of Hiraeth Press devoted to fiction. A preview of Western Solstice by Leonore Wilson! As well as a preview of The Sapphire Song – a novella by Todd Erik Pedersen forthcoming this Summer from Homebound.
I am an associate editor of Written River, along with authors Jason Kirkey and Jenn MacCormack. In this issue you will see a preview of my forthcoming novel, The Nameless Man as well as a poem I wrote this past spring while at sea, sailing to Flat Hammock Island, entitled: Departure from Avery Point.
Read Written River
Open publication - Free publishing - More ecology
June 18, 2011
Fruition
Walk into my home and the first thing that stands out is books. Bookcases line the walls of my living room and bedroom, which incidentally has been taken over by my office. One bookcase in particular is devoted to my own writings. There are manuscript boxes stacked one on top of the next containing stories that date back some ten years to when I was a youth listening to the words that would come through when I leaned my ear against the wall of my soul and listened.
In 2002 I made the decision not just to write but to be a writer. It was around that time a wisp of a dream began forming within me that of one day I might establish a publishing house. These dreams manifested themselves; at the bottom of my working manuscripts I began scrolling "Homebound Press," the name I had chosen for the publishing house I aspired to create. This dream seemed the far off longings of a bright-eyed youth. After eight years of writing and submitting my work, I had all but given up on my dream to publish let alone found a press, when after a string of rejections, miraculously a manuscript proposal I sent in was accepted and I broke into the industry with the publication of my poetic series through Little Red Tree Publishing. Six months after I was offered my book contract I was approached by Hiraeth Press and asked by press Founder, Jason Kirkey to come on board as a partner to assist him in his expansion the press.
One of the first matters I discussed with Jason was my desire to publish fiction titles. Hiraeth Press being a publisher of poetry and non-fiction, this would mean the launch of an imprint, which cleared a place for me to plant the seeds I had long been carrying. I am pleased to announce that over the past months Homebound has been woven into reality. To complement Hiraeth Press' poetry and non-fiction titles, we have decided to launch Homebound as an imprint devoted to fiction.
Karmatically enough, Jason's vision of Hiraeth and my vision of Homebound complement enough other nicely. Even the meaning of the names of the presses are kindred to each other. The meaning of the word Hiraeth roughly translates to, "a longing for something your soul once knew." So many times our individual emotions of hiraeth manifest themselves in a longing to return home–be it to a childhood solace or the place we resided before entering this life. Linking into the meaning of Homebound [bound for home.]
The changes of the past year have brought new opportunities and an insane amount of work. Rushing from task to task, juggling countless projects at once, the accomplishments of the last year have not yet hit me—I was starting to question whether they ever would. However, yesterday morning, while out walking early in the morning, the significance of the events of the past years finally settled into me. As I walked out into a morning storm churning in the sky above, I experienced a full circle moment in my life. I thought I would share with you my journal entry for the morning:
"I walked out into a turbulent sky at dawn feeling that once again that they walked with me. Charged within my heart by the belief that there are fated things, as I was when I was in my youth.
We spend months, years—decades diligently tending the garden of our hopes, waiting with bated breath for some small flowering—a dream transitioned into reality. The anticipated moment of our harvest lapses into weary waiting and we despair at the bleak scene of our life. When surprisingly, years later, whilst puttering lost around the garden that is now overgrown with the strangling vines of doubt, a single white bloom brings us back to our youth, reminding us that all things are possible."
Come Visit Homebound's website at: www.homebound.hiraethpress.com
June 17, 2011
Fruition | A Letter
Walk into my home and the first thing that stands out is books. Bookcases line the walls of my living room and bedroom, which incidentally has been taken over by my office. One bookcase in particular is devoted to my own writings. There are manuscript boxes stacked one on top of the next containing stories that date back some ten years to when I was a youth listening to the words that would come through when I leaned my ear against the wall of my soul and listened.
In 2002 I made the decision not just to write but to be a writer. It was around that time a wisp of a dream began forming within me that of one day I might establish a publishing house. These dreams manifested themselves; at the bottom of my working manuscripts I began scrolling "Homebound Press," the name I had chosen for the publishing house I aspired to create. This dream seemed the far off longings of a bright-eyed youth. After eight years of writing and submitting my work, I had all but given up on my dream to publish let alone found a press, when after a string of rejections, miraculously a manuscript proposal I sent in was accepted and I broke into the industry with the publication of my poetic series through Little Red Tree Publishing. Six months after I was offered my book contract I was approached by Hiraeth Press and asked by press Founder, Jason Kirkey to come on board as a partner to assist him in his expansion the press.
One of the first matters I discussed with Jason was my desire to publish fiction titles. Hiraeth Press being a publisher of poetry and non-fiction, this would mean the launch of an imprint, which cleared a place for me to plant the seeds I had long been carrying. I am pleased to announce that over the past months Homebound has been woven into reality. To complement Hiraeth Press' poetry and non-fiction titles, we have decided to launch Homebound as an imprint devoted to fiction.
Karmatically enough, Jason's vision of Hiraeth and my vision of Homebound complement enough other nicely. Even the meaning of the names of the presses are kindred to each other. The meaning of the word Hiraeth roughly translates to, "a longing for something your soul once knew." So many times our individual emotions of hiraeth manifest themselves in a longing to return home–be it to a childhood solace or the place we resided before entering this life. Linking into the meaning of Homebound (bound for home.)
The changes of the past year have brought new opportunities and an insane amount of work. Rushing from task to task, juggling countless projects at once, the accomplishments of the last year have not yet hit me—I was starting to question whether they ever would. However, yesterday morning, while out walking early in the morning, the significance of the events of the past years finally settled into me. As I walked out into a morning storm churning in the sky above, I experienced a full circle moment in my life. I thought I would share with you my journal entry for the morning:
"I walked out into a turbulent sky at dawn feeling that once again that they walked with me. Charged within my heart by the belief that there are fated things, as I was in my youth.
We spend months, years—decades diligently tending the garden of our hopes. Waiting with bated breath for some small flowering—a dream transitioned into reality. The anticipated moment of our harvest lapses into weary waiting and we despair at the bleak scene of our life. When surprisingly, years later, whilst puttering lost around the garden that is now overgrown with the strangling vines of doubt, a single white bloom brings us back our youth, reminding us that all things are possible."
Come Visit Homebound's website at: www.homebound.hiraethpress.com
May 21, 2011
Maintain Courage
When I was younger and was planning to make my way, I wanted to be a doctor. Perhaps naively, I wanted to be able to travel to the most desperate places in the world and ease the suffering there. Heading down that path, fate pulled me in another direction; in the end, placing a pen in my hand. Many a time, over the intervening years, I have felt a duality about being a writer—I am meant to be a writer, I cannot be anything but what I am; nonetheless, I felt I should have been something more useful than a poet. I have since come to realize that a writer holds tremendous responsibilities. A writer can be the conscience of their people—the highlighter of hidden injustice and the voice of the suppressed. A writer's duty lie in maintaining the courage to speak the truth, no matter the cost and to seek out meaning for the masses crying out for it. The symptoms of the inner-ailments manifest themselves as the illnesses of the body. A doctor treats the body—the symptoms only. Yet it is the poet who treats the soul wherein the roots of our torments rage.
I am honored by the gifts I have been given and now I must honor them in return by never lacking the needed courage or becoming lax in that search for meaning.
May 17, 2011
Author Theodore Richards Reviews Oak Wise
A Review by author Theodore Richards of Oak Wise
I have been suggesting now for a while that we need a new Dante, someone who can give a poetic voice to a new worldview that allows us to live more harmoniously with the Earth and with one another. I borrow this notion from the cultural historian Thomas Berry who famously said that our problem right now is that we need a good story. Human beings need stories to integrate information and to express it meaningfully. The story—or the poem—is how information becomes wisdom, how it comes to life. The philosopher-cosmologist Brian Swimme has been at this for years, as has the poet Drew Dellinger. L.M. Browning is another such poet, giving voice to the embedded consciousness of the Celtic world.
Browning's poetry works because it is both personal and universal. Essentially, Oak Wise is her story, a story of leaving the modern world behind for the world of "the shaman", the world of her ancestors.
I travel across your hills
—across the curves of your shapely body—
making my way yonder,
towards the small gathering
of long-standing native folk
The Earth's subjectivity comes forth here, in stark contrast to the Modern perspective that thinks of it as what Berry calls "a collection of objects." Just as it is an intensely personal story, is also very much our story, the story of the end of modernity and our collective search for a return to a more meaningful culture and a deeper connection to the Earth:
We take our harvest from your body.
We peel back your grassy skin and plant our seeds
Within the deep tissue of your flesh.
…you are the womb of us all mother
we all connect to you and live off you.
Browing is establishing her self in the tradition eco-philosopher Charlene Spretnak calls "embedded literature." This connection to the Earth comes with a warning:
We cut down the trees
—the lungs through which you breathe—
and while you could regenerate from our theft,
your natural cycles are impeded
as now the few maples and oaks that remain
yield their bounty of seeds into tar roads
Indeed, if we do not find such a connection the consequences could be disastrous.
One of Browing's strengths as a poet is her ability to convey a cohesive narrative through the poetic form. In doing so, she joins in the ancient tradition of narrative poetry that reflects an archetypal, mythic pattern. She takes the reader on a journey, a journey of remembrance. For it is a journey we have all been on before, deep within our cultural memory, a journey that involves return. And this notion of return works two ways: First, she is inviting us to return to an older way of being in the world, the way of our shamanic ancestors. "An ecological faith," she calls it, created "not by prophets, but by peasants." Second, and more subtly, she is returning from this journey to teach us. While she recapitulates ancient patterns and traditions, Browning does so from her unique perspective, and with a sensitivity to the unique problems of our age. She closes the poem with a challenge to the oft-used phrase of North Carolina novelist Thomas Wolfe, and a challenge to the common sense of the modern age:
We coined the modern adage,
"you can't return home,"
condemning ourselves to a way of life
where joy is seldom found;
closing the door
that would have always remained open to us…
a door that can still be reopened,
if only we admit that we are a people of the Earth
and what we need to be fulfilled
lies within the simple ways we left behind.
Indeed, if only we could admit.
______________________________________________________________
Theodore Richards is author of Cosmosophia: Cosmology, Mysticism and the Birth of a New Myth He is a poet, writer, and religious philosopher. He is a long time student of the Taoist martial art of Bagua and hatha yoga and has traveled, worked and studied in 25 different countries, including the South Pacific, the Far East, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Richards has received degrees from the University of Chicago, The California Institute of Integral Studies, Wisdom University, and the New Seminary where he was ordained. He has worked with inner city youth on the South Side of Chicago, Harlem, the South Bronx, and Oakland, where he was the director of YELLAWE, an innovative program for teens. He is the author of Handprints on the Womb, a collection of poetry. Theodore Richards is the founder and executive director of The Chicago Wisdom Project. He currently resides in Chicago with his wife and daughter.
Author Theodore Richards Review's Oak Wise
A Review by author Theodore Richards of Oak Wise
I have been suggesting now for a while that we need a new Dante, someone who can give a poetic voice to a new worldview that allows us to live more harmoniously with the Earth and with one another. I borrow this notion from the cultural historian Thomas Berry who famously said that our problem right now is that we need a good story. Human beings need stories to integrate information and to express it meaningfully. The story—or the poem—is how information becomes wisdom, how it comes to life. The philosopher-cosmologist Brian Swimme has been at this for years, as has the poet Drew Dellinger. L.M. Browning is another such poet, giving voice to the embedded consciousness of the Celtic world.
Browning's poetry works because it is both personal and universal. Essentially, Oak Wise is her story, a story of leaving the modern world behind for the world of "the shaman", the world of her ancestors.
I travel across your hills
—across the curves of your shapely body—
making my way yonder,
towards the small gathering
of long-standing native folk
The Earth's subjectivity comes forth here, in stark contrast to the Modern perspective that thinks of it as what Berry calls "a collection of objects." Just as it is an intensely personal story, is also very much our story, the story of the end of modernity and our collective search for a return to a more meaningful culture and a deeper connection to the Earth:
We take our harvest from your body.
We peel back your grassy skin and plant our seeds
Within the deep tissue of your flesh.
…you are the womb of us all mother
we all connect to you and live off you.
Browing is establishing her self in the tradition eco-philosopher Charlene Spretnak calls "embedded literature." This connection to the Earth comes with a warning:
We cut down the trees
—the lungs through which you breathe—
and while you could regenerate from our theft,
your natural cycles are impeded
as now the few maples and oaks that remain
yield their bounty of seeds into tar roads
Indeed, if we do not find such a connection the consequences could be disastrous.
One of Browing's strengths as a poet is her ability to convey a cohesive narrative through the poetic form. In doing so, she joins in the ancient tradition of narrative poetry that reflects an archetypal, mythic pattern. She takes the reader on a journey, a journey of remembrance. For it is a journey we have all been on before, deep within our cultural memory, a journey that involves return. And this notion of return works two ways: First, she is inviting us to return to an older way of being in the world, the way of our shamanic ancestors. "An ecological faith," she calls it, created "not by prophets, but by peasants." Second, and more subtly, she is returning from this journey to teach us. While she recapitulates ancient patterns and traditions, Browning does so from her unique perspective, and with a sensitivity to the unique problems of our age. She closes the poem with a challenge to the oft-used phrase of North Carolina novelist Thomas Wolfe, and a challenge to the common sense of the modern age:
We coined the modern adage,
"you can't return home,"
condemning ourselves to a way of life
where joy is seldom found;
closing the door
that would have always remained open to us…
a door that can still be reopened,
if only we admit that we are a people of the Earth
and what we need to be fulfilled
lies within the simple ways we left behind.
Indeed, if only we could admit.
______________________________________________________________
Theodore Richards is author of Cosmosophia: Cosmology, Mysticism and the Birth of a New Myth He is a poet, writer, and religious philosopher. He is a long time student of the Taoist martial art of Bagua and hatha yoga and has traveled, worked and studied in 25 different countries, including the South Pacific, the Far East, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Richards has received degrees from the University of Chicago, The California Institute of Integral Studies, Wisdom University, and the New Seminary where he was ordained. He has worked with inner city youth on the South Side of Chicago, Harlem, the South Bronx, and Oakland, where he was the director of YELLAWE, an innovative program for teens. He is the author of Handprints on the Womb, a collection of poetry. Theodore Richards is the founder and executive director of The Chicago Wisdom Project. He currently resides in Chicago with his wife and daughter.
May 12, 2011
The First Preview of The Nameless Man – A Novel by L.M. Browning
Here is the first preview of – A Novel – forthcoming in November 2011 [Homebound - An Imprint of Hiraeth Press]. This work has been eight years in the making and I am very pleased to finally see it come full-circle.
The preview I have posted is featured in the upcoming Summer Solstice Issue of Written River: A Journal of Eco-Poetics.
Future updates concerning The Nameless Man will be posted under [The Novel] tab on this page.
{To View a Hi-Res image of the Previewor on the image to the left.}
May 11, 2011
Before The Pen, There Was the Pencil and the Brush
Before I became a creature of the pen, I was drawn to the pencil and brush. (A gift I inherited from my mother.) Here is an original work of mine from 2007: The Study of the Red-tail. © L.M. Browning
May 7, 2011
Online Launch of Estuaries by Jason Kirkey – Hiraeth Press Event
Come join us for the launch of Jason Kirkey's newest collection of poetry, Estuaries. Come hang out on Facebook or drop in anytime over the evening. Jason will be posting a new poem in a video reading series every thirty minutes. He'll also answer questions and chat in the comments. This is an opportunity to hear Jason read his work and to pre-order the book which will be released on the 21st. The first 25 pre-orders will ship with a limited edition broadsheet featuring a poem and photograph from the upcoming collection.
~
When: Wednesday, May 18 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm
Where: Hiraeth's Facebook Page
May 5, 2011
Cosmosophia Wins an IPPY Gold Medal!
We at Hiraeth Press are immensely proud to announce that Cosmosophia: Cosmology, Mysticism, and the Birth of a New Myth by Theodore Richards has won a gold medal in the Independent Publish Awards! As a partner in Hiraeth Press, I was honored to have a hand in publishing this remarkable work.
