David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 208
November 2, 2014
Appalachia - Poems by Charles Wright
Appalachia: Poems by Charles WrightMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Charles Wright is a spiritual poet who questions everything including his questions. He is a poet of nature who suspects that nature has a trick up her sleeve. Landscape and language interplay and he asks much of both, received much, but never enough.
In this collection, he reads from an imagined "Appalachian Book of the Dead" and takes us deep into wonder, and fear, and hope, and resignation, "Until there is nothing else" but silence.
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October 31, 2014
Join me and other local authors at the Culpeper Library Saturday Nov 1 at 2pm.
Join me and other local authors at the Culpeper Library Saturday Nov 1 at 2pm.
October 30, 2014
David Sam's Reviews: Allegiant by Veronica Roth
Allegiant by Veronica RothMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fit ending to this dystopian trilogy, written by Millennial author Veronica Roth. Supposedly aimed at a young adult audience, the Divergent novels may be read and appreciated by any reader.
Along with the Hunger Games trilogy, which was written by a late Baby Boomer, these novels suggest implications for how some young people may view the way they are used and manipulated by older generations currently in power. In both cases, youths are forced to choose among several warped and limiting options. And in both cases, the larger society uses them as fodder in socially dysfunctional entertainments or oppressive functions.
It may be too much to suggest parallels with the education traps we have created, the false hopes for careers and lives of meaning betrayed by decisions made by the elites and by history. On the other hand, it may not be a false analogy at all.
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October 26, 2014
My poem "Flowing Into The Adjacent Possible" has been accepted
My poem "Flowing Into The Adjacent Possible" has been accepted for publication in the winter issue of the Scapegoat Review.
October 18, 2014
October 16, 2014
Reading at Germanna Community College - October 16, 2014
My reading to Germanna students is available streamed here:
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/7082119/events/3495279
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/7082119/events/3495279
October 11, 2014
Country Music: Selected Early Poems
Country Music: Selected Early Poems by Charles WrightMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A first-rate collection by Charles Wright. Wright's poetry is spiritual without being self-righteous or self-indulgent.
"When he lies down, the waters will lie down with him,
And all that walks and all that stands still, and sleep through the thunder."
He is true to nature's imagery but also is comfortable signifying through and by that imagery.
"Don’t wait for the snowfall from the dogwood tree.
Live like a huge rock covered with moss,
Rooted half under the earth and anxious for no one."
He is not afraid of simplicity or of eloquence:
"Home is what you lie in, or hang above, the house
Your father made, or keeps on making,
The dirt you moisten, the sap you push up and nourish"
I enjoyed living some of my days reading this collection.
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One of my first published poems
When I was in high school and college, as is common for all of us at that time in our lives, I struggled to decide who I was to become. Would I be a scientist. I loved geology, astronomy, astrophysics, meteorology, paleontology, and so on. I did well in math and science.
But I also loved literature and language. And I had been writing since I was 11 years old.
Five books helped me see that there did not have to be a divide in me:
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
Narcissus the left brained monk, Goldmund the right brained artist and vagabond, were really two halves of one mind.
Love and Will by Rollo May
This work taught me that love was an action of will, to oversimplify, and that a life is richer by action and contemplation being interwoven.
The Tao of Physics by Frijof Capra still causes some controversy for scientists who think mysticism is pure bunk and mystics who see science as antithetical to a spiritual life. Capra suggests a way that brings both together, as does:
The Dancing Wu-Li Masters by Gary Zukov.
This book "blew my mind" as we used to say. He does a fair job of translating what was the edge of physics in 1979 for the layperson.
The epiphany for me was that, while I had to choose among many career paths, and while I could only walk a handful of those career paths in my life, I did not have to choose between seeing through the eyes of science or the eyes of a poet.
The fifth book was The Tao te Ching
My verse continues to be an attempt to live my way within the Way and be true to both.
This poem, published along with three others by the Great River Review in 1978, marked my most successful experience with a journal. Its then editor, Emilio DeGrazia, saw what I was trying to do and valued it. Thank you Emilio. (The three other poems were "On the Pavement," "Don't Go Near the Edge" and "We Almost Caught the Turning.")
So here, from that journal, is "He Reconciles the Scientist and Poet."
But I also loved literature and language. And I had been writing since I was 11 years old.
Five books helped me see that there did not have to be a divide in me:
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
Narcissus the left brained monk, Goldmund the right brained artist and vagabond, were really two halves of one mind.
Love and Will by Rollo May
This work taught me that love was an action of will, to oversimplify, and that a life is richer by action and contemplation being interwoven.
The Tao of Physics by Frijof Capra still causes some controversy for scientists who think mysticism is pure bunk and mystics who see science as antithetical to a spiritual life. Capra suggests a way that brings both together, as does:
The Dancing Wu-Li Masters by Gary Zukov.
This book "blew my mind" as we used to say. He does a fair job of translating what was the edge of physics in 1979 for the layperson.
The epiphany for me was that, while I had to choose among many career paths, and while I could only walk a handful of those career paths in my life, I did not have to choose between seeing through the eyes of science or the eyes of a poet.
The fifth book was The Tao te Ching
My verse continues to be an attempt to live my way within the Way and be true to both.
This poem, published along with three others by the Great River Review in 1978, marked my most successful experience with a journal. Its then editor, Emilio DeGrazia, saw what I was trying to do and valued it. Thank you Emilio. (The three other poems were "On the Pavement," "Don't Go Near the Edge" and "We Almost Caught the Turning.")
So here, from that journal, is "He Reconciles the Scientist and Poet."
