David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 218
April 29, 2014
My new collection of poetry will be release in June 2014
I am happy to announce the upcoming release of my first full-length collection of poetry.
"Memories in Clay, Dreams of Wolves" gathers semi-autobiographical poetry about a boyhood and adult life lived in conversation with nature. In this volume, David Anthony Sam describes a life shaped by his youth in Pennsylvania and Michigan and his journey by thumb through the Pacific Northwest. The imprint of these experiences molds his ecological holism and sense of the holiness of the commonplace and of all life.
"Memories in Clay" will be released as a trade paperback and eBook available on Amazon in June 2014.
Two respected poets have the following to say about this collection:
“David Sam is a poet of deep identity with the natural world. In these intimate narratives of discovery and awe, the poems speak often with an almost breathless urgency, reminding us of the inexhaustible life within life, testaments to a unique sensitivity, in a boy and then a man. In journeys both actual and metaphorical, the self is not different than rivers or sunrise. ‘I am made of water and wild air,’ one poem says. The lucky reader breathes deeply.”
- Allan Peterson, author of Fragile Acts and All the Lavish in Common
“David Anthony Sam’s poems are literally rooted in the earth, seeded in the rich, dark soil. Whether he’s writing about childhood or the rivers of Pennsylvania, these poems are filled with fields, mountains, lakes, snow and stars; they remind us that human life is found in the morning air, in the golden rays of the rising sun, in a bird’s call as dusk arrives. Memories in Clay, Dreams of Wolves is an impressive book that will transport you into the natural world where, as Sam writes, you will become ‘forgetful and human again.’”
- David James, author of She Dances Like Mussolini, winner of the 2010 Next Generation Indie book award in poetry
"Memories in Clay, Dreams of Wolves" gathers semi-autobiographical poetry about a boyhood and adult life lived in conversation with nature. In this volume, David Anthony Sam describes a life shaped by his youth in Pennsylvania and Michigan and his journey by thumb through the Pacific Northwest. The imprint of these experiences molds his ecological holism and sense of the holiness of the commonplace and of all life.
"Memories in Clay" will be released as a trade paperback and eBook available on Amazon in June 2014.
Two respected poets have the following to say about this collection:
“David Sam is a poet of deep identity with the natural world. In these intimate narratives of discovery and awe, the poems speak often with an almost breathless urgency, reminding us of the inexhaustible life within life, testaments to a unique sensitivity, in a boy and then a man. In journeys both actual and metaphorical, the self is not different than rivers or sunrise. ‘I am made of water and wild air,’ one poem says. The lucky reader breathes deeply.”
- Allan Peterson, author of Fragile Acts and All the Lavish in Common
“David Anthony Sam’s poems are literally rooted in the earth, seeded in the rich, dark soil. Whether he’s writing about childhood or the rivers of Pennsylvania, these poems are filled with fields, mountains, lakes, snow and stars; they remind us that human life is found in the morning air, in the golden rays of the rising sun, in a bird’s call as dusk arrives. Memories in Clay, Dreams of Wolves is an impressive book that will transport you into the natural world where, as Sam writes, you will become ‘forgetful and human again.’”
- David James, author of She Dances Like Mussolini, winner of the 2010 Next Generation Indie book award in poetry
April 19, 2014
World Tree by David WojahnMy rating: 4 of 5 starsWhile th...
World Tree by David WojahnMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
While there are some poems that simply try too hard and amass too many references for my taste, there is much that is fine in and about this volume by David Wojahn. At its best, references to personal and world history, current events and his family, and the universal arc of human life all interlace like the leaves of the World Tree that is one of his dominant analogies here.
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April 13, 2014
Everywhere Being Is Dancing: Twenty Pieces of Thinking by...
Everywhere Being Is Dancing: Twenty Pieces of Thinking by Robert BringhurstMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Bringhurst is a polymath to be envied. He writes about language, poetry, typography, art, translation, Native American culture, nature and much more with erudition, passion, and elan.
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March 30, 2014
March 17, 2014
March 9, 2014
Come, Thief by Jane HirshfieldMy rating: 5 of 5 starsCert...
Come, Thief by Jane HirshfieldMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Certainly one of Jane Hirshfield's finest collections---how she shows the everyday to be both evanescent and numinous. How she makes the tragic and comic in our lives from simple words and images.
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March 8, 2014
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Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman
The March by E.L. Doctorow
The Cambridge Companion to Dante by Rachel Jacoff
Inferno by Dante Alighieri
Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri
Share book reviews and ratings with David, and even join a book club on Goodreads.
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman
The March by E.L. Doctorow
The Cambridge Companion to Dante by Rachel Jacoff
Inferno by Dante Alighieri
Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri
Share book reviews and ratings with David, and even join a book club on Goodreads.
February 22, 2014
The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth GalbraithMy ratin...
The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth GalbraithMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sad to see how much Galbraith's prediction came true: that collective amnesia could eventually lead to another boom and bust almost as bad as the 1929 crash.
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February 15, 2014
Given Sugar, Given Salt by Jane HirshfieldMy rating: 4 of...
Given Sugar, Given Salt by Jane HirshfieldMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jane Hirshfield has written better collections, but this one still resonates with her revisioning of the most commonplace of things and events into the deeply significant. When so much poetry seemingly is written to exclude the reader, Hirshfield intimately and profoundly includes us.
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