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Philippa Rees

Goodreads Author

Born

in Harrismith Freestate, South Africa

Website

http://www.philipparees.com

Twitter

PhilippaRees1

Genre

Spirituality, Philosophy, Poetry

Influences

A liberated female-dominant family and the wildness of Africa, any ori ...more

Member Since

February 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/philippa-poet

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'Shooting for the pot'
Philippa's many lives have all the elements of fantasy fiction. Born in South Africa and fatherless, she experienced the wildest parts of rural Africa in the care of her grandfather, often on safari for weeks inspecting rural African schools in a ten ton 'caboose' with a cook, a tracker marksman and a folding table.

The other extreme was imprisonment in boarding schools studying the Metaphysical poets, Theology and the English Monarchy, and always hungry. These solitary extremes perhaps contributed to the need to reconcile the influences of two worlds, African liberty and European culture, leading ultimately to Involution, a life's work that cost her the loss of country family and liberty.

Female emancipation was fed 'Shooting for the pot'
Philippa's many lives have all the elements of fantasy fiction. Born in South Africa and fatherless, she experienced the wildest parts of rural Africa in the care of her grandfather, often on safari for weeks inspecting rural African schools in a ten ton 'caboose' with a cook, a tracker marksman and a folding table.

The other extreme was imprisonment in boarding schools studying the Metaphysical poets, Theology and the English Monarchy, and always hungry. These solitary extremes perhaps contributed to the need to reconcile the influences of two worlds, African liberty and European culture, leading ultimately to Involution, a life's work that cost her the loss of country family and liberty.

Female emancipation was fed early. Her grandmother was related to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and her great great aunt had had a small but important role in the life of George Eliot; their unorthodox lives were held up as a model of appropriate female daring-do. So it is perhaps not surprising that she should arrive at a poetic narrative to achieve her reconciliation between science and religion, matter and mind.

The 'leitmotif' of her writing is characterized by a celebration of the individual, often eccentric, always out of the mainstream. So her work has never fitted into a Dewey index easily, crossing genres, bridging conventions. It is the gaps in human experience that interest her, and those 'gaps' form both the backbone of both these books and the poetic narratives appropriate to evocative and broad ideas.

After sampling medicine, architecture, classics and fine art she ultimately achieved degrees in Zoology and Psychology. She has lived on far from desert islands in Mozambique, fishing for supper; lectured to mature University students on 'Saints and Scientists' (the theory under-pinning Involution-An Odyssey); designed buildings; self-built an arts centre and concert hall; raised four daughters, and failed to master the cello, her greatest regret.

As a limbering exercise for this work she published 'A Shadow in Yucatan' a story evoking the promise and disappointment of the sixties and has a novel and a collection of short stories (Minding the Gap) in the pipe-line.
She lives in Somerset in her converted barns with an old collie and a long-suffering husband.

The book website can be found here http://involution-odyssey.com/ Her website with odd observations and short poetic comments can be found here http://philipparees.wordpress.com/ Please feel free to contact her with comments questions and observations through the site, or email her(Via website) She would be grateful for welcome contact from readers.
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4 posts
Philippa Rees's Blog

Gateways of the Mind-

Gateways of the Mind- Re-Learning the Already Known.

I wonder?

I feel like one of those street artists whose flamboyant chutzpah will draw a crowd only to watch him fall on his face or make his name by buying his painting, basket, or beaded necklace and getting themselves photographed with the ‘fellow they stumbled across’. WOW!

I want to weave an argument with only the reclamation that blew into the Read more of this blog post »

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Published on November 17, 2013 10:27 • Tags: being-true, despair, dreams-too-late, marketing, resolve, stripped-naked, vintage-clothing, weaving-messages

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Combine Editions
Philippa Rees’s books

Average rating: 4.48 · 33 ratings · 19 reviews · 3 distinct works

	Involution-An Odyssey Reconciling Science to God 4.44 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2013 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Shadow in Yucatan 4.36 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 2006 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Safari of a Patchwork Pilgrim: A Life it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 4 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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The Periodic Table

by Primo Levi

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Jan 03, 2015 08:38AM

Philippa’s Quotes

“Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

tags: duty-proceed-ability-limit-exist

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¡ POETRY ! — 22559 members — last activity Feb 16, 2026 08:36PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

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This group is dedicated to connecting readers with Goodreads authors. It is divided by genres, and includes folders for writing resources, book websit ...more

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ALL GENRE COMMUNITY OF BOOK LOVERS-Perfect for those interested in good books of any genre, film and lively discussion!- from current fiction, thrille ...more

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This group is moderated by Jessica Bell, publisher of Vine Leaves Press. Jessica is also a widely published indie author and a Goodreads Librarian. Sh ...more

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A place to connect writers with beta readers. Sometimes writers get so involved in the plot they can't see the wood for the trees. Hang on a sec'--th ...more

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