To keep going as a writer over the years, at least in the minor and non-commercial genre of American poetry, you have to tell yourself some version of Mark Twain's trans-Atlantic cable: "The reports of my death [as a poet] have been greatly exaggerated." Robin Magowan is an American surrealist poet of genuine imagination and linguistic risks who has kept writing over the years with a consistency of tactic and concern that might be called obsessional, wish-drenched fantasy from one point of view and the signature of an authentic style from another.

A special listening is at the core of this poetics of the syllable and the transcendental image. For "God still moves in the sound of the long 'o,' as Dylan Thomas once suggested; and although a half-century of deconstructive semiotics (and worse) have taught us to be much more cautious about such enthusiasms for the logos and the mystique of verbal and religious presence, such assumptions and risks of intuitive language and the inscape of imagery are at the core of Robin Magowan's poetry.

Magowan's Lilac Cigarette in a Wish Cathedral, as its wonderful title for this project suggests, registers a poetry of risk-fulfillment, tracking extremities and delicacies of sense and wish, mountain journeys, desert flights, movements into and out of the primacy of ecstatic fulfillment that haunts the Greco-Roman tradition as this comes down to the United States via a "whit manic" incarnation that haunts our little streets and huge continental hungers. He works this through the Emersonian sense of abandonment and solitary quest, which seeks "ravishment of the intellect by coming nearer to the fact" of self-loss and the desacralization that is the fate of commodity culture.

This is a singular collection, suggesting a life-long discipline in the poetic image and the path of heightened language, a highly wrought and prolonged "derangement of the senses" a la Rimbaud that has taken Magowan from Greece to Tibet and back it its quest.

The last poem in Lilac Cigarette in a Wish Cathedral (wherein, as Richard Howard aptly puts it in his trenchant introduction, "the hierophant smokes his lilac cigarette in a wish cathedral" that is each poem) is entitled "O," and moves from the crooning and screeching plea of a Whitmanic voice, "O my rooster's urge/ to spring voice loud" to the cranked-up ecstasy (bleeding sound into picture) of "dawn flushed/ crimson screaming o."

Pain and pleasure as elsewhere bleed into the mix, the poet lost into the rooster's urge to give rebirth to the whole mounting and morning landscape. In "Miniature," this transmutation of local scene into the mystique of poetic/ religious presence is effected not so much through the visual as through impactions of the aural, what Hopkins called the "inscape" of leaping vowels: "The pleasure of sounds innocently grasped/ A peacock in the eyes of the rain." This twisted and torqued little haiku of a poem depends on the "e" becoming "I" becoming "a" as much as upon the image transformation. The poem enacts, in "miniature," the mix of hearing and sounding that becomes the aesthetic medium of the "wish cathedral."

In a time still dominated by the locality of image (as in Williams) and the play of skeptical wit (Stevens, and his heirs like Ashbery), Magowan had always pursued something else, something closer to Breton or Michaux and the sources of magical incarnations in European surrealism as a kind of interior Orphic line. Magowan's book thus opens in Greece, and seeks the ecstasy of dance and music as tactic of self-loss. Later, "Orfeo" courts this lineage, where the poet (ancient to modern) descends to mount, "goes in a gorge/ Of pluming, spraying song." No gods or muse arises to help the sense of abandonment and self-loss amid the murmuring of deadly presence, "just a wingbeat to guide/ Murmurous wasp center, alone."

The Lost Tribes of Israel migrated from the Holy Land and disapeared from history. But did they really? This book by C.R. Dickey uses the Bible as its source to understand the promises by God to the Tribes of Israel and how the Bible, through the prophets, tell the story of Israel & Judah as they relate to current history. Read this book and you will understand how the United States and Great Britian are the choosen nations by God as the home of Israel, the Ten Tribes and the promises they carry.

I am surprised to find no other reviews here of this special book, a collection that should be read.This is a wonderful volume, by a poet so at ease with forms,with his own voice of casual,yet complex insight,with the balancing of colloquial tone and wisdom,the poems really speak wonders. I bought this book after reading his "Echo" in the Best American Poems of 1998, John Hollander's edition. (Checked the back promptly--how to find more of this poet's work!) I think what moves me most about these, beyond the mastery of formal technique made to look so natural, organic really, is the honesty. The pain expressed in many of these poems is familiar -- love, loss, longing,-- but Cummins seems to see into the pain of all the players, and especially into the pain of women, (which startled me,the recognition of my own experience so perfectly expressed by a male poet) and I loved the way he captures the affections and bonds between men and women who willingly suffer at eachother's hands, and the pained humor he has in describing the failings of this "I". "Fling" is fabulous, the strained comedy of an infidelity that should be assuaging but turns ridiculous; "Portals" is a ladder of insights, each stanza taking me deeper into the experience of praying, loving, lying,ego; and my favorite, "The Husband", which never esteems one partner's experience over the other's. I learned a lot from this poet: to admire formal mastery more than I have,the possibilities of it for a modern sensibility, and mostly, how to view others with compassion. In truth, I feel I understand the experience of my own loved ones more because of this book, and will be kinder to them as a result. These poems do what poems should -- change things. I hope many others -- new poets, experienced poets, and lovers of poetry, and skeptics of poetry, will read this book.

It is about a football player who beats many records in the NFL. He beat some of the toughest NFL records ever. Many people are surprised by his awesome talent he had while he had while he was in the NFL. The NFL team he played for the whole time was the San Fransisco 49ers. Him and his friend Joe Montana were one of the best packages in the NFL. If I were to read any book I would read this one. This is one of the best books I've read in a long time.

The "Survivor's Guide to Breast Cancer" is a heartfelt, uplifting and sometimes gut-wrenching story of a woman's diagnosis, battle, and survival with breast cancer. The book is written as a memoir more or less of a registered nurse, Rorie Fore, and the feelings of denial and fear she experienced before and even after her diagnosis with breast cancer. Rorie's husband, Robert, a healthcare professional, is dutiful and supportive as his wife undergoes a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation treatment, and breast reconstruction. One constant theme throughout their ordeal is their reliance upon their faith in God, as well as upon medical expertise, to help them survive and triumph over breast cancer. This book is not for breast cancer survivor's alone, but for anyone who has been diagnosed with a life threatening illness. A truly inspiring story. You will find yourself pulling for them both as they make their way from diagnosis to recovery and eventually victory.

I recently came across this book and was thrilled at what I read. Rosen is a wonderful storyteller, his poems are spun seamlessly. Although his use of language is fairly conventional, it is full of surprises. I highly recommend this to any poetry reader who is looking for a book that will reinvigorate your belief in the power of common speech.

is it a western? or sci-fi? it may be an unusal mix, but this story is a wild ride from start to finish. a gunslinging cowboy searches the new mexico desert for the people responsible for the unusual cow mutilations that are happening on his bosses ranch. the mutilations are like nothing anyone has ever seen before. they happen in remote areas, the oddest body parts are taken, and the meat is left to rot. there are no tracks to follow, and the only clues he has are stories of strange lights in the sky. rideing a mean-tempered horse, his six-gun tied down, and a henry rifle in the saddle, he sets out to discover the truth. running from indians on the warpath and aliens set to conquer the earth, he becomes our only chance for the future. with steely determination and a steady gun hand, he must fight for the very survival of our planet.

I use this book as a companion to the comnprehensive text in my graduate course in Applied Business Statistics. It is a major benefit to those students who have been away from the subject for a significant period of time. Plainly written with no jargon, it introduces the basics of various statistical procedures extremely well.

If you can find a copy of this book, I highly recommend it. Covers the authors time as a correspondant in Nicaragua.

Reads like a cloak-and-dagger book. Hard to put down.