Time's Covenant
Selected Poems
1st Edition
Published on 30. April 2007
288 pages
978-1-926845-73-9 (ISBN)
Description
Bringing together Eric Ormsby's entire poetic oeuvre thus far, including a healthy selection of previously unpublished poems, Time's Covenant is timeless, by one of America's best poets. Essential reading.
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Person
Eric Ormsby: Eric Ormsby is the author of five collections of poetry, a book of essays, and a number of scholarly studies of Islamic thought. He was born in Georgia, raised in Florida, and worked for twenty years as director of libraries and professor of Islamic Studies at McGill University. His poetry has been widely published and anthololgized in Canada, the United States, and Britain. In 1992, he received an Ingram Merrill Award for poetry and in the same year was awarded the Qspell Prize for Bavarian Shrine. Since 2004, he has written a weekly column on literature for the New York Sun and regularly contributes essays and reviews to The New Criterion, Books in Canada, The Times Literary Supplement and Parnassus. He has two sons and now lives with his wife Irena, an architectural historian, in London.
Content
- Intro
- [ CONTENTS ]
- Preface
- I: Bavarian Shrine and other poems (1990)
- Starfish
- Lazarus in Skins
- Railyard in Winter
- Bavarian Shrine
- Forgetful Lazarus
- Cover the Statues
- Lazarus and Basements
- Fetish
- Lazarus in Sumatra
- Rites de Passage
- Lazarus Listens
- Skunk Cabbage
- Foundry
- Moths at Nightfall
- Precious Vials
- Wood Fungus
- Bee Balm
- Lichens
- Spiders
- Statues and Mannequins
- December
- Craneworld
- River Plants
- Conch-Shell
- Fingernails
- Ears
- Nose
- My Mother in Old Age
- II: Coastlines (1990)
- Horseshoe Crab
- My First Beach
- Remembrance
- Adages of a Grandmother
- Grackle
- A Florida Childhood
- Live Oak, with Bromeliads
- Fragrances
- Florida Bay
- Highway Grasses
- Savannahs
- Cellar
- Mullein
- Childhood House
- Old Photographs of Children
- Garter Snake
- Of Paradise as a Garden
- The Courtesy of Old Oblivion
- Halifax
- The Public Gardens
- Railway Stanzas
- Grasses in November
- Getting Ready for the Night
- Nova Scotia
- III: For A Modest God (1997)
- Quark Fog
- I
- Gazing at Waves
- What It Is Like To Be A Bat
- The Ant Lion
- An Oak Skinned by Lightning
- Rooster
- A Crow at Morning
- Flamingos
- Anhinga
- Turtle's Skull
- Coastlines
- II
- Mutanabbi in Exile
- Mutanabbi Praises the Prince
- Mutanabbi Remembers his Father
- The Caliph
- III
- Origins
- Gravediggers' April
- Hand-Painted China
- Spider Silk
- The Suitors of my Grandmother's Youth
- The Gossip of the Fire
- Finding a Portrait of the Rugby Colonists, my Ancestors among them
- For a Modest God
- Rain in Childhood
- IV
- Baudelaire to Mme. Aupick at Honfleur (1867)
- Salle des Martyrs
- Blood
- Hate
- Amber
- History
- IV: Araby (2001)
- Jaham's Poetic Manifesto
- Jaham in the Autumn Rains
- Bald Adham
- Bald Adham Says his Prayers
- Jaham Divines
- An Old Poet Bites
- Jaham on the Conquests of Childhood
- Jaham and His Cat
- Jaham Serenades a Snake
- The Baboons of Hada
- The Egyptian Vulture
- Bald Adham and Black Mary
- Adham Sings of Internal Combustion
- Love Among the Dunes
- Jaham Deciphers the Script of Insomnia
- Mrs. Jaham
- Bald Adham Falls into Heresy
- Adham Overhauls an Old Caprice
- Hubble-Bubble
- The Jinn
- Jaham Sings of the Fear of the Moon
- Jaham's Dream Camel
- Jaham Travels West to Khemisset Oasis
- At the Ruins of Recollection
- Ramadan
- Jaham Praises
- Jaham on the Difficult Beauty of the First White Hair
- Caliph of Confusion
- A Duet with the Wolf
- Adham Atones
- The Sweat of Adham
- Adham in the Torments of the Tomb
- Jaham Curses
- Allah Answers Jaham in the Days of Dust
- Jaham Says Adham's Beads
- The Junkyard Vision of Jaham
- Jaham Plans for the Disposal of his Remains
- Jaham's Last Words
- V: Daybreak at the Straits (2004)
- The Jewel Box
- I .
- What the Snow Was Not
- Another Thing
- Ant-Lion
- Dicie Fletcher
- A Fragrance of Time
- Childhood Pieties
- Two Views of My Grandfather's Courting Letters
- Cremains
- Little Auguries
- Mrs. Lazarus
- Cradle-Song of the Emperor Penguins
- Rowing into the Glades
- White Phalaenopsis
- A Salt Marsh near Truro
- Daybreak at the Straits
- A Freshly Whitewashed Room
- II.
- Watchdog and Rooster
- Episode with a Potato
- Song for an Ironing Board
- The Song of the Whisk
- Time as Escargot
- Vacuum Pantoum
- The Gorgon in the Urn
- A Dachshund in Bohemia
- An Epistle from Rice Point
- Our Spiders
- III.
- Six Sonnets on Sex and Death
- Microcosm
- My Grandfather's Pocket Watch
- Lines Written after Reading Thomas à Kempis
- VI: Uncollected Poems (1958-2006)
- After Becquer
- Big Toe
- A House in Winter
- Milkweed
- Murderous Roundel
- Against Death
- To a Bird in Winter
- VII: Time's Covenant
- Prologue
- The Founding of Covenant
- The Landscape of Covenant
- The Crossing
- Master of the Covenant
- Albert Milmow's Letters Home
- Mr. Holgrove, Daguerrotypist
- James and Virginie: My Great-Grandparents in Daguerrotype
- "True Manliness"
- Two Private Prayers of the Rev. Blacklock
- Eden in Sepia
- Time's Covenant (2006)
- Coda
- Notes
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
