Waymarks
Description
Waymarks tracks one man through significant encounters with the natural world, around the globe.
An Ethiopian lake, an Australian rainforest, an American desert, an English beach: the stage keeps changing, but the intent stays the same. A poet enters a deep dialogue with birds, animals, people, plants, seas, and all the forces that threaten and churn this mix of life.
James Thornton is a zen priest, and Waymarks sits alongside other classics of metaphysical writing in which poets bare their soul. Teachings from great figures along the way permeate the collection: a West Coast poet, a Japanese Zen Master, a spiritual leader, and the Dalai Lama.
More details
Person
The New Statesman named James Thornton as one of 10 people who could change the world, and he won the Financial Times Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2021, he was a judge of the Laurel Prize, for the world's best collection of ecopoetry. Irish-American, James is also the author of Client Earth (Scribe 2018) which won a Business Book of the Year Award. James is founder and president of ClientEarth, the leading global not-for profit law group. This is his third collection.
'James Thornton speaks as both a poet who has colonised science and a scientist who speaks a poetic tongue.' ? E.O.Wilson
'Weaves quiet perception and poignant reflection on humans, animals, and landscape into a shimmering pattern of southern French light.' - Olafur Eliasson
Content
- Intro
- Endorsements page
- Other Books by James Thornton
- Dedication page
- Contents
- Biography
- Introduction
- In this German Village
- Sometimes
- Meteors
- Unnameable
- Kali
- Poonja
- Dharamshala
- In Roshi's study
- Five on returning to California broke at 43
- Morning walk with pelicans
- Barstow, CA
- Desert tortoise
- On visiting The Huntington Library
- Walnut Creek
- Bridger Teton Wilderness 1
- Bridger Teton Wilderness 2
- Bridger Teton Wilderness 3
- Bridger Teton Wilderness 4
- Port Townsend with James Broughton
- Broughton's Blessing
- Cedar
- Olympic Rain Forest
- An Alaskan Sutra
- Chapin Bay Alaska
- Denali
- Sukoi Inlet Alaska
- Canoe
- Ram Dass
- By San Francisco Bay
- Banded Peak Ranch
- March of the Sandhill Cranes
- Whooper
- New York
- Heat Island
- A Walk in Central Park
- Oyster Bay barn swallows
- Beacon Hill
- Riding the Boston T
- Regalia 1
- Regalia 2
- Reciprocity
- Koriwayti
- Machu Picchu
- Osa Peninsula
- Calakmul
- On a Pyrenean peak
- Avignon
- Gstaad to Montreux
- Gnomic
- Paris at the Millennium
- Via Nassa
- Paris Charles de Gaul
- Place de Sorbonne
- Brussels dinner
- Brussels morning view
- Tiergarten
- Big birds in Brandenburg
- Looking out on Bantry Bay
- Off the cliff
- Nettles
- Paphos
- Unseeable signal
- Barbary falcon
- Fuerteventura
- Equal in Extent
- Meanwhile the sea
- The fisherman of Lake Tana
- When the drongo
- The Western Ghats
- Two English Gardens
- Swifts
- Music
- Crediton Hill
- Hampstead Heath
- Cold storage London
- Hackney falcon
- All my neighbours' houses
- Harvest of mice
- Shoreditch
- In a neat hand
- The Nightingale Doesn't Sing Here Anymore
- Samphire summer
- My teapot
- Fathers and sons
- Meeting seals
- Lowestoft
- Dying at sea
- Big moon tides
- Little terns
- The sitting still year
- Blues and strands and islands
- Beijing music
- Festival of Cuckoos
- Rhino poaching viewed from Beijing
- In the Beijing Airport
- Slouching towards Ulan Bator
- Over the Gobi
- Grateful
- On the Peak
- Temple of Literature, 11th Century
- Daintree River
- Cassowary dad
- Sarus and Brolga
- Save the Song
- Copyright page
