Description
Poetry. "In these beautifully crafted poems Paul Pines takes us on a dizzying ride through mythological and religious thinkers, through science and philosophy. It is the quest of a man trying to hear the 'music / beneath the music' that he hopes, doubts, believes is there—DIVINE MADNESS. Pines asks what it means to face death and despair, what it means to doubt meaning while believing in meaning, what it has meant through the centuries."—Susan Sherman
"With extraordinary daring and inspiration, Paul Pines has dedicated the art he has exquisitely crafted for a lifetime to the service of the divine madness that has always distinguished poetry from mere writing. In relentless pursuit of the unity we instinctively crave, he captures the universal analogy anew by 'connecting us to the consciousness of the gods in men' through dazzling poem after poem in this stunning book."—George Economou
Author Bio
Paul Pines grew up in Brooklyn and passed the early 60s on the Lower East Side of New York. He spent 65-66 in Vietnam, after which he drove a taxi and tended bar until he opened his jazz club, The Tin Palace, in 1973. It became the setting for his novel The Tin Angel (Morrow, 1983). Redemption (Editions du Rocher, 1997), a second novel, is set against the genocide of Guatemalan Mayans. His memoir, My Brother's Madness (Curbstone Press, 2007), explores the unfolding of intertwined lives. He has published several books of poetry: Onion; Hotel Madden Poems; Pines Songs; Breath; ADRIFT ON BLINDING LIGHT (Ikon, Inc., 2003); TAXIDANCING (Ikon, Inc., 2007); LAST CALL AT THE TIN PALACE (Marsh Hawk Press, 2009); REFLECTIONS IN A SMOKING MIRROR (Dos Madres Press, 2011); DIVINE MADNESS (Marsh Hawk Press, 2012); NEW ORLEANS VARIATIONS & PARIS OUROBOROS (Dos Madres Press, 2013); FISHING ON THE POLE STAR (Dos Madres Press, 2014); MESSAGE FROM THE MEMOIRIST (Dos Madres Press, 2015); CHARLOTTE SONGS (Marsh Hawk Press, 2015); and GATHERING SPARKS (Marsh Hawk Press, 2017). Pines is the editor of Juan Gelman's selected poems translated by Hardie St. Martin, Dark Times/ Filled with Light (Open Letters Press, 2012). Composer Daniel Asia's settings of Pines' poems appear on Songs from the Page of Swords, Breath in a Ram's Horn, and Purer Than Purest Pure (BBC Singers) on the Summit label. Asia's 5th Symphony, recorded by the Pilsen SO, features poems by Pines and Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. Paul Pines conducted workshops for the National Writers Voice and lectured for the National Endowment for the Humanities. A fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Ossabaw Foundation, and Virginia Center, he was also a recipient of an Artists' Fellowship, N.Y.S. Foundation for the Arts. Pines died June 27, 2018, just as A FURNACE IN THE SHADOWS - SELECTED POEMS (Dos Madres Press) was about to go to press.
Author City: GLENS FALLS, NY USA