Description
Poetry. VIEWS FROM TORNADO ISLAND is the thirteenth and last book of an extended serial work that takes its name from the title of this book. The entire series speaks from a stock of some 26 "characters," numinous "objects," oddly configured "abstractions"—one for each letter of the English alphabet, which the author imagines as "wildly heterological metonyms displaying the emergence of all that comes to Appear. In its own terms the poem literally scries or conjures itself into existence and offers 'emergence' as a figure for the productive generosity, as it were, of Being. But the subjectivity of poetry and its obsession with its own nature thereby seems to flip: it is reality that solicits the meaning of poetry, not the other way round. Reality subsumes the very intuitions that it fosters, projecting itself—and the writer and reader together—onto an intransitive itinerary of pondering, the exit from which can only be-Discovery itself."
Author Bio
Charles Stein's work comprises a complexly integrated field of poems, prose reflections, translations, drawings, photographs, lectures, conversations, and performances. Born in 1944 in New York City, he is the author of thirteen books of poetry, including BLACK LIGHT CASTS WHITE SHADOWS (Lunar Chandelier Collective, 2018), VIEWS FROM TORNADO ISLAND (Lunar Chandelier), FROM MIMIR'S HEAD (Station Hill Press), a verse translation of The Odyssey (North Atlantic Books), a translation of The Iliad (Station Hill Press), and THE HAT RACK TREE (Station Hill Press). His prose writings include a vision of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Persephone Unveiled (North Atlantic Books), a critical study of poet Charles Olson's use of the writing of C.G. Jung, The Secret of the Black Chrysanthemum (Station Hill Press), and a collaborative study with George Quasha of the work of Gary Hill, An Art of Limina: Gary Hill's Works & Writings (Ediciones Poligrafa). His facsimile collection of ink pictures, Twelve Drawings, was published by Station Hill in 2018. He holds a PhD in literature from the University of Connecticut at Storrs and lives with guitarist, choral director, and research historian, Megan Hastie in Barrytown New York.
Author City: BARRYTOWN, NY USA