Description
Poetry. With art by Wayne Atherton. "The sea's endlessness, its glittery surfaces, the often scruffy island life of the Bahamas are wonderfully recorded in Paul Pine's FISHING ON THE POLE STAR. Bright-scaled marlin populate the text, as do Wayne Atherton's mysteriously beautiful collages. The vision is spacious and colorful, awe-filled and deep dwelling."—Michael Heller
"FISHING ON THE POLE STAR is full of wonder, for Pines knows that fishing correlates with the Arthurian Graal-search, the poet's hunt for the poem, the deep sea-voyage to heal the wounded soul. This collection places him in the tradition of Hektorović, Walton, Melville, Hemingway, and Hughes."—Richard Berengarten
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