Climbing poetree biography books

The confessions of Aleister Crowley: An autohagiography

July 24, 2011
Very old so can be bought quite cheaply…. What a long read It’s taken me months! I have 180 notes and highlights for the 937 pages. The book was a mixture of boring and over my head, interesting and provocative. It’s hard not to pay attention when he’s describing Yeats as “lank” and “dishevelled”, or his process and results when he aimed to achieve invisibility… I’m not sure what I think of him after reading all that. He is supremely arrogant and pretentious, annoying and quite boring. But despite my personal antipathy towards the man there is something which seems quite new about his works. Perhaps he is (in his own words) the first magus to be made for quite a while

(comments on religion)
The fundamental weakness of Buddhism is that it fails to atain the indifference of Lao-Tzu. Buddha wails for Nibbana as the sole refuge from sorrow; Lao-Tzu despises sorrow as casually as he despises happiness and is content to react equably to every possible impression.
…
The Buddha took the last logical step, rejected Brahman as a mere meta- physical tigment and replaced the idea of union with him by that of absorp- tion in Nibbana, a state of cessation pure and simple. This is certainly a step forward; but it still throws no light on the subject of how things came to be such that only cessation can relieve their intolerable sorrow; though it is clear enough that the nature of any separate existence must be imperfection. The Buddha impudently postulates `Mara` as the maker ofthe whole illusion, without attempting to assign a motive for his malice or a means by which he could gratify it, Incidentally, his `existence in itself ’ is the whole ofthe evil Mara, which is just as impertinent a postulate as any ofthe uncreated creators and uncaused causes of other religions. Buddhism does not destroy the philo- sophical dilemma. Buddhals statement that the fundamental error is ignorance is as arbitrary, aher all,

Climbing

Lucille Clifton 1993

Author Biography

Poem Text

Poem Summary

Themes

Style

Historical Context

Critical Overview

Criticism

Sources

Further Reading

“Climbing” is the first original poem in Lucille Clifton’s collection The Book of Light, published by Copper Canyon Press, in 1993. It is in a section titled “Reflection,” which comes directly after a found poem, “Light.” In a lyric of twelve short lines, Clifton uses simple, accessible language to imagine what it would be like to be sixty years old. The speaker imagines herself in the future and uses that image to make statements to herself about what might have been different in her life. The poem’s tone, however, is not one of despair but rather of achievement. The speaker doesn’t really wish she had made other choices; rather, she seems proud of the decisions she has made and acknowledges the struggle ahead as she ages. Themes that the poem addresses include the relationship between ageing and desire, time and regret, and the ways in which self-image changes as human beings age. Clifton was in her mid-fifties when she wrote the poem, and there is much autobiographical material in it. The title of the collection could just as easily have been called The Book of Lucille, as Lucille derives from the Latin word lucius, meaning “light.” Many of the poems in the collection address family members, both dead and alive, and a few poems address political figures, such as Senator Jesse Helms, and fictional figures, such as Clark Kent. Some are dramatic monologues, others confessional lyrics. All of the poems are marked by revelation and insight and evoke universal experiences to appeal to readers.

Author Biography

Born in 1936 to working-class parents Samuel Louis and Thelma Lucille Sayles, Lucille Clifton grew up in Depew, New York. She is descended from a long line of strong, resilient women who have battled and overcome adversity. Her great-great grandmother, Caroline Donald, whom Clifton cite

  • This concise study guide includes

    • Can you love a tree so much that it loves you back? Sylvia, the young protagonist of Shauna LaVoy Reynolds’s Poetree, is convinced it’s possible and attaches an original ode to spring around the trunk of her favorite birch. When she receives a poem in return, it puts a lift in her step to know the tree has written back.

    After rushing to the park one day “with a heart full of hope,” Sylvia is disappointed to discover that the tree wasn’t writing poems. A mean classmate named Walt has also been leaving poems at the tree, also believing the tree has been communicating with him. The two get past their initial shock, Walt offers up an apology for his cruelty at school, and the two poets find a way to make amends and forge a friendship.

    Reynolds, who makes her home outside of Nashville, answered questions via email from Chapter 16.

    Chapter 16: This is your debut picture book. What was your path to publication?

    Shauna LaVoy Reynolds: Once I realized that I should be writing for small people, I threw myself into it. I wrote a ton of stories, joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and attended local conferences. I started following authors, agents, and editors on Twitter and paying close attention to who was selling what to whom.

    When I started querying agents, I got a lot of really encouraging responses—but no offers. I joined the 12×12 picture book challenge in 2015, trying to finish twelve drafts in twelve months. I didn’t quite meet that goal, but I did connect with an amazing critique group and write a handful of manuscripts, including Poetree. I eventually received a few offers of representation and enthusiastically signed with Adriana Dominguez at Full Circle Literary. We went through a few quick rounds of revisions and went on submission. That was a roller coaster.

    I received incredibly valuable feedback on the story during the process, even from editors who ultimately didn’t offer. Poetree sold to Dial at auction,

  • A Path of Shadows

    • Poetry and the Climbing Press



    'The Madcap Laughs'.Renaissance Man,Ed Drummond being led away by New York cops after scaling the Statue of Liberty in a political protest

    "Poetry isn't where climbers are at," a climbing publisher said to me recently. When I mentioned this to another climbing friend he quickly got incensed at the statement: "I resent that kind of blanket censorship by the publishers of climbing writing. It's typical of the conservatism of the publishers playing safe. Their assumption that poetry won't interest readers and therefore won't sell, however good it may be, deprives ordinary people of ever seeing the best climbing poems and making up their own minds for themselves. I'm not a poet, so when I see a poem that I like by a friend, say one of David Craig's, I think, 'Now why can't I buy a copy of that in a well produced climbing magazine?' If anybody thinks that the majority of mountaineers aren't in the sport partly for the aesthetics of the experience, they're wrong."

    So why is it that Jim Perrin was allowed only two poems amongst almost 700 pages of prose in Mirrors In The Cliffs? Why is the only collection of British mountain poetry, Hamish Brown and Martyn Berry's Speak To The Hills, sadly pleading for finance to even get published? Why do we hardly ever see a poem in the climbing magazines despite the fact that over 300 people sent poems in for Poems Of The Scottish Hills?The aesthetics of the visual arts are accepted as a major selling point of the magazines. High No 16 reproduced on a full
    page a superb watercolour painting. Why is the full range of verbal arts not used to explore and celebrate the experience of climbing? And why does poetry make the gentlemen of the climbing press uncharacteristically nervous? 

    "I don't know much about poetry," is a partly understandable Way of avoiding making a judgement about a poem. But academic mystique has never inhibited climbers much before. Fear of the unknown hasn't really prev