Kirjahaku

A Southeast Booksellers Association Best Book of the YearJess Kirkman returns to the North Carolina mountain town of his boyhood to tend to his ailing mother, and clean out his deceased father's workroom. What he discovers there leads him and the reader on an unforgettable journey through the secret life of Jess's father, Joe Robert, which culminates in a moment of profound mystery and comedy."

Ancestors and Others collects selected stories from the legendary southern writer, Fred Chappell In this collection, Fred Chappell shows his mastery across a range of genres. Featuring folk fables in the Twain tradition, realistic stories of growing up in remote Appalachia, stories of family, kin, and community, and tales of the fantastic and spooky, this book will delight fans and surprise new readers.

A good thief barters in goods. A great one deals in shadows. A Shadow all of Light is a stylish, elegant, episodic fantasy novel by World Fantasy Award-winning author and former poet laureate Fred Chappell. This stylish, episodic fantasy novel is for fans of epic fantasies and heists. The tale follows the exploits of Falco, a young man from the country, who arrives in the port city of Tardocco with the ambition of becoming an apprentice to a master shadow thief. Maestro Astolfo, whose mysterious powers of observation would rival those of Sherlock Holmes, sees Falco's potential and puts him through a grueling series of physical lessons and intellectual tests. Falco's adventures coalesce into one overarching story of con men, monsters, ingenious detection, pirates, and the King of Cats. A wry humor leavens this fantastical concoction, and the style is as rich and textured as one would hope for from Chappell, a distinguished poet as well as a World Fantasy Award-winning author.

With this poem, Fred Chappell takes his readers far from the southern landscape and familiar passions of his acclaimed Midquest tetralogy. He tells instead of a forbidding medieval castle ruled by a mad king and peopled by bitter, scheming grotesques and melancholy weaklings who cower at the sound of the sweet, sad voice of truth that haunts their nights.Castle Tzingal is a fairy tale without moral or happy ending, a tale in which lies and self-deceptions take the place of ogres and in which moral corruption is the dragon to be slain. In a series of highly formal dramatic monologues, Chappell presents the corrupt longings and fears of the court's manipulative astrologer, its forlorn queen, a pensioned admiral, a seductive page, and the homunculus, born of chemicals and fire, who spies on them all:What things I might say if I so inclined! The astrologer's passion for a comely page Is news; Queen Frynna has no peace of mind Since a nimble harpist sojourned here Last twelvemonth; there's a wealthy vein of silver Runs beneath our Castle Tzingal; the magpie Singing in the courtyard wicker cage Is a transformed enemy sorcerer. This kind if information finds its flowering In time; all knowledge becomes of use, And when it does I bear it to the King.Ruling over this monstrous court is King Tzingal himself, self-proclaimed ""great lord of toads"", whose only power is hatred and whose reign can only be ended when his dismal kingdom is finally overrun by truth, by poetry.Set in a mythical kingdom in a mythical age, Castle Tzingal is a political fairy tale that speaks with the vivid, sometimes harsh truth and knowledge of our most fevered nightmares.

In a noteworthy career Fred Chappell has created a body of verse that will likely endure as long as the North Carolina mountains that are the setting of so many of his poems. In such works as the tetralogy Midquest and the long poem Castle Tzingal, Chappell has shown himself to be a master of his craft, acutely inquisitive and keenly observant, adept at a variety of forms and styles. Earlier this year Chappell's poetic achievement was honored when he received the Bollingen Prize in Poetry. With Source, his newest collection, Chappell again reveals himself as a mature and gifted poet writing at the peak of his powers.The poems in Source show the breadth and diversity of Chappell's range. They are by turn soft and lyrical, elegiac and formal, speculative and experimental. They draw on mythic images of the past and horrific visions of the future, but most important, they reflect Chappell's southern roots and his knowledge of a simple people and a simple way of life, as seen in these lines from ""Humility"":In the necessary field among the round Warm stones we bend to our gleaning. The brown earth gives in to our hands, and straw By straw burns red aslant the vesper light. The village behind the graveyard tolls softly, begins To glow with new-laid fires. . . . . . . This is the country we return to when For a moment we forget ourselves, When we watch the sleeping kitten quiver After long play, or rain comes down warm. Here we might choose to live always, here where Ugly rumors of ourselves do not reach, Where in the whisper-light of the kerosene lamp The deep Bible lies open like a turned-down bed.

Jess, a ten-year-old, grows up amongst a large group of eccentric relatives on his parents' farm

Fred Chappell continues to astonish. In his new collection of verse, he matches the vitality and grace, the deep intelligence and keenly observant sensibility, that characterize such earlier works as Midquest and Source. First and Last Words revives the traditional practice of supplying new prologue and epilogue poems to classic works of literature. The poems invite renewed acquaintance with familiar works and authors, The Georgics and The Dynasts, Livy and Lucretius, Goethe and Tolstoy, The Wind in the Willows, and are offered as a celebration of their enduring significance. In ""The Watchman,"" a prologue to the Orteseia, Chappell writes:The watchman keeps his vigil on the roof Of the ruining house. This long year, Stretched out on his belly like a hound, He has awaited the semaphore Blaze, awaited proof Of the victory that shall pull down A proud and bitter family. In rain Or cold starshine, gripping the eave, He has searched the hard horizon for a sign.Still other poems are appreciations of music or the visual arts, as in ""My Hand Placed on a Rubens Drawing"":The ages work toward mastery Of a single gesture. A torso's twist, The revelation of a thigh, White stone corded in a fist: Fragments that might still add up To compose a figure of the perfected soul As it releases from the grip Of vision that burned to draw it whole.All of the poems in First and Last Words are marked by a thoughtful use of the voice and a careful attention to language. They confirm Fred Chappell's status as one of our very finest living poets.

Together now, the four poems River, Bloodfire, Wind Mountain, and Earthsleep counterpoint one another in a grand symphony, Midquest. In what he has referred to as ""something like a verse novel,"" Fred Chappell has summoned up the rich veins of memory and brings this to bear on the contemporary sensibility. Through the remarkable range of his poetic talent, in turns lyrical, dramatic, elegiac, mythic, and humorous, Chappell brings us to the elemental: this encounter with earth, air, fire, and water. The dynamic of their interrelation contains multitudes but also holds a pattern.In his preface to the completed work, Chappell explains that ""though he is called 'Fred,' the 'I' of the poem is no more myself than any character in any novel I might choose to write. . . . He was constructed, as was Dante's persona, Dante, in order to be widely representative."" Chappell's Fred has moved away from the land and the work of the hands to the city and the work of the intellect. In the memories he reviews at mid-life, he regains the values that he had thought were lost. In its mental reclamation, Midquest belongs in a long and vital southern tradition. In design, he tells us, its model was ""that elder American art form, the sampler, each form standing for a different fancy stitch.

Although Fred Chappell has long been recognised as a novelist of talent and achievement, his poetry has been known to only a few because he has chosen to publish little. Now, in this collection, his work becomes widely available for the first time.The subjects of these poems range from the poet's love for his wife and son to that hallowed American institution, the skin flick; from baseball to blues. From ""Trios II"" to the slaughter of pigs. Their forms vary from short lyrics, often humorous or ironic, to longer narratives, more serious and intense. All in all, it is a stunning performance by a consummate artist in his first appearance.

Fred Chappell has long been considered one of the South's finest writers of both fiction and poetry. C not only provides abundant justification for that assessment but also makes clear the inadequacy of geographical stricture; Chappell is indeed a writer of world-class stature.C is of course the roman numeral for one-hundred, the precise number of poems that appear in this dazzling collection. Delicate, highly wrought miracles of compression and insight, these pieces gleam with passion, humor, and intelligence. At times Chappell's tone is acerbic, as in this sly comment on the self-indulgence of some confessional poets: ""If my peccadilloes were so small/ I never would undress at all,"" a couplet that would surely draw a delighted chuckle from Alexander Pope himself. With the apparent effortlessness of a master, Chappell also can suffuse a poem with sensual wonder, in ""A Glorious Twilight,"" for example, an ecstatic speaker rhapsodizes about a woman painting her nails ""such a brilliant shade of bright/ she seems to have sprouted 22 fingers."" And sometimes his jeweler's eye and the sheer artfulness of his language align the shutters of our perception so precisely that we can see for a hushed instant the incandescence of the everyday moment, ""As common as air,/ Startling as fire.""Satirical or elegiac, bitter or rejoicing, giddy or profound, each of these one hundred poems is unnervingly alive. All readers who delight in observing an artist at the height of his powers are sure to find C both an inspiration and an eloquent reminder that poetry, language squeezed against the unsayable until it burns, remains our last fragile link with the infinite.

Fred Chappell's The Gaudy Place is perhaps the first novel to depict the society of the street people of the New South and their relationship to the middle class. For its wry portrayal of displacement and injustice this novel was awarded the Sir Walter Raleigh Prize.The street-smart teenager Arkie triggers the events of the story with his ambition to rise in economic status. He proposes business deals to the prostitute Clemmie and the successful con man Oxie, a hustler who aspires to political office. When the prank of a middle-class teenager, Linn Harper, offers Oxie the surprising opportunity to gain a foothold in respectable society, an unexpected climax reveals the interdependence of all social levels in a culture too quickly changing from a rural to an urban character. Here is a small world in which quick wits and wily survival skills are necessary and admirable, even though the race is not always to the swift.Originally published in 1973, The Gaudy Place is drily humorous, darkly ironic, fast-moving, and entertaining. Its best strength is its gallery of sharply drawn, fondly observed characters unknowingly at odds with one another.

A New Pleiade is a celebration of close literary friendships among seven eminent American poets- Fred Chappell, Kelly Cherry, R. H. W. Dillard, Brendan Galvin, George Garrett, David R. Slavitt, and Henry Taylor. The affection, fun, and mutual respect of this happy association of poets have resulted in this anthology, in which the selection from the work of each was made by the contributor whose name precedes his or hers alphabetically. Endowed with great variety as well as delightful and unexpected connections of subjects and personae, A New Pleiade is exceptional not only because it unites in a single volume these seven accomplished poets: the real allure of this enchanting, broadly appealing collection is the diversity, the vast scope of their masterful voices. The bucolic musings of Fred Chappell greet the reader, followed by the searching, graceful lamentations of Kelly Cherry, the unconventional observations of R.H.W. Dillard, and the eccentric creations of Brendan Galvin. George Garrett's precise, shining insights precede David R. Slavitt's erudite, witty contemplations until, alas, Henry Taylor bids farewell by bringing us full circle, back to a pastoral world reminiscent of Chappell's rural samplings. These poets have been delighting and entertaining one another- and their loyal readers- for decades. With A New Pleiade, these seven illustrious bards- and good friends- are able to settle comfortably between the covers of one extraordinary book.

The occasion might be a holiday or a wedding, a christening or a funeral, and a family is gathered on the eve to eat, drink, talk, and cast eyes upon each other. Like all relations, the extended family in Fred Chappell's Family Gathering has its foibles and strengths- oddballs and know-it-alls, hussies and historians, sparring spouses and model marriages. More than anything, this family loves gossip. Chappell portrays its members one and all in a series of sharply limned character sketches. In this crowd of strangers we may find personalities familiar, maybe too familiar. Perhaps we may even find a glimpse or two of ourselves.Framed by the observations of Elizabeth, ""age eight, / Priss-proud in her finery and bored / Bored bored,"" the collection introduces ebullient Cousin Marjorie, self-satisfied Uncle Einar, evasive Cousin Lilias, cunning Aunt Wilma, aged Uncle Nahum, convivial Uncle Hobart, confusing Aunt Alicia- set down in poems terse, witty, sympathetic, thoughtful, and satiric. Cousin Elmer ""tends the family tree, / Shaping it to topiary rare / And strange as he trims a little here and there / And lops some ugly branches drastically."" Cousin Lola ""charts her paramours / On a performance scale from One to Ten / And then announces publicly the scores."" Uncle Brit ""cuts you off before you say / Two sentences and lets you know / He knows already what you think / And what you think is pretty dumb."" And Aunt Agnes, ever forgiving, ""recognizes what we are, / Yet holds us in affection / As steadfast as the morning star, / As if our faults had no connection / With the persons we are within.""Although there is no continuous story line, the poems in Family Gathering almost amount to a piece of fiction. We leave these lines with full knowledge of the characters- their personalities, prejudices, idiosyncrasies, and intricate relationships with one another. Chappell gives us gossip, but also gossip parodied. If your family is like most, sparks of recognition will leap from every page. With results like those of the Polaroids taken by the family photographer, Chappell ""makes us look as scary / As old woodcuts in a bestiary- / But maybe, after all, that's us.""Varied, humorous, and, above all, true, Family Gathering is pure mean fun.

This collection of humorous and satiric verse takes its title from that thoroughly southern term meaning ""irreverent retort,"" ""ironic remark,"" or ""scoffing observation."" The ancient Roman poet Juvenal noted that his world made it hard not to write satire. Fred Chappell, finding his contemporary era analogous to that of imperial Rome, has in Backsass given in to the impulse for invective and mockery. Whether addressing the political, the poetical, or the practical, Chappell brandishes his lexical sword, ribbing our shortcomings, offering tonic advice, and occasionally shedding a tear for our fallen ideals. Some poetry is fine wine. Backsass is the driest of martinis.

In this sharply innovative collection, renowned poet Fred Chappell layers words and images to create a new and dramatic poetic form- the poem-within-a-poem. Like the shadow box in the volume's title, each piece consists of an inner world contained, framed, supported by an outer- the two interdependent, sometimes supplementary, often contrary. For example, the grim but gorgeous ""The Caretakers"" is a landscape that reveals another image inside it. Chappell also introduces sonnets in which the sestet nests within the octet. Play serves as an important component, but the poems do not depend upon gamesmanship or verbal strategems. Instead, they delicately or wittily trace human feelings, respond somberly to the news of the world, and rejoice in humankind's plentiful variety of attitudes and beliefs. Just as an x-ray can show the inner structure of a physical object, so the techniques in Shadow Box display the internal energies of the separate works.With this new form- the ""enclosed"" or ""embedded"" or ""inlaid"" poem- Chappell broadens the expressive possibilities of formal poetry, intrigues the imagination in an entirely new way, and offers surprise and revelation in sudden flashes. At once revolutionary and traditional, Shadow Box contains an Aladdin's trove of surprises.

Solitary, graceful, and contemplative, cats have inspired poets from Charles Baudelaire to Margaret Atwood to serve as their chroniclers and celebrants. They have appeared, wrapped in their inscrutability, in verse both sensual and spiritual, weary and whimsical. With Familiars, Fred Chappell proves himself a worthy addition to the fellowship of poets who have sought to immortalize their beloved cats.Here are cats as personalities, cats as art objects and historical figures, cats as reflections of human temperament. Chappell salutes the literary cats of decades past -- George Herriman's happy-go-lucky Krazy Kat, Don Marquis's grande dame mehitabel -- and the imagined cats who claim as their companions the characters from Chappell's own past poems. The cats in Familiars are alert and affectionate, equal parts cherished friends and unknowable mysteries.

Inspired by ancient, modern, and contemporary writings, Fred Chappell's sprightly new collection of verse, As If It Were, presents tales, anecdotes, pointed stories, and aphorisms to spark the conscience of readers young and old. Playful and even zany, the humor in these poems pulls readers into a world filled with noble lions, crafty foxes, predacious wolves, longsuffering asses, and fashionable peacocks. Chappell illustrates how the fable offers a timeless form of wisdom, surprising us with revelations that challenge what we think we already know, along with fresh observations of daily experiences. With its informal, even nonchalant tone of address and lush, polished language, As If It Were endows homespun materials with alchemical insights.

In his final book, the celebrated poet Fred Chappell reflects on life and the beyond. Details drawn from daily actions, religion, classical myth, and the Appalachian landscape adorn this autumnal collection that unearths connections both strong and tenuous among apparently disparate subjects, all percolated with Chappell's signature wit and warm vision. A student's observation that ""Poems are how we see with our eyes closed"" comes to resemble an icon of sorrow. A stairway to heaven ends with a jug of wine. Memories assume shifting appearances. Often written in traditional sonnet forms, Chappell's poems display astonishing technical skill and indefatigable humanity as they gaze on the challenges of life and the great unknown.A spirited and friendly farewell, Ever After shows an accomplished and much-beloved American writer gracing us with poems of remarkable originality, craft, and insight.