The Music In It: Adele Kenny's Poetry Blog: Monk Books - Mark Strand's Mystery and Solitude in Topeka

Friday, March 4, 2011

Monk Books - Mark Strand's Mystery and Solitude in Topeka

Book launches are always exciting, and I was very happy to be present at 192 Books in Chelsea, NYC last night for the Monk Books debut of Mark Strand's new and beautiful Mystery and Solitude in Topeka. Monk Books was founded in October 2010 by Adam Fitzgerald and Bianca Stone, and this first volume is a tour de force by both the poet and the publishers. Nine prose poems accompanied by four of Strand's original collages are presented with understated elegance – an exquisite combination of pictures and words that has been printed in a limited edition of 200 copies – definitely a future collector's item!

http://monk-books.com/
Click Here to Read Mark Strand's Title Poem
Click Here to See Video

7 comments:

bob.fiorellinoMarch 4, 2011 at 1:51 PM
It was a great book launch! Large audience, wonderful reading, and interesting conversations (I enjoyed the champagne too)! Congrats to Adam and Bianca – two very gifted young people.
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AnonymousMarch 4, 2011 at 4:00 PM
Wow! It looks like a beauty! I'm putting it on my list! So glad you got to be there -- how cool. And Monk books sounds like a press to die for! I wish Adam and Bianca much joy and good fortune with it. Beautiful books... What a lovely way to spend your life!
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ADELE KENNYMarch 4, 2011 at 4:53 PM
Thanks for your comment, Bob! Adam and Bianca ARE very gifted!
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ADELE KENNYMarch 4, 2011 at 4:55 PM
Thanks, Renee, for your comment. I'll be sure to convey your thoughts to Adam and Bianca. And, yes, a lovely way to spend your life ...
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JagoMarch 7, 2011 at 2:05 PM
I really love Mark Strand and his poems, they changed my life.
One of my blog is about Strand only ( nevrotic? Yes), with a lot of poems, translations, essays...
I'm just going to add Mistery and solitude in Topeka!
Thank you
Alessandro
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JagoMarch 10, 2011 at 1:55 PM
If someone of your readers is going to come in Rome ...
‘A Tribute to Joseph Brodsky’ (RAAR’81) on Two Evenings, 17-18 March, Rome

http://www.aarome.org/?rt=blog&rid=342
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ADELE KENNYMarch 10, 2011 at 3:59 PM
Iago (Alessandro) - thanks for your comments!
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THE MUSIC IN IT

"The Music In It" is a blog for anyone interested in poets and poetry—the craft and the community.

The title comes from Countee Cullen, who wrote: "My poetry, I should think, has become the way of my giving out whatever music is in me."

Look for a new prompt or guest blogger every couple of weeks or so, usually posted on weekends, and check the archives for older prompts and posts. Be sure to click on the poetry-related links in the sidebar.

Thanks for your visits and comments.

Enjoy!

ABOUT WIND OVER STONES

From Renée Ashley

Compressed and brilliant in their philosophical and imagistic scintillations, the prose poems in Adele Kenny’s Wind Over Stones are of one piece in both voice and intensity of gaze. Through each artwork she has chosen as her lens, she seems to be saying, If we look hard enough and long enough, and with just the right slant of light, we can see through these paintings into ourselves. Her vision embodies, without presumption, the knowledge that, as John Muir told us, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” Kenny tells us, “This kind of purity comes to us without intention—in ordinary things that are anything but ordinary….” She paints it for us herself: “A flurry of bats becomes the Milky Way, and we make no pretense of understanding the infinite (deep inside us), our need to become nothing before we unname ourselves and disappear.” Everything is connected, and through the language of fairytale, examination, and prayer—the same language, after all—each of Kenny’s poems is a gem in a garland of gems.

Publisher's Comments

This unique collection of ekphrastic prose poems continues Adele Kenny’s reflections on the spiritual condition of being. Despite loss and change, she looks into the dark without flinching and finds light among the shadows.

Using ekphrasis as a rhetorical device and combined with Kenny’s signature elements of technical proficiency, hauntingly lucid imagery, and compelling immediacy, these poems filter and record experience in startling ways as they journey across aging’s inevitable arc. Hardwired by Kenny’s understanding of the human spirit, these poems offer us insights into the healing power of attention and awareness.

QR codes are included in this book so that readers can access the paintings that inspired the poems while they are reading. This interactive element enables readers to enjoy a multi-dimensional experience through their smart phones with cameras or free QR code scanning applications on their mobile devices.

ABOUT NOT ASKING WHAT IF

"Kenny has written some of the most hauntingly beautiful spiritual haiku I’ve ever read—haiku that take us as close to divinity as human language can get. Her haiku are spare and commanding, rich in imagery, and layered with meaning." (Alex Pinto, Tiferet)

“Traditional haiku, environmental haiku, psychological haiku, spiritual haiku—Adele Kenny has done them all. Her haiku are spare and powerful, always nuanced with rich symbolism. Her images and juxtapositions make readers hold their breath in wonder.” (Malachy McCourt, Author of A Monk Swimming)

Review by Emily Vogel in Ragazine:
http://ragazine.cc/2016/09/more-books-more-reviews/

ABOUT WHAT MATTERS

"These poems are eloquent, candid, straightforward and genuine." (Robert Pinsky, U.S. Poet Laureate, 1997-2000)

"In Adele Kenny's finely wrought meditations on grief and loss, she never forgets that she's a maker of poems. What Matters straddles two of the exigencies of the human condition: diminishment and endurance. It abounds with poems that skillfully earn their sentiments." (Stephen Dunn, Pulitzer Prize in Poetry)

"These are poems that come to (poetic) grips with the issues of grief, fear, and death ... focused in a new and strong way." (Gerald Stern, National Book Award in Poetry)

Click Here to Read the Tiferet Review of What Matters

Click Here to Read Michael T. Young's Interview

Click Here to Read Michael T. Young's Review

Click Here to "Attend" the Virtual Salon for What Matters