To the Shakers, a good song was a gift; indeed the test of a song's goodness was how much of a gift it was. In their call to 'labour to make the way of God your own', Shaker artists expressed an aesthetic that had much in common with the old Japanese notion, attributed to Hokusai, that to paint bamboo, one had first to become bamboo. In his tenth collection, John Burnside begins with an interrogation of the gift song, treating matters of faith and connection, the community of living creatures and the idea of a free ...
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To the Shakers, a good song was a gift; indeed the test of a song's goodness was how much of a gift it was. In their call to 'labour to make the way of God your own', Shaker artists expressed an aesthetic that had much in common with the old Japanese notion, attributed to Hokusai, that to paint bamboo, one had first to become bamboo. In his tenth collection, John Burnside begins with an interrogation of the gift song, treating matters of faith and connection, the community of living creatures and the idea of a free church - where faith is placed, not in dogma or a possible credo, but in the indefinable - and moves on through explorations of time and place, towards a tentative and idiosyncratic re-ligere , the beginnings of a renewal of the connection to, and faith in, an ordered world. The book closes with a series of meditations on place, entitled 'Four Quartets', intended both as a spiritual response to the string quartets of Bart???k and Britten (as Eliot's were to Beethoven's late quartets), and as an experiment in the poetic form that the finest of poets, the true miglior fabbro , chose as a medium for his own declaration of faith. The poems in this collection are true gifts: thrillingly beautiful, charged with power and mystery, each imbued with the generous skills of a master of his craft.
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Add this copy of Gift Songs to cart. $16.44, new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by Jonathan Cape.
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New. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 112 p. Cape Poetry. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Gift Songs to cart. $16.45, new condition, Sold by Paperbackshop rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bensenville, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by Vintage Publishing.
Add this copy of Gift Songs (Cape Poetry) to cart. $19.16, very good condition, Sold by Reuseabook rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Gloucester, GLOS, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2007 by Jonathan Cape.
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Dispatched, from the UK, within 48 hours of ordering. Though second-hand, the book is still in very good shape. Minimal signs of usage may include very minor creasing on the cover or on the spine.
Add this copy of Gift Songs to cart. $19.19, like new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by Jonathan Cape.
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Fine. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 112 p. Cape Poetry. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Gift Songs to cart. $20.65, new condition, Sold by Ria Christie Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2007 by Jonathan Cape.
This is a fantastic poetry book and easily the best book I have read this year. The poems are largely meditations on aspect of religious thought and practice combined with a keen eye for natural details. They make particular reference at points to the author's scottish heritage and the free churches ("Gift Songs" itself is a Shaker reference, apparently), but never in a way that means they are exclusively for people who "get" all the references (cos I'm pretty thick and I never get all the references). Because the poems are all exploring related areas, later poems can be seen as developments of thought seen in earlier poems, which isn't always the case in poetry books. The final "Four Quartets", which manage to work on their own terms despite Eliot, are a fantastic meditation on what I'd like to call "liminal space", in that they are all particular locations but at the same time they are standing for a lot of harbours and crossings between the everyday and the eternal. I realise I'm not doing this book justice but it really does need to be read in its entirety. That said, the title of this review is the first line of a particular poem called "Prayer" and don't you want to know how it ends?
