See Barbara Scott’s review on Book Reporter.

I found this story to be soooo third world, so reminiscent of things that happened to me in Africa and Latin America:

One day a group of men came to the missionary and asked for money to buy a large canoe. He pointed out that they had perfectly good small canoes, but they said the small ones were obviously no good for going out with a large group of people. He said, if you can make a small one, why not just make a big one, but they said “The Piraha do not make large canoes.” They asked him to go to a nearby village and buy a large canoe for them. Instead, he engaged the services of a canoe builder from the nearby village to come and teach the Piraha how to make a big canoe. The builder had the Piraha work alongside him until they all knew how the canoe was made and they had their own big canoe. Not long afterwards they came to the missionary and asked him to buy them another big canoe. He said, “But now you can make your own big canoe.” The men said, “The Piraha do not make large canoes.”

Reflective of Yelton’s rural roots these poems impart a sense of place and connection to land, sky, and water. Al Past’s photography combines with Yelton’s words to create a layered duet. Yelton and Past deliver a love letter to nature. Here’s an example from the first stanza of “In the Valley,” found by opening the book at random:

Across the river, just beyond the stand of birches
I walk with daylight fading, mosquitoes humming in my ear.
The light filters softly through the still branches
and falls like a breath on the papery bark.

Impermanence and aging themes weave a tone of joy and sorrow at life’s fragility. From “At Night on Winterstar”:

And the wind and the rain and the mountain
continue
until that momentous day
when the rocks melt
and time ceases
and the wind learns
what it means
to be mortal.
and the rain
laughs no more.

Filled with tenderness “On Wings of Gentle Power” provides a glimpse of what is mostly unseen in our every lives.

Four parts.
61 poems
51 photos

“Invictus” [Latin for "invincible" or "unconquerable"] takes its title from a short poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley written in 1875 and first published in 1888 as part of a series of poems entitled Life and Death (Echoes). [See the entire text below.] Its last two lines are famous: “I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul.”

In the film, this poem served as a source of inspiration during Nelson Mandela’s long imprisonments. From his first arrest in 1962 through 1990 at both Robbin Island off the coast of Cape Town and at Pollsmoor Prison nearer the mainland Mandela knew the life of a prisoner first hand.

“Invictus” becomes a unifying symbol in the film as Mandela gives the poem to Springbok captain, Francois Pienaar, before the Rugby World Cup. In fact, Mandela gave Pienaar an extract from Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech from 1910.

Clint Eastwood’s sons Kyle Eastwood, who contributed original music, and son Scott Eastwood, cast as one of the Springboks, show some of the range in the Eastwood family. The film’s uplifting score features the capella singing group “Overtone” from Johannesburg.

Director Clint Eastwood deftly shapes “Invictus” with strong performances by stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. “Invictus” is a film of enormous integrity and heart.

INVICTUS
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Obesity began to rise dramatically in the US about 20 years ago, when these “hyper-palatable” foods started becoming more available. Legions of labs and scientists are devoted to hooking us on these foods, as if they were drugs. People can’t stop themselves from eating them, as is demonstrated in a number of ways.

I know that there are certain foods I rarely buy because if they get into the house, I will eat them. Cheezits are one such. We don’t eat out very often. But, though I have plenty of time for cooking, I am also weary of it. So I find myself buying more partly assembled meals (such as Costco’s Chinese chicken salad – just add lettuce).

Now that I’ve read this book, though, I am going to be more vigilant. When I use my slow cooker, I get at least three meals from it, usually four. We eat one and the rest go into the freezer to be pulled out when I don’t feel like cooking. This is a meal I’ve prepared from scratch.

We do eat lots of fresh veggies, which I always have on hand and add to everything–and a fair amount of fruit–I especially like those little seedless tangerines, and my husband likes grapes.

“The End of Overeating” is short and engagingly written. It’s well worth reading and taking to heart.

Roberto Bolano is newly the ‘it’ guy of world literature. In Savage Detectives he takes us on the journey of two failing poets who start in Mexico and end up simply everywhere.

It’s a good read, especially for us poets, because we can say “Oh I’ve gotta be better than those unknowns. They’re just all about their particular style and sex!”

We all know some idealistic deranged versifiers like the ones in this book…and yet I found myself rooting for them.

Stephanie Farrow collaborates with me in writing our Creative Catalyst column for Story Circle Network’s blog: “Telling Her Stories.”

Dempsey’s “Blue Fairy” is dedicated to his beloved Aunt Farhana, who died at 35 in childbirth. His description of how this deeply affected him and radically changed his life forms the moving preface of the book. The book itself tells 25 stories that present us with a diverse cast of characters in a range of situations. All face the same fact of life: death.

–how one woman commemorates the death of someone who died for her.
–a surprising act of a woman about to die.
–a mourner who wishes he could stop time.
–parents who have to decide which child to save.

And…21 more. Dempsey is not sentimental, maudlin, nor too removed from his characters and their difficult situations. He presents us with a clear-eyed view of the many faces death shows us. For such a young man, this is a noteworthy achievement. My wish is that in another book Karim may write about Pakistan and the world he and his family live in there.

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“Love Each Day: Live each day so you would want to live it again” by Gail Bernice Holland (Modern History Press, an imprint of Loving Healing Press, Reflections of America Series) provides 40 true inspirational stories. Holland presents uplifting stories from a cross-section of society and ages. An astronaut and high energy physicist rub shoulders with community activists and students to provide portraits of a day they’d like to live over again. What would that day be for you?

_____________________

“Swift Winds,” by Ron Sakolsky and artwork by Anais LaRue contains 13 pieces in the forms of poetry, rants, and essays. Naturally, I’m keen on the essays most of all. My favorites were: “Lost Utopias,” “Harry Smith’s American Dreamscapes,” and “Rocks in My Pillow.”

The cover image of dancers by Cindy Moran sets the soothing tone of comfort and beauty. The 87 pages to follow provides a collage of writing styles ranging from memoir, academic, inspirational, fiction, and poetry. Publisher Victor Volkman says this intentional mix provides a different way in to reach a span of readers who may respond more to one form than to another.

Editor Ernest Dempsey does an admirable job of pulling this material together in a pleasing shape. Each piece offers a revelation, insight, or lesson for the reader to take away. The writing throughout is excellent.

Here’s a passage I particularly found useful:

“When a trauma, a time of low resilience, gets re-stimulated, the ense of fragility, of helplessness in the incident is also evoked. Now the person is unable to cope with a number of situations that are only tangentially related o the original situation because of the feeling of fragility that arises in them because of the re-stimulation. This causes on’s general level of resilience to drop markedly, and more and more aspect of life become stressful or traumatic, creating new sequences of traumatic incidents.”

“Oh! So that’s been what’s going on,” I thought.

Order your own copy and find out for yourself.

_____________________
Read about:

· Resilience and trauma recovery
· Healing the inner child
· Journaling and grief
· Forgiveness
· Lyme Disease
· Fibromyalgia
· Substance abuse
· Military families
· Nature of gender
· Children and trauma
· and much more!

Paige Lovitt on Reader Views writes, “I highly recommend a subscription to Recovering the Self Journal for professionals who are in the counseling profession or who deal with crisis situations.”

CONTRIBUTE: Article lengths are suggested to be from 1,000 to 4,000 words, although RTS can be persuaded to other treatments if the story needs it. Deadline for issue #2 is September 1st, 2009, so don’t delay. If interested, please contact editor@recoveringself.com.

The journal is available through www.RecoveringSelf.com, where an excerpt can be read, or through online bookstores such as Amazon.

The Journal is published by Loving Healing Press.

Here we are at the 9th and last week of the Internet tour for “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music” audio book. It’s been a grand adventure that those of you following and dipping into it have enjoyed.

This week there are two excellent wrap-up posts. Irene Watson (of Reader Views) hosts me on Blogging Authors where I give a complete and concise tutorial on how to make and produce an audio book. Don’t miss it if you’d like to go behind the scenes of the process.

Carol Cole Lewis concludes the Sightlines Tour with a summary of how to set up a blog tour, why do it anyway, and what my experience of it was.

Links and more information below.

27 Irene Watson hosts Janet’s guest post on “How to Make and Produce an Audio Book” on Blogging Authors,a gathering place for writers and readers. This site is a brain-child of Reader Views, which Irene founded.

Book reviews and interviews of “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary” plus her father’s novel “Cattle Country and Back Trails: Two Tales from the Thompson Western Series” are located here. Irene is author of “The Sitting Swing”. She is the Managing Editor for Reader Views and lives with her husband in Austin, Texas. Irene earned her MS in Psychology, with honors, from Regis University in Denver.

30 Carol Cole Lewis hosts Janet on the final stop of the internet tour as they chat about the tour as a case study in internet marketing. Carol provides authentic, sustainable Internet and media marketing for small business as she considers the question: So, you gotta have a website…now what?

FOUR REVIEWS: SIGHTLINES: A FAMILY LOVE STORY IN POETRY AND MUSIC

Read all four reviews under the Bookstore tab for Calendar.

1) Story Circle Network Book Review by Edith O’Nuallain

http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/sightlines.shtml

2) Writers in the Sky’s Sarah Moore of Writers in the Sky.

3) Love and Loss and Living on by Marcelline M. Burns (Oxnard, CA)

4) Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry & Music reviewed by Kendra Bonnett
Women’s Memoirs, Book Raves – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler

Here’s an excerpt from Sarah’s review:

Each moment of the CDs is filled with warmth, humor, and a deep connection to those who have come before us. Sightlines is a must-have audio book for anyone who appreciates a good love story with the perfect musical accompaniment!

You’ll want to read the entire review, though and see if you agree.