Sailing through Cassiopeia

by Dan Gerber

Overview

"Gerber has a gentle touch and an unaffected, articulate voice that can be smart, funny, wise—sometimes all at the same time."—Library Journal

"The thing itself carries the weight of [Gerber's] poems, which recall the deep imagery of Vallejo, Neruda, and Wright."—Rain Taxi

Dan Gerber's mastery of layered imagery and crystalline vision marry European Romanticism with American Zen. These meditative poems engage the natural landscape of California's oak savannas and memories of childhood, while calling upon an array of literary progenitors—from Robinson Jeffers and Rainer Maria Rilke to the classics of the Chinese canon—exploring what it means to be linguistically alive in an animal world. As ForeWord magazine wrote, "Dan Gerber's poems are quick, graceful, alert to their surroundings, and rarely wasting a motion."

"The Word is the Picture of Things"

Looking down at the lights of Earth,
its constellations of lives,
however unaware,
signal back to the watching galaxies
that have their seeing inside us.

I praised flight and got stuck.
I praised gravity and got lost.

Along the way my life

decays, and ripens . . .

Dan Gerber is the author of seven collections of poetry, three novels, a book of short stories, and two books of nonfiction. A former racecar driver, he has traveled extensively as a journalist, particularly in Africa. His books have earned a Michigan Author Award and the Mark Twain Award. He lives in Santa Ynez, California.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619320345
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	04/23/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	110
File size:	871 KB

About the Author

Dan Gerber: Dan Gerber is the author of seven collections of poetry, three novels, and book of short stories, and two books of nonfiction. A former race-car driver, he has traveled extensively as a journalist, particularly in Africa. His books have earned a Michigan Author Award and the Mark Twain Award. He lives in Santa Ynez, California.

Table of Contents

*

In Our Rented Cabin 5

Prelude to a Starry Night 6

First Light 7

Prolegomenon 8

Driving Home 9

Surprise 11

Quail 12

The Word Is the Picture of Things 13

Rookies 14

Barking and Howling 15

Crocus 17

Napping in a Cabin near Ennis, Montana 18

Early Autumn 19

Arthropods 20

Eviction Notice 21

Cinema Paradiso 22

Cinema Verité 23

Roses in the Cool Café 24

One and One Make One 30

Call Me 31

Under the Pines 32

Groundhog Day 33

Refuge 35

Postscript 36

**

Coughing 39

Dyslexic 40

Mother's Day 1946 41

Voyager 42

Polio 46

Subject 47

Advice 48

Anna Karenina 49

To Billy Vukovich 50

Afterimage 51

Talking under the Moon 52

Damsel 53

Marriage 54

Old Dog 55

In Late September 56

To God Himself in the Passing Hours 57

To the Angel of the Elegies 58

The Sky Raiders 59

On My Seventieth Birthday 60

Nostalgia 64

Remember 65

***

Often I Imagine the Earth 69

Rothko 70

Snail 72

Gray Birds 73

The Fog 74

Pond 75

To the Burst Copper Pipes 76

Straining against Its Own Design 77

Wang Wei in His Leisure Hours 78

To an Electron 80

Art 81

Perception 82

On Her Blindness 83

To Deneb 84

"The dark is always at the top" 85

To a Name I Can't Recall 87

Deep Purple 88

To the Mexican Doves 89

Five Ages of a Thistle 90

Almost Perfect 91

After Six Days of Rain 94

To a Tick 95

Summons 96

Dusk 97

Sailing through Cassiopeia 98

Personal 101

About the Author 103