Albrecht Dürer and me

by David Zieroth

Overview

David Zieroth's Albrecht Dürer and me, an autobiographical travelogue spanning the author's journeys through central Europe, explores the transformative effect of dislocation. Inspired by and responding to art and music, history and war, architecture and place, this collection unearths knowledge that can only be realized by leaving home.

Throughout the book, the observant eye of a visitor witnesses the layering of history and the contemporary, and contemplates the juxtaposition of the practical aspects of travelling ("travelling without earplugs") with emotional and spiritual evolution ("Self-portrait Nude"). Responding to greats such as W.H. Auden, James Joyce and Albrecht Dürer, the speaker expresses how viewing foreign artwork or hearing unfamiliar music can spark a new awareness, not only of international culture, but of the expression of life and the human condition.

The poems temper the high with the low, reflecting the many dualities of wanderlust. Stately homes are contrasted with war-scarred architecture, and sleepless nights, crowded trains and missed connections offset literature and symphony. "train ride" is one of many poems that reflect on the contrast between subtle signs of recent violence and horror and the otherwise calm and curated tourist experience: "I turn away from humans close at hand / to look again at boxcars and wonder / what they were filled with, carried / and left behind." "on first hearing Mahler's Fifth" echoes that musical composition to mirror and evoke life's song, and "weeds grew while I was away" describes the shock of returning home with the expectation of stasis only to find that things have changed.

Attentive, humble and expertly crafted, Albrecht Dürer and me is a travel diary rife with evocative image, sensory detail and eloquent reflection, narrated with an honest, mature voice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781550176742
Publisher:	Harbour Publishing Company, Limited
Publication date:	11/01/2014
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

David Zieroth has published several books of poetry including The Fly in Autumn, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry, and How I Joined Humanity at Last, which won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. He taught at Douglas College in New Westminster, BC, before retiring and founding The Alfred Gustav Press. Born in Neepawa, Manitoba, he lives in North Vancouver, BC.

Preface

David Zieroth has long displayed in his poetry a subtle and unique faithfulness to following invisible threads through the world—hearing calls and offering responses, speaking spells, uttering transactions between what changes and what does not change. In this collection, as he turns the largesse of his poetic attentiveness to the inescapably symbolic activity of travel—to the rich roads of distance within and without his poetic individuality—the results are evocative, enlarging, and touch often at deep mystery. Listen while the poet in a foreign yet suddenly familiar place dreams of "rhyming paeans . . . both his own and everyone's." Listen while the poet hears a chance sound at home and recalls a sound he heard in a faraway locale: listen to the bells that tell "how a small tick has been carved out of time." Albrecht D�rer and me is a gift to the reader—a marvel of an addition to Zieroth's ongoing oeuvre.
—Russell Thornton